Characters / Judgment: Takayuki Yagami

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Judgment (Takayuki Yagami) | Lost Judgment

Takayuki Yagami

Voiced by: Takuya Kimura (Japanese), Greg Chun (English)

"Still wanna take this to court? Fair warning... Suing me is a bad idea."

The main protagonist of the Judgment series.

Once a promising defense attorney, Yagami was damned by his fellow attorneys and the public after one of his old clients, acquitted of a previous criminal charge, was caught by police for murdering his girlfriend. As such, he drops out of the public eye and starts up the Yagami Detective Agency, working as a PI alongside Kaito.

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A-M

• Accidental Pervert: In Lost Judgment, when he's setting up the hidden cameras as part of Yokohama 99's case at Seiryo High, he's caught red-handed by the president of the Mystery Research Club, Amasawa. While he managed to evade her the first time, Amasawa was sharp enough not only to recognize Yagami when she saw him again at the bulletin board, but she flat-out blackmailed him over telling him the truth of what he was doing at Seiryo in the first place (of which Yagami, for privacy reasons, can't disclose). In the end, Yagami and Amasawa compromised and Yagami not only found his "In" into Seiryo High, but he's also the MRC and Seiryo Dance Club advisor as well.
• Affectionate Nickname: Kaito calls him "Tak" in the English dub. In Japanese, it's “Ta-Bō”. It's also a nickname used by much of the Matsugane family due to basically being the patriarch's son in all but name, and even some regulars at Bar Tender (including Mari and even the bartender himself) refer to him by his shorthand as well.
• Age-Gap Romance: Quite a few of the women he can date in the games tend to be about a decade or so younger than him.
• Anti-Hero: He's willing to torture suspects under his custody if he has to, exploit his former status as a lawyer to ward off lawsuits, and will do work of all sorts, even if it's collecting for the Yakuza under Hamura at the start of the first game. There's lines he won't ever cross, but he's not the most scrupulous nor virtuous individual even if he means well overall.
  • When he gets to the ADDC and investigate the location of the Mole, he has to fight several TMPD officers inside with Kaito, Sugiura and Higashi.
• Armor-Piercing Question: Delivers one to the killer at the ADDC.
  Yagami: I know what you're thinking. AD-9 will save countless people... Meaning there's no way you're not doing the right thing. Well I'm sorry to break it to you, Shono... But that's just not true. You know, when someone thinks they're in the right... That's when the real cruelty in people starts to come out. So what do you say, Shono? Are you really right?
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: If the “Ooh Look A Cat” trophy is to be believed, no matter what case he's on, he always gets drawn towards cats.
• Autobots, Rock Out!:
  • The battle theme for the Boxing style in Lost Judgment, "Tough Cuss", practically invokes this.
  • The penultimate battles for each of his games has the song "Destination" and "Final Destination" respectively, which features some intense guitars as Yagami and his friends fight their way to their goal.
• Badass Biker: In the sequel where he’s forced to infiltrate a motorcycle gang and defeat all of their best bikers in races to disband them from within.
• Badass Boast: When the prospect of fighting Kuwana one last time is brought up, Yagami simply replies by saying that if it comes to it, this time he really will have to put Kuwana down. Then when it ultimately happens, he calmly tells his friends to back off as it's his fight. This clearly pisses off Kuwana, only for Yagami to show just how much he had been holding back... By beating him so badly that his punch doesn't even faze him by the end of their fight with Yagami still standing pretty tall.
  Yagami: Next time, I go up against him… It won't be just a few scratches.
  Yagami: This one's my fight, guys.
• Badass Bookworm: He's a skilled P.I and former defense attorney. He is also a self-trained martial artist capable of kicking ass as well as the typical Yakuza protagonist. More impressively, he actually didn't graduate high school nor did he go to law school and passed the Bar simply through studying a lot.
• Badass Normal: In the sense that, compared to Kiryu or even Ichiban (and much like Akiyama and Shinada), he's just an average civilian despite otherwise being affiliated with a (now defunct) yakuza family. Doesn't stop him from becoming The Dreaded amongst the criminal underworld, however. While he is not quite on the same level as Kiryu, he is still one of the strongest protagonists, being above Ichiban and his gang, Akiyama, in that he can defeat multiple enemies by himself, is stronger than his friends by a rather wide margin, and is one of the only three to ever defeat an Amon Clan member, Shin being exiled for losing to what appears to be a normal fighter only for Yagami to make them eat their words by defeating the even stronger Juzo and officially proving to them he is one of the world's strongest warriors.
• Badass Crew: Him, Kaito, Sugiura, and Higashi (with Tsukumo on Mission Control), as the finales of both the first and second games can attest.
• Badass Teacher: Joins Seiryo High's faculty as an advisor for the Mystery Research Club, where he does flex his wits as a detective and lawyer to help out not just his own club but also the other ones he can join throughout Lost Judgment. The end of the School Stories imply that he does choose to keep his advisor duties after solving the mystery behind the Professor.
• Bare-Fisted Monk: As opposed to Kiryu relying on a slightly refined variant of Good Old Fisticuffs, Yagami's trained in what looks like Kung Fu. In-game he describes it as a combination of what he learned as a kid and practical lessons learned from his line of work. He takes this a bit more seriously considering that he can't equip weapons to bring into battle and can only pick up whatever's nearby, in contrast to previous Yakuza protagonists who can craft equipment in their respective games.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: For all the beatings he seems to take throughout both the first game and in Lost Judgment, he always comes out relatively unscathed with barely any scratches to his pristine face. Even the worst beating from Akutsu and his crew in Chapter 7 of Lost Judgement didn't at all take away from his good looks.
• Berserk Button:
  • Being the Determinator that he is, go right ahead and ask him to give something up. That'll only go over so well.
  • Just like Kiryu before him, anyone preying on the weak (be it a thug preying on an innocent girl or a bully picking on someone) is also a good way to piss him off enough to blow you halfway across Kamurocho or Ijincho with a Flux Fissure.
  • If your scheme results in an innocent party getting hurt or killed, he will make sure you pay for it, no matter how sympathetic your motives can be.
• Blown Across the Room: Flux Fissure, which works much like Perfect Channeling from Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise (also developed by RGG Studio). While in Tiger Style, Yagami does a palm strike that, if held then released at the right time, is almost always a guaranteed One-Hit Kill against most standard mooks and drains a substantial amount of health from a Boss on top of this. His "Tiger Dances With Crane" EX Action also ends in this.
• Boxing Battler: In Lost Judgment, he can participate in a boxing ring as part of the school and can even use the skills he learned in the ring outside of it through DLC.
• Bully Hunter: Being an RGG protagonist he despises bullies and those who pick on the weak. He comes up with a plan to get the group of delinquents that are frequently harassing Koda to leave her alone by using hidden microphones so that he and the rest of Yokohama 99 (mostly Kaito and Sugiura, anyway) pose as students in class to call out the kids on their foul behavior while also encouraging the surrounding students to avert Bystander Syndrome and stand up for Koda. All of this is because he refused to sit idly by while Koda is mercilessly bullied by her peers. Later on in the game, as he learns more about the backstory of the case he treats Yui Mamiya with seething contempt for their actions and their complete lack of remorse for the consequences.
• Chairman of the Brawl: In some cutscene fights throughout his games, he uses different kinds of chairs to fight his enemies or to at least defend himself. Moments include but aren't limited to; using a wheeled office chair when battling Hamura, dual wielding a pair of chairs when he's accosted by the White Mask Liumang members and using a folding steel chair to defend himself against Akutsu's chainsaw.
• Charles Atlas Superpower: While not as obvious as the likes of Kiryu or Saejima, Yagami is capable of performing incredible feats of strength such as punching people across the room and lifting motorcycles (albeit in EX heat mode).
• Chick Magnet: Even with his unkempt looks, he's still capable of attracting the attention of several girls.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Like Kiryu and Majima in Yakuza 0, each of his fighting styles has its own individual color scheme and battle aura. Tiger is Red, Crane is Blue, Snake is Green, and the Boxer style is Orange, the latter two of which debuted in Lost Judgment.
• Contrasting Sequel Protagonist: Unlike previous Yakuza protagonists like Kiryu and Majima, both of whom were affiliated with crime families, Yagami is a law-abiding citizen who just so happens to have ties to a Yakuza clan. He's on relatively good terms with the Matsugane Family, one of the Tojo subsidiary clans, and considers the patriarch Mitsugu Matsugane to be one of his two father figures. He went to law school on Yakuza money, too. Also, unlike the Yakuza protagonists, Yagami is pretty vulnerable, with the Mortal Wound Mechanic makes it so that gunshots or Deadly Attacks will reduce his maximum health until it's treated, a sharp difference from Kiryu, who was pretty much an Implacable Man. Furthermore, his Heat Moves are based off Kung Fu movies and occasionally Lucha Libre, contrasted with Kiryu's street brawling and Pro Wrestling.
• Cool Teacher: In Lost Judgment, he goes undercover in a high school as a club advisor and can get involved in various club activities as well as the lives of the students.
• Counter-Attack: The Tiger Dropinvoked, of course. Unlike Kiryu, who had to learn it through Komaki in previous games, Yagami has access to it from the very beginning of the game by simply finding a QR code in an empty alley in the Champion District (and subsequently buying it for 2,000 SP). It gets replaced in Lost Judgment by the equally effective "Dragon Fist" which instead requires a special notebook to unlock. Said game also features the Snake style which also revolves heavily around landing these, even having a dedicated parry (L1/LB) that's very similar to that of Kiryu's from Yakuza 6 and Yakuza Kiwami 2. The Boxer style from the DLC can unlock the EX Cross Counter skill, an EX Action which can only be used at low health. In the boxing minigame, pulling it off will instantly knock down Yagami's opponent.
• Crusading Lawyer: Subverted most of the time despite still keeping his license and badge, since for the majority of the games, he acts in the capacity of a Private Detective after his legal career was annihilated by the fiasco that was the Okubo case. Later Double Subverted in each game's climax, when he dons his badge to reveal his findings in court.
  • That being said, he is not above using his badge to coerce the perps he encounters in the course of his PI work. He's also still very much legally savvy, as he's pretty quick to bring up any legal matters that can be used for or against his cases and clients.
• Cutscene Power to the Max: While the game manages to avoid it for the vast majority of its playtime, he starts to show signs of this during the finale. Sugiura and him get caught in a massive explosion on a skybridge two stories high. They manage to jump out of it before getting hit by the flames but Yagami lands back first on a moving car shattering the front window and then rolling across the asphalt road and visibly bleeding from the head. He suffers a concussion for much of the beginning of the chase, hallucinating, before he moves on to take down Mashiko, his goons, and finally Kuroiwa.
• Dance Battler: One of his AoE EX Actions involves him breakdancing so fast that the centrifugal force grapples the nearby enemies in what amounts to a realistic Spinning Bird Kick. His Crane style overall invokes this since it takes cues from Capoeira, one of the most famous examples of this trope. This even becomes useful when he takes part in the Seiryo Dance Club, despite humorously enough explicitly stating that he has never danced in his life.
• Dark and Troubled Past: His parents were killed by the victim's father in his father's last case. It influenced Yagami's perspective to look at Emi Terasawa's case again.
• Deadpan Snarker: Being a protagonist in an RGG Studio title, that's a given, though he's definitely more consistently snarky than the likes of Kiryu. Though not as much as Ichiban.
  Shintani: Hey, Yagami. The hell were you thinking sending Kaito here by himself? Guy acts like he owns the goddamn place.
  Yagami: Ha, all hail King Kaito.
• Determinator: Even when faced with a conspiracy that puts police, yakuza and law practitioners alike against him, Yagami stops at nothing to find the truth about the Mole case. This is only further fueled by the incident three years ago with Okubo being connected to the Mole's murders.
• Deus Exit Machina: During the Kaito Files, he is working on another case and thus can't help his friend at all apart from regularly encouraging him. Considering the quite evidently high gap between him and Kaito, it's evident he is left out in order to make the story much harder and grimmer for when his friend takes control.
  • To a lesser degree, he's completely absent from Gaiden despite 3 of his closest allies (Kaito, Higashi and Sugiura) all being present, although this is explained mainly as the game taking place away from Kamurocho with Kaito and Higashi explicitly stating they're visiting Osaka on business while Sugiura is an optional party member for the Coliseum.
• Disappointed by the Motive: When he confronts Kuroiwa at the end of his rampage, he thinks he went after Shono for revenge against The Conspiracy. He laughs at this, telling him that he's taking Shono to finish AD-9, no matter how many victims it takes, and when it's done, they'll be heroes. Yagami's reaction is not without merit.
  Yagami: You're insane.
• The Dreaded: As he proves continuously implacable in pursuing the truth behind The Conspiracy, he becomes this to its masterminds, best shown with Hamura who starts off as incredibly condescending and disrespectful towards Yagami at the start of the game, but by the time of their final confrontation he is terrified of him.
• Drunken Master: An EX action that can be learned requires him to be drunk at 7 alcohol or more, but doing so has him crack a beer open and take a swig while drunkenly ducking through punches and taking out mooks. It also has the benefit of immediately sobering him up.
• Experienced Protagonist: He's an experienced lawyer and a detective for some time after he went out of the public eye. Not to mention that he's known to fight with kung fu-based skills while being an attorney.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: He initially has slick combed-back hair while he was still a defense lawyer three years back, but by the time he's a private detective his hair is messy.
• Extremity Extremist: He primarily uses a lot of kicks in Crane Style or only open palm strikes in Tiger Style. His Snake style in Lost Judgment takes cues from Wing Chun and Aikido, which takes Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs to its logical conclusion while his Boxing style is self-explanatory.
• Fragile Speedster: Much like Akiyama, Yagami is a very agile character whose defining feature is the ability to run up to walls and deliver one of three devastating and quick attacks alongside being able to No-Sell any incoming attacks while in EX Boost. In any other Yakuza game aside from Like a Dragon this would be borderline overpowered if not for the Mortal Wound mechanic, which reduces Yagami's maximum health until he either uses a Medical Kit (which are very expensive, the cheapest one being 20,000 yen apiece and he can only hold up to three at a time) or gets treated at a back-alley clinic. Even in Lost Judgment which removes the Mortal Wound mechanic, Yagami still tends to get pretty badly winded by enemy attacks which often leave him stunned unlike previous protagonists. The Deadly Attacks used by bosses, in particular, can leave him stunned and vulnerable for relatively long stretches of time if they connect.
• Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: Whenever he encounters villains who attempt to justify their actions as being either for the greater good or due to personal tragedies, Yagami is quick to throw back that regardless of what they've experienced it doesn't justify the crimes they've committed and the bodies they've left in their wake.
• Friend to All Children: Or teenagers in this case, as he spends much of his time in Seiryo High being nothing if not helpful and cordial with much of Seiryo High's students, even becoming a Cool Teacher in the process and a mentor figure of sorts to Amasawa, an up-and-coming detective herself. Yagami explains this when meeting Itokura for the first time; by dropping out of high school and not even attending college, he states that he essentially became an adult without being able to enjoy his days as a kid, and seeing the students of Seiryo makes him wish he did have similar experiences growing up. Amasawa picks up on this at the end of the Dance Club story, seeing that Yagami is clearly enjoying himself as an adviser, not just to help the students become better people but to also indirectly experience what he had missed out on before in his younger years. In turn, many of the Seiryo students he helps as club advisor are clearly appreciative of his work, at least showing the respect goes both ways.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: The first game brings up how strapped for cash he is to the point that he has trouble paying his rent. This is despite the fact that he can earn literally millions of yen from Dice and Cube.
• Generation Xerox: Takes up law after his father was killed while working as an attorney. His father's also the one who taught him how to fight.
• Good Cop/Bad Cop: When interrogating in a duo he's usually the "good cop" when compared to the hotheaded Kaito or the snarky Sugiura. He's still very prone to Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique but he at least makes an effort to not go too far.
• Good Counterpart: To Kuroiwa, the Mole for reasons mentioned on his spoiler page. Ditto for Kuwana in ths sequel.
• Hellbent For Leather: His (very nice) black leather jacket, obviously.
• Heroes Love Dogs: From his cat obsession in the first game, and him being able to borrow Ranpo in Lost Judgment, he's shown to be an animal lover.
• Hero Stole My Bike: Yagami steals a skateboard from a kid at one point to get away from Matsugane family goons, which leads to a rad chase scene once he hitches a passing car.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: Like Shinada, Yagami does not regard himself as a skilled civil court lawyer as he lost more cases than winning. Not only that, but his first criminal court case was one he won defending Okubo despite overwhelming odds, who was recently made a free man after being falsely accused of murder, murdered his own girlfriend and set their apartment ablaze. Following this, Yagami's reputation went down the drain, with some still hounding him over this mistake even after three years. A reporter named Hattori in particular seems to like rubbing salt in the wound.
  • To make matters worse, he only proved that there was reasonable doubt over Okubo killing Waku, not Okubo's innocence; despite his acquittal, Okubo lost his job and public opinion continuing to assume that he was a murderer made him fall into a heavy depression.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: Yagami puts himself down a lot when talking to others, with the guilt of Okubo killing his girlfriend right after Yagami got him acquitted causing him periods of intense self-loathing.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Kaito. After Kaito was expelled from the Matsugane family, Yagami offered him a job as a private investigator in his agency.
• Horrible Judge of Character: Yagami doesn't have a good opinion of himself after the man he defended killed again sometime after his release from prison. It's the major reason why he quit being a defense lawyer. Turns out late in the game that Okubo is really innocent, and when Yagami finds out, he recovers from this mindset, instead now motivated into proving Okubo innocent in court once again.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: With most of the female cast (particularly Saori, Mafuyu, and any of his potential girlfriends) given that Takuya Kimura stands at an above-average 176cm^note  5'9 1/4" .
• Hypocritical Humor: In the original Judgement, when he's about to fight Shin Amon, Yagami claims that duelling is against the law. Shin retorts that Yagami has no right to say that considering the things he's done over the course of the game, of which include "assault, fraud and breaking and entering".
• I Choose to Stay: In the end of the first game, he decides to continue his job as a detective instead of going back to his old job as a lawyer despite the case being closed and Okubo being proven innocent. He realizes that being a detective led him to find the truth about Okubo's case.
• I Let Gwen Stacy Die: Non-romantic example. He stops practicing law in response to the death of Emi Terasawa, and slowly gets over her passing throughout the first game. In the sequel, it's Yoko Sawa.
• Iconic Outfit: A very straightforward and practical combination of a black asymmetrical leather jacket, white T-shirt, skinny jeans, with a wallet chain on his right side, and white low-top sneakers. Even Greg Chun, his English voice actor, wore Yagami's outfit during interviews and promotional events, too.
• Ink-Suit Actor: Modeled after his Japanese voice actor, Takuya Kimura.
• Instant Expert:
  • Yagami can perform the Tiger Drop, which in-universe is a powerful technique that's normally taught, yet he can immediately use it after scanning a specific QR code and having enough SP points without training.
  • In the sequel, he can become an expert dancer, robot pilot, skateboarder, fighting game player, and a Badass Biker despite having no indication of doing any such things prior to the required School Stories.
• I See Dead People: During the final chapter at the ADDC, when him and Sugiura are chasing down Kuroiwa, Yagami starts hallucinating people related to the incident three years ago due to a concussion, including the dead Shintani and Emi, the latter of which asks Yagami to help Okubo and Sugiura.
• It's Personal: Decides to fight Kuroiwa 1-on-1 to pay him back for killing Matsugane.
• Janitor Impersonation Infiltration: Yagami can infiltrate buildings in such a fashion in order to acquire necessary information/evidence. One noteworthy example in-game is when he needs information from a Yakuza lieutenant named Murase and has to dress up as a repairman to sneak inside their hideout. A later side case actually has him go undercover as a janitor.
• Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: A favorite of his; he tends to let his fists do the talking when interrogating people.
• Jack of All Trades: Hmm, let's see, detective work, lawyering, kung-fu, boxing, dancing, biking, and skateboarding... he knows it all. Gameplay-wise, while not being nearly as sturdy as Kiryu or especially Saejima, he's still got answers for most situations in a fight. Especially in Lost Judgment, where he gets the Snake and Boxing styles, further expanding his fighting ability.
• Karma Houdini: Unlike Ichiban, Yagami faces absolutely no consequence if the player chooses to cheat on multiple women. The worst thing he says is feeling bad about it before brushing it off.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Yagami finishes Soma off exactly the same way he did during their first fight, with a kick to the temple that disoriented him.
• Leitmotif: The aptly named "Judgment" plays whenever Yagami's sense of justice pulls through, and the motif can be heard in various cutscenes when his conviction is tested.
• Limit Break: EX Boost and Actions! The former grants him a very powerful Rush Combo performed with the Heavy Attack button (Triangle/Y) that ends in a very devastating EX Action which is either guaranteed to rub off three goons (Crane) in a fight or deal a substantial amount of damage on a single opponent (Tiger). The latter are essentially rebranded Heat Actions from the Yakuza series, which work as well as you'd expect them to.
• Made of Iron: Less so than the typical Yakuza protagonist but he reaches this point in the ending of the first game, which carries over to the sequel. Despite being smashed in the head with a baseball bat, kidnapped and given a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown by the RK and Akutsu he gets up to lay an unholy smackdown on them then goes to visit Sawa afterwards with no rest and without going to the hospital. Gameplay-wise the Mortal Wound mechanic is also removed, meaning he can get shot, stabbed and bashed with no permanent consequences.
• Manly Tears:
  • Sheds these at the end of Chapter 9 when when he visits Okubo to tell him that he believes in his innocence. He beats himself up for not doing anything to help Okubo for the past three years and asks him for another chance to clear his name.
  • In the sequel, Yagami cries in despair when he, Kaito, and Sugiura find Sawa dead in her apartment.
• Master of Disguise: Yagami can make use of various disguises, most of which range from reasonable to fairly ridiculous, such as a vampire outfit.
• Meaningful Name: In Japanese Mythology there are Seven Lucky Gods called Shichifukujin (七福神). The literal meaning of the name Yagami is "eighth god" (八神) which is fitting for a former lawyer who worked for Genda Law Office, located above the Poppo convenience store on West Shichifuku Street, and even claims he had luck on his side to win a criminal case in a justice system with a 99% conviction rate. On the other end of the coin, the similarity of his name to "yakubyougami" (疫病神), meaning "god of pestilence", had also been commented on as a taunt, with regards to him supposedly being a Doom Magnet.
• Mechanically Unusual Fighter: The Boxing style is rather removed from Yagami's usual styles. Taking notes from Kiryu's Rush style, this style doesn't allow for grabs and Yagami is also unable to taunt enemies in the style unless they're knocked down. Furthermore, instead of having Finishing Blows that change according to when he ends his Rush Combo, he only has jabs, straights, and hooks to attack with while in the Boxer style. The unlock path is a bit different too; the majority of his Boxer moves are locked behind its School Story and are subject to a triple unlock process; you need to defeat a specific boxer in training, pay the trainer to teach you the move to use while in the gym, and then buy it using SP (albeit at a very paltry cost of 100 SP) to use said moves in street battles. It's also an entirely optional style that can simply be turned off or on in the options menu whenever you're not in an active battle. While it may seem weak at first without any proper upgrades, it becomes a terrifyingly effective powerhouse after some time at the gym, boasting moves that increase the gain of EX meter, inflict debuffs on counter hit attacks, open up enemy defenses and even a few launchers that can transition to easy juggle combos.
• Megaton Punch: Just as Kiryu has the Tiger Drop, Yagami has the Dragon Crush, which is a powerful one-inch punch countermove.
• Moveset Clone: He's inherited a few of Kiryu's weapon-based Heat attacks for some of his own EX Actions; emphasis on a few, as Yagami by and large still boasts a combat style that is very much removed from his predecessors.
• Must Have Caffeine: The Cafe Alps sidequest has him be quite the coffee gourmet to the point he gets to try the famous kopi luwak^noteIt's a type of coffee where the beans are eaten and then excreted by a civet with some hesitation.
• My Greatest Failure: He considers defending Okubo and letting him go free only to shortly murder his girlfriend Emi to be this, and is the primary source behind his Horrible Judge of Character belief. It turned out Okubo really was innocent and was used as a scapegoat by Shono.
• My Greatest Second Chance: However, once Yagami finds out who Emi's real killer is, he asks Okubo for forgiveness and to defend him in court again as a lawyer.

N-Z

• Nice Guy: Yagami is a genuinely kind and big-hearted soul who is willing to help the people of Kamurocho, and is shown to be a Friend to All Children in the second game. Another demonstration of this is how, during stealth missions in the second game, you won't be allowed to perform nonlethal takedowns against enemies who are not hostile to Yagami. So, while you're allowed to do them against RK members of course, Yagami will refuse to do them against police officers or school staff who are just doing their jobs.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: His decision to intervene when Kaito was to be expelled and offer his support is more or less what earned him Hamura's ire.
• Not So Above It All:
  • A lot of which is showcased in Lost Judgment. Whether it's doing the Scoop while tutoring Seiryo High's dance club with a smile, hiding in a box to catch a cafe robber off-guard (while also thinking to himself that now's a good time for "tactical cafe action"), or even pulling a pop shove-it on a skateboard, he clearly has the time of his life partaking in much of the extracurricular activities at Seiryo High.
  • Being a former delinquent, he occasionally shows glimpses of his boyish nature and dislike of losing or being looked down on, especially when it comes to fights, such as in his first encounter with Kuwana or his saltiness over losing to Oshikiri in their first boxing match.
• No-Sell: While in EX Boost, he's able to tank Deadly Attacks (which, as mentioned above, reduce his maximum health) at the expense of his EX meter draining faster.
• Older Than They Look: Is 38 as of Lost Judgment, but looks like he's in his late 20s. His youthful fashion sense also helps him look a whole lot younger than he is, which helps when infiltrating Seiryo High.
• One-Man Army: Comes with being an RGG protagonist but slightly downplayed in that he typically fights alongside his buddies (Kaito, Sugiura and Higashi) for the biggest most climactic fights. Granted, he'll still be doing most of the fighting himself due to the unreliability of Ally AI.
• Official Couple: With Tsukino Saotome, judging by his dialogue in the sequel. He even acts somewhat insecure when she denies two being a couple after they became distant in-between games. May not necessarily count though, since her cases are all relegated to DLC.
• Papa Wolf: As shown a lot during the School Stories, coming remotely close to hurting a child in his presence - even moreso if its one of the students from the clubs he advises - will result in a very quick beating.
• Parting-Words Regret: Yagami was in his rebellious phase when his parents were murdered and blamed himself for not being there to protect them.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: One of his default costumes is the same exact outfit he normally wears except with a beanie and sunglasses. It’ll always fool his targets as much as any of his other outfits.
• Perpetual Poverty: While he’s not exactly starving in the street he often complains that he doesn’t have the money for frivolous things and has trouble making rent. But just like any Yakuza series protagonist he’ll likely have thousands if not millions of yen just by doing side cases, frequenting Dice & Cube (which gives him hundreds of thousands of yen per play), and fighting random thugs.
• Pet the Dog: He gives Koda a heartening speech about how she should strive to pursue her passion for basketball without Seiryo's team after he knocked some sense into them again for ambushing him moments earlier.
• Practical Taunt: On top of granting him some EX meter like in the previous Yakuza games, Yagami can also perform an EX Action immediately after taunting an enemy that has him counter their knee-jerk reaction by putting them in their place.
• Pretty Boy: A fair-looking detective portrayed by an equally handsome ex-SMAP member in Takuya Kimura. Enough said. Lampshaded by Akutsu in the second game.
• Private Detective: After calling it quits as a defense lawyer due to the criticism mounting against him, Yagami became a private detective. He is still an active lawyer; he just chooses to not actively practice in favor of working the detective angle.
• Pungeon Master: Downplayed. He occasionally makes puns based on what silly situation he stumble upon in side cases for his own amusement.
• Put on a Bus: He's stated to be out of town during the Kaito Files DLC, which is why Kaito is taking care of business. Even then he occasionally messages Kaito about what he's been up to and even left him some flowers in his hospital room.
• Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs: His Snake style in Lost Judgment has him deliver a particularly vicious instance in an EX Action that has him pin the opponent to the wall (upside down, no less) and wail on them as if they were a wooden training dummy.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Delivers this to Shono along with Armor-Piercing Question in the ending just before the latter could inject himself with AD-9, which proved to be Nightmare Fuel to say the least.
  Yagami: How many people has your "miracle" killed?
  Shono: People... People? But it'll save millions! Maybe tens of millions across the world!
  Yagami: That's why you thought it was okay to murder an innocent woman? Huh? Is that why you stabbed her to death and burned the evidence?! Okubo-kun took the fall for all of it... You sent a good man to die!
• Rescue Romance: Can potentially have one with four different girls he helps in his cases: Sana Mihama, Nanami Matsuoka, Tsumugi Amane and Tsukino Saotome.
• The Power of Friendship: He's a bit like Ichiban and unlike Kiryu in this regard; Yagami doesn't mind having to do things by himself, but the friendships he's amassed help him accomplish the near-impossible when the going gets tough. For the finale of both games, he's backed up by Genda Law Office in the courtroom, and is aided directly by Kaito, Sugiura and Higashi for the final battle sequences. The major side quest chains in both games are also completed via this trope as well when he's put up against the combined might of the (Neo) Keihin Gang. In the original, he's aided by the various people he's befriended through Kamurocho, while in the sequel, all of the Seiryo High students (and their non-student associates) he's mentored as their club advisor pitch in their own unique ways to help him out.
• The Scream: His reaction to the discovery of Sawa's deceased body, who had been murdered by RK as collateral.
• Shaming the Mob: In Lost Judgment, after Ehara confesses to killing Mikoshiba in his retrial, Yagami goes on to tell the court that his actions were a direct consequence of the law failing to give Toshiro the justice he deserved.
  Yagami: No matter how justified, vengeance is not something we can ever take into our own hands. That said, in the case of Ehara-san, our system failed him! We know the law strives to be just, but it failed to prove Toshiro-kun was bullied. That's not justice-not when no one is held responsible. The law, as well as those who enforce it, are far from perfect. So to the court, I say, let this case be a lesson: The law is failing to save people who need saving.
• Ship Tease: With Mafuyu. They have considerable support too, considering that Genda, Kaito and Saori seem to push them together. Downplayed in the sequel where their interactions are more professional, although that may have more to do with Mafuyu being Demoted to Extra.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!:
  • With the Greater-Scope Villain in the first game.
    Ichinose: AD-9 has many influential supporters. There's no stopping our momentum.
    Yagami: Bullshit there's not.
  • He also gets Mamiya to put a cork in it during her interrogation, too:
    Mamiya: We were just "lucky" enough to have some creep tape us picking on some kid who couldn't take it! Why did this have to happen to me?
    Yagami: I'd say it's because bad things happen to bad people. You'll sling your barbs from a safe distance, but once you're on the other side of it, you curl up and play victim.
• Stance System: Yagami has access to two combat styles, which were later expanded into four come Lost Judgment.
  • Crane: An acrobatic and fast style which prioritizes sweeping crowd-clearing techniques. Received a rework in the sequel due to it losing its effectiveness in the original game thanks to the variety of upgrades that can be purchased exclusively to Tiger; Crane now boasts excellent dodging capabilities while doubling down on the speed and area of effect on its attacks, best embodied by its new Sky Dancer technique which allows Yagami to jump and evade.
  • Tiger: A hard-hitting style which prioritizes single targets. In the original game, it had access to various upgrades exclusive to it which Crane did not receive, such as reduced flinching while taking damage and charged finishing blows. Lost Judgment has it retain some of the more defense-oriented upgrades from the original game, like enhancing Yagami's blocks.
  • Snake: An aikido-esque grappling style introduced in the sequel. Much emphasis is placed on Yagami's ability to parry almost any melee attack, leaving foes open for a brutal string of attacks. Unique to this style are EX Surrender attacks, which have Yagami feint a killing blow so effectively that opponents struck with the fear status ailment that are hit with one instantly pass out from shock.
  • Boxer: An oddball DLC fighting style taken from the Boxing School Story's own minigame combat system. Yagami's normal control scheme is replaced by the gym's normal controls, with modifications that allow it to thrive in outdoor combat by being an unusual multi-purpose style that can provide guard breaking attacks, great evasion and more ways to build EX meter fast.
• Sucks at Dancing: Subverted. Even though Yagami explicitly says he's never danced in his life, his Dance Battler skills came in handy when he showed the Seiryo Dance Club a few moves as part of his "test" for the Mystery Research Club. That being said, considering who his voice actor is, it's not that surprising that he'd be good at busting a move or two.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: A Pretty Boy detective who isn't afraid of using underhanded means if it meant being able to solve his cases, and uses martial arts to compensate for his lack of raw strength in comparison to other protagonists. Are we talking about Yagami or Masayoshi Tanimura? The similarities are even more poignant in the sequel where Yagami picks up the Snake style, an aikido-based fighting style that relies on parries similar to Tanimura's own.
• A Taste of Their Own Medicine: Alongside Kaito, he treats Matsui's group exactly the same way they treat the shop owner that they're harassing during their Establishing Character Moment - like a couple of petty Jerk Jocks that feel the need to assert their dominance by taking it out on everyone else.
  Yagami: Wow, is that one of those new smartphones? (grabs Matsui's phone) May I?
  Matsui: What the hell?!
  Yagami: The camera on this is amazing, man. (cue Kaito standing next to Sakaki) Your parents buy it for you?
  (Yagami and Kaito nod to each other, then Kaito promptly kicks Sakaki into the dirt)
  Matsui: He kicked him! That guy kicked Sakaki!
  Yagami: You must be seeing things. Anyway, your phone's kinda dirty, don't you think? (snatches the phone from Matsui) Lemme see.
  • Another example of this is in Lost Judgment. He ends his second fight with Soma, the same way Soma ended their first fight: with a brutal roundhouse kick.
• Taught by Experience: How he learned how to fight. Yagami has some basic level of kung fu knowledge taken from his dad teaching him at a young age and still does know some formal technique, but a large part of how he fights is formed by his experiences of needing to know how to defend himself in such a hostile environment like Kamurocho, down to it being the namesake of his personal fighting style: "Kamurocho-ryu".
• Technical Pacifist: Even the most brutal Ex-actions aren't nearly as brutal as most the most brutal Heat actions but this trope is still applicable. For example, he has an Ex-action where he'll save a mook from being run over, only to knock them out. The Snake style in particular was something that Yagami developed as a way to disable younger enemies in a slightly less brutal fashion and even has "EX-Surrenders" that have him simply intimidate a frightened enemy into giving up.
• Terror Hero: As mentioned above. A major part of his newly developed Snake style in Lost Judgement is being able to intimidate his foes with his fighting techniques and shocking strength and then perform unique Ex-Actions while they're in a panicked state that will simply make them give up or pass out from fear rather then brutally knock them unconcious as is usual for the series.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: He follows this slightly better than protagonists from the main series in that he doesn't use blades or guns (at least not outside of VR), will occasionally save enemies from either being crushed by cars or from falling off buildings (though he'll still knock them out afterwards). However, he still has EX Actions where he throws people off ledges and buildings, and can still have convenience store clerks microwave enemies.
  • This is shown during a cutscene early on in the first game, where Yagami runs to make sure an enemy he was fighting on a rooftop does not fall to their death by pulling them back to the roof.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: He and Kaito are two best friends who have no problems taking pot-shots at each other on a regular basis.
• Wall Jump: Quite possibly his Signature Move. Unlike any Yakuza protagonist, Yagami can run towards a wall to deliver one of three attacks - a lunging haymaker that stuns enemies in place (Square/X), an overhead kick that knocks them away and does a considerable amount of damage (Triangle/Y; can also interrupt any incoming Deadly Attack), or grab a nearby enemy and swing around them a la Black Widow (Circle/B), also damaging any nearby enemies in the process. And as you'd expect, he also has EX Actions that can be done from a Wall Jump, each of which vary depending on what style he's in.
• Weak, but Skilled: Yagami is not a powerhouse like Kiryu or Saejima so his self-taught martial arts is more similar to kung-fu than Good Old Fisticuffs as it suits his physique better. His high-damaging Tiger style is more Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs than Megaton Punch (barring a couple of heat moves which are capable of punching enemies across the room).
  • This also bleeds into how story missions are structured. While Kiryu often tore through swathes of armed yakuza, triads, mafia and the like, Yagami fights smaller groups of enemies and often has the assistance of his buddies during these sections. He's also much more likely to resort to stealth and guile instead of straight up violence. However, in Lost Judgment he fights much larger waves of enemies, with the finale having him and his allies fight through roughly a hundred goons.
• Willfully Weak:
  • At first he lets the Matsugane family beat him up since he only wants information from Hamura and doesn't think they will kill him because of his relationship with Matsugane. After it's made clear Hamura calls the shots and will kill Yagami if he keeps prying Yagami shrugs off the beating he received and starts laying a beatdown on the family.
    Yagami: This is bullshit. You guys had your turn. It's my turn now!
  • He pulls out the Snake style on the unruly Seiryo kids that he encounters in Isezaki Road so he doesn't end up hurting them any more than he needs to. Especially since something like the Flux Fissure or pretty much any other EX Action in either of his fighting styles would, at best, be a one-way trip to the ER. Not that it matters all that much in practice, however.
  • The same applies when he has to enter the Boxing Gym due to being unable to use his more powerful kung-fu moves to avoid breaking the rules. This causes him to lose when he has to fight the gym’s best boxer in a match.
  • After stalemating Kuwana twice, Yagami later reveals he was actually holding back as at the time he wasn't really taking him seriously and was intending on giving him a chance. To show it's not just a boast, a battered Yagami fights a fresh Kuwana and wins this time without much effort when Kuwana still insists on not letting Kusumoto confess and allow Sawa's murder to be resolved with justice.
• Worf Had the Flu: Three times in Lost Judgment.
  • During the boxing side-quest, he loses to the top boxer as despite his boxing training and being able to beat the others, kung-fu is still his primary martial art, meaning he wasn't able to fight at his full strength due to the rules.
  • During Jin Kuwana's first two fights in Lost Judgment, Yagami was fought to a standstill, establishing Kuwana as one of the two Worthy Opponent Yagami is facing in the game. However, it turns out he wasn't fighting at full force, as at that point he was intent on giving Kuwana a chance. To demonstrate the difference in strength between them, after having previously defeated Soma and dozens of RK members and being visibly battered, while Kuwana still puts up a pretty decent fight, this time Yagami delivers a Curb Stomp Cushion fight while displaying a visible advantage he had never been able to show in their previous fights.
  • In the main story when in the first fight against Kazuki Soma, after the player wins the in-game boss battle, Soma deliver a brutal roundhouse kick that paralyzes Yagami, and he only survived the aftermath due to outside intervention. At that point, Yagami was enraged over Sawa's death and had believed Soma was beaten, clouding his judgment and letting Soma deliver such an attack. Still, it was quite significant and proves Soma is very much as much of a dangerous fighter as Kuwana, as while he didn't defeat Yagami fairly, it's currently the only time any boss was able to defeat Yagami in a fair one-on-one fight; for example, in the first game, Kuroiwa had to draw a gun to regain the upper hand after his first bout with Yagami, whereas Soma had already been disarmed prior to gaining the upper hand. When Yagami and Soma fight it out the second time, though, Yagami defeats him pretty handily, having learned to make sure he finishes the job thoroughly and not let his rage blind him.
• The Workaholic: After becoming a detective, Yagami pretty much does nothing but throw himself into new cases regardless of how mundane or potentially humiliating they are. He admits that he does this to distract himself from Emi's death. Though after he receives closure, he decides he does legitimately enjoy his work and continues taking cases, even if they're few and far between.
• Would Hurt a Child: A slightly downplayed version in Lost Judgment, which pits him against high schoolers though he claims that he's holding back and even developed the Snake style to at least try to take them down in a way that isn't as brutal. However, this is only enforced in the tutorial fight for Snake style; later on, you can use any style and brutal attack you want against these minors roughly 20 years Yagami's junior, just as you can against hardened criminals and street thugs. Of course, most players probably won't object considering how terrible the students he fights are.

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