Per wiki policy, Spoilers Off applies here and all spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned.
- Most of the substories, period. Kiryu and Majima are Hitmen With A Heart indeed.
- The tender piano theme
that plays upon completion of most substories.
- The tender piano theme
- Kiryu and Nishiki's Bash Brothers/Vitriolic Best Buds relationship is both funny and this, especially when you consider what happens in Yakuza 1. Kiryu freaking chants for him during karaoke segment.Kiryu: Nishiki! Nishiki! Oi!
- A small one, but Kashiwagi, the Captain of the Kazama family, apparently did nothing but sit in silence after Kiryu goes to formally leave the Dojima family. Only relenting, and eating like a starved dog no less, when he turned up in front of Kazama HQ after the fact. It's worth noting that both Kiryu and Nishikiyama consider him as an older brother to them, and expected that kind of reaction a mile away.
- Majima and Makoto's relationship too, given how much it shows the infamous Mad Dog of Shimano at his most humane portrayal yet.
- When Kiryu wins a contest at a bowling alley, he thinks he's going to receive a turkey dinner. Instead, he gets a live chicken. Rather than have the chicken taken out back and cooked, he takes it under his wing and names it "Nugget". Just for added humor, Nugget goes on to be a manager for Kiryu's real estate firm.
- The Doll Girl friendship substory, where Majima saves a little girl and ends up buying UFO catcher toys for her. Her mother doesn't have money to spend and her father had already passed away, so she starts looking up to Majima as her new daddy. At some point, a group of thugs rip apart one of her cherished toys and threaten to sell her mother, and the doll girl herself, and Majima makes them pay for it. He convinces the girl to keep the doll, and as he leaves them, he comes to like the thought of being called "daddy".
- Later, when starting the Cabaret Club Czar storyline, the girl's mother can be one of the women waiting outside for recruitment, in which Majima offers her a job at Club Sunshine to help her pay off the loan easier.
- Which becomes less heartwarming and more Harsher in Hindsight for those who have played Yakuza 5.
- Many of the substories revolving around the Sunshine club's platinum hostesses can also be this, often showing how much Majima cares for them individually, that he looks out for them, and that he's more than willing to protect each and every one of the girls.
- In the cabaret mini-game, you can see Majima giving the thumbs up to the hostess after serving the customer.
- The ending of the Rush training arc. Kamoji thanks Kiryu for getting him off the streets, because Kiryu has helped him earn enough money to actually buy a house.
- The substory "First Impressions", after having not much luck in hiring new staff, the new applicant is the stuttering Nervous Wreck Koshimizu. Instead of shooing him away like Marina suggests he should, Kiryu instead sees potential in him and walks him through the interview, and eventually gives him the job.
- And it pays off! Heading out of the office after the interview shows the two previous people who came in for an interview beating up a puppy because Kiryu wouldn't hire them and they had to pay their cab fare themselves. Koshimizu stands up to them immediately, proving Kiryu right in his judgement despite his ass getting kicked.
- In general, how completing sub-stories earns you staff members for the Real Estate and Cabaret Club Czar. As the people that Kiryu and Majima encounter are grateful for their help and want to return the favor by helping out.
- The "Arakure Quest" substory involves Kiryu trying to get back a video game that was stolen from a boy who spent all of his allowance to get it. First it's stolen by a high-schooler, then by a gang member, then finally by a Yakuza member who wants it for his son. It eventually transpires that the Yakuza member's son is the boy who bought the game in the first place and they go home to play together.
- In Chapter 2, Kiryu buys some booze for a group of homeless men in exchange for info on Tachibana Real Estate. Eight chapters later, when Kiryu's been rendered homeless himself due to the Dojima Family torching the apartment complex he lives in, Kiryu heads to West Park and one of the homeless men he chatted with back then recognizes him, still thankful for the booze from earlier and lets Kiryu stay in his makeshift house for the night. Then, in the middle of the night, a group of young punks, calling themselves "homeless hunters", shows up to cause the local homeless trouble, knowing that even if they kill someone, they'd be off the hook due to being minors. Kiryu steps to the defense of the local homeless and gives the punks a good beating, basically telling them to scoot and leave his homeless friends alone. Much later, Kiryu's homeless buddy even extends his hospitality to Makoto as his way of thanking Kiryu for standing up for him, being apologetic about his shelter being "no place for a lady" while Makoto is just thankful that she has someplace to hide from Dojima.
