Sandbox / Yakuza: Shun Akiyama

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Shun Akiyama

Voiced by: Kōichi Yamadera

"Money changes people's lives. I just like to see it happen up close and personal."

Akiyama as he appears in Yakuza 5.

The first of the three new playable characters starting from Yakuza 4. A moneylender known as "The Lifeline of Kamurocho." He's famous for helping those nobody else will, and uses strange tests for applicants in lieu of charging interest or collateral. Once an up-and-coming financier, he was betrayed by his bank and left homeless, until he got caught in a literal rain of money related to the events of the first game. After some clever investing, he opened Sky Finance and became the man he is today. He's also friendly with the Tojo family and generally just a nice guy. He returns in Dead Souls to witness and take part in fighting the zombie outbreak, and in Yakuza 5, where he opens a new branch of Sky Finance in Sotenbori only to discover the death of a colleague, and helps Haruka discover the truth behind it.

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A-I

• Affluent Ascetic: One of the richest characters in the setting, but he lives pretty modestly, spending most of his time sleeping on the couch at his dingy little office and reading magazines. Somewhat justified since he keeps most of his massive supply of money locked up in a safe and only really uses it for his job as a money lender.
• Anti-Hero: Downplayed but he starts to edge into this territory in Dead Souls since he's a lot less hesitant than you'd expect to grab lethal fire arms and start opening fire on the zombified masses. To his credit, he does try to warn them and seems somewhat shaken by the whole ordeal. Still, compare this to Kiryu who treats having to Mercy Kill his first zombie as an incredibly somber and psychologically strenuous ordeal.
  • Played Straight by the ending as Akiyama goes out of his way to effectively kill the Big Bad by covertly piloting and then crashing his helicopter while Akiyama bails by jumping onto the nearby roof.
• Arbitrarily Large Bank Account: It's not said exactly how much Akiyama made of his initial million, but it's enough for him to casually loan out tens of millions of yen to perfect strangers without charging interest or even usually bothering to collect.
  • Later in the game, it's shown he has 100 billion yen!
• The Ace: He's a natural at fighting, singing, dancing, understanding and socializing with people, running multiple businesses, and especially financing since he graduated with a Business degree at the top of his class at Toto University. While he's not exactly the only example in the series being a Yakuza protagonist and all, he does a far better job dealing with his emotional baggage than the others who stray closer to being varying degrees of Broken Aces, making for one of the most cheerful and charismatic characters in the series. His status as the most consistently wealthy of the bunch also helps.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: In a minor but still notable instance, a somewhat infamous conversation he has with Hana was altered in the remaster of 4 (albeit only in the English version), specifically the one where she expresses concern over possibly being raped by a bunch of tough yakuza hanging around Sky Finance only for Akiyama to uncharacteristically laugh at the idea of that happening. Instead, she's worried about the yakuza getting their thuggish hands on someone delicate like her with Akiyama instead laughing at the idea of her being delicate. Still rather callous but his skepticism is justified when it's later shown that she's an Action Girl who doesn't have any trouble dealing with random thugs herself.
  • Akiyama also uses some transphobic language to describe the employees at "Drama Queen" in the original, which was revised in the remaster.
• Badass Bookworm: He's an incredibly successful entrepeneur who had previously graduated from college at the top of his classes and is probably one of the most intelligent members of the main cast. He's also one of the best fighters in the main cast and can even keep up with Kiryu for the most part.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: Wears a nice maroon shirt with black pants.
• Battle Strip: He and Tanimura are the aversions among the male playable cast. Akiyama never tears off his shirt at any point to fight anyone. Then again, he's not a Yakuza.
• Beware the Nice Ones: He's probably the nicest guy in Kamurocho, but he won't hesitate to break some teeth if he needs to.
• Blood Knight: Not nearly as much as other characters though. While he sees his early tutorial fights in 4 as a waste of time, he gets a bit more excited when up against Ihara who's at least more feisty than the usual street punks. He even remarks that he might even enjoy the fight this time.
  • Subverted for the Coliseum Matches in 5. His character profile notes that he's never all that excited about participating despite doing so anyway at the player's behest.
• Breakout Character: Of the new Yakuza 4 characters, he's got the most screentime in follow-up games. While he and Saejima prove important enough to return in 5, Akiyama got a stint as a playable character in Dead Souls, and is a central character in 6, whereas Saejima was Demoted to Extra while Tanimura was Put on a Bus.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: Is too lazy to clean his office leaving it a complete mess and often forgets about or delays collecting loan payments to goof off. However, he's also a business graduate from a top-level university and knows where everything in his office is to the point where he knew something was off when the books on the shelf hiding his vault were out of order.
  • He also has no known history of formal training in martial arts or just experience with street fighting like most of the cast prior to 4 but is naturally gifted with agility most men would die for and can kick ass with the best of them. It's possible he's self-taught due to having to deal with rival money lenders and the rough environment of Kamurocho, but it's never explicitly explained. An optional conversation in 4 that Akiyama can hear after his tutorial fight has two people speculating if he knows Capoeira. His actual fighting style seems to be closer to Taekwondo but again it's unclear.
• The Cameo: Appears in Kurohyou: Ryu ga Gotoku Shinsho as a random customer in a ramen-making minigame.
• The Champion: He becomes Haruka's in Yakuza 5 after her chapter takes a tragic turn and she needs a little muscle in Kiryu's absence.
• Charles Atlas Superpower: While it's expected of a Yakuza protagonist, in the finale of 4, during the dynamic intro for the Final Boss fight against Arai, Akiyama uses a suplex throw to send the muscular, visibly larger man flying throw the air several dozen feet away until he ends up landing on a lower platform of the Millenium Tower rooftop. One must wonder if he relies more on kicking techniques just to keep from injuring foes too much with his powerful arms.
• The Charmer: Smug, sassy, but ultimately kind and probably the most charismatic and socially adjusted of the protagonists while having the largest selection of hostesses to romance in 4. While half of those hostesses are employees of his hostess club, he had to personally scout for and recruit them in the first place which takes its own kind of charm. There's even a substory in which he's challenged with scouting for and acquiring the phone numbers at least 3 different women to work at his hostess club under a 5-minute time limit. If you do well enough, he can get up to 5.
  • In general, he tends to have substories that either test his ability to sweet-talk others or teach others to be more charming and captivating themself. One substory in 5 involves learning to get better at bargaining with the local merchants to lower the price of items. Another involves showing an insecure hostess club patron how to present himself as more attractive to the average hostess.
  • Subverted in terms of the actual story of 4. A chunk of his chapters is spent trying to woo Lily but despite how well they get along with one another, he doesn't get together with her at all, especially not after she passes his test for a loan and he reveals that he knows that Lily's the Serial Killer that's been targetting Shibata Family affiliates.
• Chivalrous Pervert: One of the nicest people in Kamurocho, but he owns and frequents the most popular hostess club in Kamurocho, and his tests for his female clients often seem to include becoming a hostess for a period of time and/or going on a date with him. He can also romance the most hostesses of the four protagonists in Yakuza 4.
• Cycle of Hurting: He's certainly not the only character in the series capable of pulling off "infinite" combos, but his mix of quick rapid-fire strikes that can launch enemies consistently and knock them around indefinitely makes for a character that has the easiest time performing long, highly damaging strings of attacks without interruption, at least in 4. Special mention goes to his "Triple Dash Kick" which can be used to juggle a single enemy to death with relative ease.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Wears primarily black with a mauve blazer but is the nicest and most light-hearted of the main characters.
• Deadpan Snarker: Comes with being arguably the most lighthearted out of all the Yakuza 4 protagonists.
• Death from Above: His unique mechanic in 5 allows him to do aerial combos and his Meteor Strike Climax Heat is a nasty curb stomp from about ten feet in the air.
• Demoted to Extra: Downplayed. Between 5 and 6, he's become a supporting character and NPC with sporadic appearances in the main story rather than one of the main playable characters with major significance to the game's plot. Compared to what happened to other major characters like Majima, Daigo, and Saejima, he got off easy really.
• Drunken Master: Has the unique "Boozer's Lore" upgrade in 4 which boosts the power of his attacks when he's drunk. One of the heat actions he can learn by fighting Kiryu's data with Minamida's IF7-R arcade machine is "Essence of Pole Dancing" which requires him to be drunk to be able to use it. He also has it in 5 though Shinada can also learn it much earlier than him.
• Dueling Player Characters: He and Tanimura team up against Kiryu in the fourth game, mistaking him for one of Katsuragi's men. Since it's his chapter and...well...its Kiryu, they get their asses handed to them. They fight again in Yakuza 6 one-on-one when they disagreed on how to handle Haruto. Once again Akiyama lose, this time without even making him break a sweat, and he admits that while he can't fight him at full strength due to his doubts, it's clear Kiryu wasn't really pulling all the cards in his sleeve.
• Establishing Character Moment: The first time we see him he's lazing around in his office and has to be nagged by his secretary to even bother making his collections. Shortly afterwards we see him casually drop in on a Yakuza family's office and when he leaves to go buy beer to share with the homeless the boss of said family comes out of the bathroom where he was hiding. Everything about Akiyama's personality is shown here: he doesn't particularly care about money despite being a loan shark, he has enough influence that a Yakuza boss hides from him and that he lives up to his nickname as the Lifeline of Kamurocho given how he interacts with the likes of the homeless.
• Excellent Judge of Character: The tests he assigns to clients are very specialized, generally being based around their personalities and capabilities. He specifically has them perform activites that a person like them would find difficult with clients asking for larger sums of money getting tasks they specifically would find especially challenging. He often discusses the reasoning behind his test with Hana, highlighting the client's flaws and displaying an uncanny talent for determining a person's character after a single conversation alone.
  • Double Subverted with regards to Arai. While he openly questions his ability to judge people's character after everything that Arai's done, he learns towards the end of the game that Arai truly is dedicated to his vision of justice. That said, he's not about to let Arai get away with stealing 100 billion yen from him for the sake of said vision.
  • In general, he considers himself a poor judge of character since he claims to have been betrayed so much in the past but if so he's clearly wised up considerably since then.
  • In 5, he manages to get an idea of the sort of man Naoki Katsuya is from a single meeting and conversation alone, rightfully identifying him as hiding his true emotions and passions under a cold, ruthlessly professional veneer as a businessman.
  • Later in 5, he notices there's something off about Haruka after waking up in the aftermath of Katsuya retrieving her from Kanai. Akiyama correctly surmises that Katsuya contacted her about handing him Park's letter and that she's hiding that fact.
• Extremity Extremist: He fights almost exclusively with kicks, though he's not entirely averse to using his hands.
• Foil:
  • To Tanimura. He wears red to Tanimura's blue, fights with kicks vs punches and grabs, and they have opposing views on money. Akiyama could care less about throwing away millions of yen on a whim while Tanimura will extort shady business for money and is willing to risk his life in a Russian Roulette game on a 3 million yen payout to gather money for the Asian Gateway. They even have opposing titles with Akiyama is known as 'The Lifeline of Kamurocho' while Tanimura being known as the 'Parasite of Kamurocho'.
  • In many ways Akiyama is who Yoshitaka Mine from Yakuza 3 could have been had the latter not gone down a dark path. Both men are highly intelligent investment bankers with Yakuza connections and extremely skilled fighters who used money as a crutch. The major difference is that Akiyama realized how futile his single-minded pursuit of money was and developed compassion after his homelessness, deciding instead to use his moneymaking skills to help people. Mine never got over the fact that he was using money to compensate for his own self-loathing and lonely poverty-stricken childhood trauma, and his one human connection (Daigo) was so toxic that it nearly led him to kill Daigo.
• Fiction 500: It's revealed near the end that he has over 100 billion yen! To put it into perspective, that's over 937 million USD!
• Five Temperament Ensemble: Phlegmatic
• Forceful Kiss: Gives one to Lily the night after her first day trying to complete Akiyama's test for a loan. She actually returns it with the two embracing one another though they awkwardly seperate afterwards. Akiyama himself wonders why she didn't make any sort of attempt to pull away though she admits that it "felt right".
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Once an ordinary, if highly promising Investment Banker that became destitute and homeless after a series of tragedies and failures. Now he's the most infamous loan shark in Kamurocho, and later the entire country of Japan, with the strength and fighting skill to clash with and fight on par with some of the strongest, most dangerous people around like the Amon Clan and well... Kiryu.
• The Gadfly: Does seem to enjoy teasing and messing around with others. Sometimes he gives certain tests to people he doesn't think really deserve his loans just to derive amusement from seeing them struggle with a task that seems easy but they're very unlikely to actually pass due to their own limitations. This can be seen with the tests he gives to Shiobara during the "Layoff Already" substory.
  "He's just so astoundingly clueless. Don't you want to see how it all ends?"
  • Also has shades of this during his confrontation with Daisuke Minami of the Majima Family at Akiyama's own hostess club. When Minami tries to put off conversing with Akiyama for the sake of singing more Karaoke, Akiyama picks up the remote and stops the song before Minami can get any lyrics out infuriating him. While Akiyama apologises, trying to play it off as pressing wrong button due to the dimmed lighting, Minami unsubtly threatens him with Akiyama's response being to simply smirk and even chuckle quietly to himself.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: Despite being loaded and throwing around millions of yen at the drop of a hat, Akiyama apparently only limits his expendable income to what he gets from side quests and thugs.
• Good Is Not Soft: His brutality towards random street punks and yakuza who pick fights with him is expected for a protagonist in this series but there's also his attitude towards his clients. As he puts it "I don't give people money because I feel sorry for them". He'd be happy to give desperate people money but he won't mince words if they fail and don't understand why they had. In one substory, he meets a woman seeking a loan for living expenses after her child and her left her household due to an alcoholic and violent husband wrapped in gambling debts. Akiyama offers her the challenge of getting a job in 3 hours. When she fails to do so and is turned away, she gets indignant and claims to have asked all sorts of restaurants and stores around town but was rejected due to her age and them having enough help. He then bluntly asks her if she ever considered the red light district and how a place like a massage parlor probably would have accepted her. Though she's adamant that she could never stoop to working in the sex industry, he remarks that the challenge was simply to get hired no matter what and if she didn't have the will or desperation, she wasn't getting the money. A later substory has him give the same challenge to an older women with a smaller time limit due to the amount for the loan. Tellingly, while she doesn't actually get hired, she was still determined enough to get any job and begged hostess clubs around town, even offering to clean the bathrooms, so Akiyama decided that she passed and gave her the money.
• Gratuitous English: He says "Thank you" to Hana at the end of Part 2 of his chapter in 4 after getting back to Sky Finance and being given some water.
• Groin Attack: The aptly named "Essence of Loin Reaving" heat action: He gives a back heel kick into a thug’s crotch from behind before hammering him with an overhead backflip kick to their head.
• Guest Fighter: His Dead Souls incarnation appeared as a DLC character for the Japanese version of Binary Domain.
• Guns Akimbo: His preferred unique weapons in Dead Souls. While lacking in firepower compared to the others' weapons, his pistols have unlimited ammo just like the default sidearms.
• Hand Behind Head: A fairly common reaction of his to all sorts of situations even done in anger at one point.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: Downplayed. He considers himself a poor judge of character despite lots of evidence to support the opposite. He's also pretty frank about knowing plenty of people stronger than himself after defeating a Victory Road challenger who's itching for a strong opponent.
• Honest John's Dealership: Subverted. Everything about Sky Finance screams red flag, from offers of limitless loans with zero interest and little to no deadline for paying it off, to the total lack of background and credit score checks and the owner being a frivolous, sleazy-looking playboy with ties to the yakuza and only one employee in his pigpen of an office. No one in their right mind would think to take out a loan there unless they really have nowhere else to turn. Despite this, Akiyama's business really is all it purports to be (if you pass his tests, at least) and he is a geniunely good and down-to-earth guy as far as Yakuza protagonists go.
• Humble Hero: Doesn't seem to think much of himself despite being one of the series' most sucessful in terms of finances, an all-around people person, one of the greatest fighters in the cast, and one of the most respected members of the the Kamurocho community and later multiple criminal organizations across Japan.
  Watase: So, how's it feel to be the only lender to stand above the yakuza?
  Akiyama: Well, I've had better days.
• Idiot Ball: He keeps his entire fortune in apparently an unlocked vault in his office instead of at a bank. Unsurprisingly it ends up getting stolen by the police. Granted it's because he doesn't trust banks (he used to work for one that fired him after framing him for embezzling all of the stolen money from the first game) but still, it's a remarkably boneheaded thing to do.
  • However, with the money he's throwing around for his business, and his reaction to said theft, and how he gets rid of it all without a problem in the end, it's very likely he just doesn't care at all. He has so much money, and makes so much money, it's lost all value to him.
• Iconic Sequel Character: With the exception of 0 and Like a Dragon, he's become a major player in every game released after his debut.
• Inelegant Blubbering: He describes himself as "ugly crying" when Arai helped saved him and his newfound windfall from the Millennium Tower explosion from the homeless hunters.
• In a Single Bound: While the chase segments on rooftops show that all the Yakuza 4 protagonists apparently have superhuman jumping abilities able to clear massive streetwide gaps between buildings with relative ease, Akiyama will actually weaponize this for his Meteor Strike Climax Heat, taunting an enemy to strike him only to disappear from view by taking a huge leap just before he's struck.
• Inexplicably Awesome: His martial arts skills are never touched upon. He just happens to be a world-class fighter with strength and agility bordering on superhuman, despite his background of being an ordinary stock trader turned homeless vagrant. Consider Kiryu who's spent years fighting and training, Saejima who's lived a similar life of violence and building his own physical strength, or Tanimura who's a trained officer of the law and has to regularly deal with violent criminals on the streets. Compared to them, Akiyama's life wasn't much different from the average civilian and yet he can somehow keep up with them.
  • When questioned by Saigo about his insane physical ability and whether he ever played any sports, Akiyama claims that "the last time [he] kicked a ball was in middle school" leading to Saigo to conclude that he's just naturally gifted.
  • Given that Arai uses a similar, if not identical, fighting style during their final duel and Akiyama states that Arai had to save him from homeless hunters before the story began, it's likely that Arai either taught him or Akiyama emulated his fighting style out of respect.
• Instant Expert: During a substory in 5, the fancy footwork he employs in battle attracts the attention of an Osakan street dancer who then challenges him to a Dance Battle despite Akiyama's protests that he has no experience in dancing whatsoever. If Akiyama accepts, he decides to emulate some of Haruka's moves that he saw from TV and will be about as skilled as she is despite Haruka training for at least 6 months to get as skilled at dancing as she is now.
• Irony: Despite having such a huge amount of money, it is surprisingly hard for Akiyama to acquire cash for him to use in 5 the minigame-focused series of sidequests that other playable characters have so he'll have to scrounge for money via other methods such as fishing or beating up thugs on the streets, neither of which are particularly reliable methods of acquiring money.
• I Shall Taunt You: Specializes in them to a greater degree than the rest of the cast, and has several for different situations, like while he's grabbing an enemy or gloating over a downed foe. One of his Climax Heat Actions in 5, "Meteor Strike" has to be activated while he's taunting.
• I Was Quite a Looker: He's not bad-looking by any stretch but the stress from his past homelessness and his more disheveled appearance is a stark contrast his his clean-shaven youth. During his investment banker years he was borderline Bishōnen or Hunk territory.

J-Z

• Jack of All Stats: With an emphasis on speed, since he's not squishy enough to be a Fragile Speedster. His individuals strikes may not hit very hard, but he does so many of them that they add up quickly. Similarly, this describes his role in Dead Souls, as while his unique weapons don't hit as hard as the other characters, he benefits from infinite ammo due to using handguns. With easy to learn mechanics and as the closest gameplay-wise to Kiryu, it makes a lot of sense for him to be the starting character to play as in both 4 and Dead Souls.
• Lantern Jaw of Justice: Sports a pretty impressive jawline and is pretty good-hearted and selfless overall. It's especially apparent how sharp it is in a photo of him in his younger years when he was clean-shaven.
• Leitmotif:
  • "Speed Star" in 4. As a boss fight, he shares "Smile Venomously" with Kiryu and Tanimura.
  • "Affected fight" in 5.
• Kneel Before Frodo: After defeating Kamon Kanai for the final time, the the two of them find themselves surrounded by an army of Yakuza headed by some of the biggest yakuza names across the country. While Captain Watase of the most powerful yakuza clan, the Omi Alliance tells Kanai that his actions have made him an enemy of all yakuza in the country, he compliments the noble efforts of Akiyama and his allies and kneels before him with the other yakuza patriarchs and soldiers following suit. Akiyama keeps his cool through it all and simply hopes to himself that Kiryu can wrap things up back at Tojo HQ.
• Launcher Move: Can perform air combos Rival Schools-style in 5 as his unique heat ability. While performing an air combo slowly drains his heat, he's completely invulnerable during its duration and it has enough range that it's pretty useful in crowds of enemies that can be launched.
  • Technically also has one in the form of the "Triple Dash Kick" which was previously present in 4. While juggling foes in 4 worked differently than in 5 due to using an older combat engine, it still kept an enemy airborne and helpless if used properly.
• Loan Shark: A weird subversion: he loans out money with no interest and no collateral on the condition that people pass a Secret Test of Character. However, like regular loan sharks, he is very, very good at beating the crap out of people; in his case, though, it's usually either rival loan sharks or muggers looking to fleece him.
• Limit Break: His Climax HEAT techniques in 5:
  • Final Drive: An overhead spinning axe kick which launches airborne enemies downwards.
  • Meteor Strike: As the name implies, it's a Meteor Move where Akiyama leaps high into the air after avoiding an enemy's punch and then landing with a curbstomp onto his foe's face.
  • Killer Kick Combo: Akiyama launches a brutal 11-hit combo culminating with a spinning axe kick to the face.
• Living Legend: He's already notorious as the eccentric yet surprisingly reliable loan shark known as the "Lifeline of Kamurocho". The finale of 5 sees him trying to take down an army of Kuroha Family yakuza led by a massive knife-brandishing brute all on his own while cheerfully toying with the idea of becoming a Town Legend if he overcomes these impossible odds. Not only does he manage to hold his ground, he lasts long enough for various yakuza around the nation to come to his aid and ensure his victory. The man spearheading this effort, Omi Alliance big wig Masaru Watase, even goes out his way to have everyone kneel to Akiyama as a form of respect for his noble efforts effectively making him the most famous money lender in the nation.
  • Unfortunately, all that renown comes back to bite him in the ass when the new Saio Triad comes to town and start seeing him as a threat. This forces him to shut down Sky Finance and go into hiding as a homeless man once more.
• Meaningful Name: The meaning of his first name "Shun" has various connotations of "speedy" or "a fast person", and his combat style makes him the series' resident speedster.
• Mellow Fellow: Probably, the most laid-back of the protagonists in the series. He always seems able to keep his cool no matter how dire the situation or how upset or worried he actually is.
• Mistaken for Gay: While he's eyeing up the Drama Queen bar that Lily claimed to have worked at, a nearby Okama sees him and assumes he's also into men. While the Okama doesn't believe Akiyama's simply thinking about Lily and that he's in denial, Akiyama takes it in stride.
• Morality Chain: In 6 he tries his best to keep the highly emotional Kiryu from going off the deep end and acting against his better judgment, such as when he decides to kidnap Haruto and later on plans to murder Iwami and Sugai. It doesn't really work, as Kiryu is so set in his ways that he's willing to beat the shit out of Akiyama in order to do what he believes is right.
• Mr. Exposition: Towards the end of 5, a good chunk of his screentime is spent trying to put pieces of the plot together out loud for the sake of not just helping his allies understand but the player as well.
• Mr. Imagination: Downplayed. After Hana leaves Akiyama near the end his chapters, all substories in which she's necessary become unavailable. In the endgame, in which you're supposed to be able to complete all substories, the game developers rectified this by having Akiyama "reminisce about Hana-chan" if you examine the desk in his office, bringing her back in his mind, and allowing the player to complete any unfinished "Hana substories" and even sing Karaoke with her. Strangely, this only works if the "Hana substories" haven't been completed yet. If you already have, you'll have to wait until the postgame, Premium Adventure Mode to be able to sing with Hana again.
• Narcissist: Played for Laughs. The karaoke Imagine Spot that most characters have singing Baka Mitai involve them reflecting mourningly over a significant photo from their past, usually depicting past loved ones or at a least very good friend. While already often played for laughs with the loved one being a minor character in their overarching plot, Akiyama's Imagine Spot has him staring sadly at a photo of himself but as a hobo. This juxtaposed with the content of other characters' photos makes him come across as the most self-absorbed of them all. Then again, the lyrics of the song are about how the singer feels like they've been a fool and Akiyama admitted that the money he lost trying to prove his innocence over the incident that lost him his job drove him homeless in the first place. Him looking at a photo of himself in those darker days fits when the song's about self-reflection upon past mistakes. Doesn't exactly justify why he happens to have a photo of himself from those days on hand though.
• Nice Guy: Though he can be mischievous and snarky at times, he's generally one of the nicest, friendliest characters in the cast. With a little shopping, his niceness can get to the point where half of Kamurocho's vendors and homeless guys will gladly help him out in a fight.
• Odd Friendship: Akiyama took Haruka under his wing for a good chunk of Yakuza 5 - the shy yet spunky idol and the lovable loaf have a good relationship, with him being one of the few adults she trusts and him protecting Haruka during her coma in Yakuza 6.
• Overshadowed by Awesome: Downplayed. Though he's a veritable One-Man Army and one of the series' best fighters, he tends to be treated as somewhat outclassed by the more ludicrously strong Kiryu and Saejima who are heavily implied to be fairly even matches to one another. Even Majima probably has a better track record against Kiryu than Akiyama with the Majima Everywhere system in Kiwami allowing Majima to get countless wins against Kiryu and not have it count as a game over for the player. Meanwhile, Akiyama straight up loses to Kiryu the two times he canonically fights him in spite of one of those instances having him backed up by fellow One-Man Army Tanimura though the other instance has him claim he couldn't bring himself to fight full-power against Kiryu due to the circumstances. It also doesn't help that the games tend to limit Akiyama's moveset compared to Kiryu's. That said, it doesn't stop a skilled player from subverting this and defeating Kiryu as Akiyama albeit in certain instances of uncertain canon.
• Out of Focus: Goes from being one of the main playable characters in 4 to being playable but serving as something of a Supporting Protagonist for Haruka in 5 to being an unplayable side character in 6 to not appearing at all in Like A Dragon.
  • With regards to 5, Akiyama doesn't even show up in the part of the game focusing on Haruka and him until chapter 3 of the 4 chapters in said part. He also doesn't get any sort of optional questline like Kiryu getting taxi driving missions, or Saejima getting missions that involve hunting wildlife in the mountains. Instead, only Haruka gets optional quest lines in those chapters, relating to her idol career.
• Perma-Stubble: As a sign of how slovenly he can be.
• Perpetual Smiler: Unique among the series' protagonists is that his character model tends to be grinning by default even in the midst of combat. It goes well with his cheerful, laid-back personality. Even in cutscenes he tends to have a little smirk on his face, so long as shit hasn't hit the fan too badly and sometimes even when it has.
• Pocket Protector: At the end of "4", Munakata, realizing how utterly screwed he is with Date's newspaper exposing his corruption, grabs the gun Arai dropped and shoots him. Turns out he had a nice thick stack of yen in his coat to save him.
• Progressively Prettier: His model as of 6 makes him look younger and more handsome than the ones used in 4 and 5, despite his being older in that game than the previous two.
• Put on a Bus: After having been featured as a main character in just about every game since his introduction, he's completely absent during the events of Like a Dragon. Then again it's not like there's any specific reason for a moneylender like him to be involved in the game's plot.
• Quizzical Tilt: Performs this motion in a number of in-game cutscenes in 5, especially during substories. While he's not the only character to do it, his variant is particularly exaggerated with how far his head tilts.
• Rags to Riches: He was living on the streets after losing his job as a banker. Luckily, he was right near Millennium Tower when a bomb was set off on its 60th floor, and he managed to snatch up some of the money that fell, using it to start Sky Finance and get a second chance at life.
• Rapid-Fire Kicks: His basic combo ends in a series of inhumanly fast kicks in succession referred to as "Slash Kicks". In general he's consistenly had the most fast-paced fighting style among the protagonists in the series with only Rush style Kiryu from 0 and Kiwami rivaling him in speed.
• Really Fond of Sleeping: Frequently shown sleeping, usually on the couch of his office, though he also used to snooze on the streets of Kamurocho as shown in a flashback to his homeless days.
• Red Baron: The Lifeline of Kamurocho, after his reputation as the last chance for people in deep financial trouble to save themselves if they were rejected by every other moneylender in town.
• Red Is Heroic: Wears a mauve jacket and is one of the main protagonists from 4 onwards.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The blue to Saejima, Hana and Shinada's red. Ironically, he wears a red jacket, as mentioned above.
• Respected by the Respected: Apparently the yakuza are more lenient with Sky Finance being a rival moneylender because of how good of a fighter Akiyama is. Arai notes this after seeing Akiyama wipe the floor with a somewhat tough Ueno Seiwa goon. Gets taken further in the finale of 5 when hundreds of yakuza from clans across the country bow their heads to him in gratitude including the powerful Omi Alliance who is noted to have never bowed their heads to anyone before. Deconstructed in the next game, where the Saio Triad hunts him down because of this standing.
• The Rest Shall Pass: For a decent chunk of the finale of 5 Kiryu and Akiyama work together to wittle down the army of Kuroha Family yakuza led by Kamon Kanai but when Kiryu gets a call from Daigo about how the Tojo Clan Officers at HQ are in danger, Akiyama encourages Kiryu to go forth and save them while Akiyama remains in Theater Square to hold the line against Kanai's forces all on his own. Despite seemingly being exhausted just a minute ago, he recovers enough to wryly comment on how if he somehow manages to overcome such unlikely odds, he'd become a town legend.
• Riches to Rags: Downplayed: in 6, Akiyama was forced into hiding as a result of escalating violence between the Tojo Clan and Saio Triad. To that end, he sold off his business and returned to living on the streets. By the end of the game, however, he is planning to reopen his office and resume business.
• Secret Test of Character: How he decides if his clients are deserving of a loan or not.
• The Smart Guy: Definitely has this role in Yakuza 5, often devising plans and strategies for the team and as well as usually being the first one to put together parts of the villain's plan so he can explain it to his allies.
  • In the ending for Yakuza 6, he doesn't buy the story behind Kiryu's fate.
• Smoking Is Cool: He certainly seems to smoke a lot. Possibly moreso than any other protagonist considering how stuffed his ash tray in the office tends to get. Deconstructed since it's implied that it's affecting his physical stamina. It's outright become a Running Gag in 5 all the times he's out of breath during vital moments and complaining about how he should quit smoking.
• The Social Expert: Not only is one of the most socially adjusted of the main cast, he also seems to have a knack for determining who and how the people around him truly are as well as their plans and motivations. That said, he does often put in the leg-work to figuring people out like making those specialized tests he gives his clients or the personal investigations he sometimes conducts on significant people like Lily-chan or Naoki Katsuya.
• Tall, Dark, and Handsome: Though most of the cast is black-haired and brown-eyed, Akiyama in particular is considered attractive in his own way on top of being relatively tall and often dressing in darker clothing than other the protagonists.
  • Tall, Dark, and Snarky: He's also one of the snarkiest protagonists though he's rivaled if not surpassed by Shinada in 5 in terms of snarkiness.
• Token Wholesome: A rare male example in 5 amongst the other playable male characters seeing as how he's the only one that never performs a Battle Strip at any point in the game not even when participating in the Coliseum matches.
• Trash of the Titans: He really can't keep an office clean without Hana around.
• Unkempt Beauty: A male example to some extent. He's definitely disheveled-looking but he also has little trouble romancing the greatest number of hostesses in 4.
  • A couple characters in the story also refer to him as "pretty" albeit in a mocking manner.
  • In the same game, Mack the photographer even mistakes him for a washed-up pornstar.
  • In a substory in 5, a highschooler seems to dig the way he pulls off the "disheveled look".
• Uncle Pennybags: The real reason he runs his loan business. He wants to give people money for free, he just wants to make sure they deserve it. He even says it himself, as in his page quote.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: The end of 6 has Akiyama plan to re-open Sky Finance but his office in Kamurocho doesn't appear to be up and running in any later games. It's possible he simply re-opened in a different location in the city or maybe even took to running the office in a different city altogether like the Sotenbori branch he had in 5. In any case, with Like a Dragon being the first new game in the main series timeline to not feature him at all, we have no idea how his business is going or what the man himself is even doing these days.
• Willfully Weak: Downplayed. He probably wouldn't have won if he had fought at full strength but he does claim in 6 that he can't bring himself to give it his all against Kiryu, a man he greatly respects. To his credit, he is reduced to a pretty early boss fight for a One-Man Army in 4 and 5. In fact, if you actually try to be passive during said boss fight, he'll stop attacking briefly as well to plead with Kiryu to calm down and stop fighting.
• With Catlike Tread: During a substory, he attempts to trail one of his client while she's undergoing one of his tests to monitor her success. When they next meet, she tells him that she know that he was following her and that he'd make for a terrible detective.
• The Worf Effect: He may be a One-Man Army in his own right, but the games make it clear that physically he's not quite in the same league as Kiryu, as he is defeated by him in both 4 and 6 (despite tagging with Tanimura in the former).
• The Wonka: Downplayed. He's not really that weird as a person, especially considering the sort of people Kiryu encounters, but he's regarded as eccentric by many, particularly Takashi Kido who relays to an underling how strange his business model is. He offers loans to people with nowhere to go, often people who've been turned down by other lenders who've suggested Akiyama's credit company, Sky Finance. While he has Hana run a background check on them, he'll give money to anybody so long as they show their determination to getting the loan money and using it to turn their lives around. Thus he comes up with specialized tests that tend to be more difficult the more money clients ask for. Perhaps the most peculiar thing about his business practices is that his loans are no interest, no collateral. He doesn't make a single cent off of Sky Finance and yet he's one of the wealthiest members of the cast though owning other businesses like Club Elise presumably helps. Kido also ominously notes that anyone who's ever borrowed from him has never asked for another loan from him again. Kido theorizes that his past clients want to "stay as far away from that nutjob as they can". Akiyama himself believes that he gives people not just money but the motivation to turn their life around so that they'll never have to borrow money again. In any case, he's a very wealthy man despite these quirks and the apparent "success" of Sky Finance has attracted the attention of several rivals. His tutorial fight even involves the disgruntled employees of a rival company.
• Wouldn't Hit a Girl: In one of the fifth game's substories, he encounters a group of schoolgirl bullies who try to pressure a girl into prostitution so they can use the money to go party. When one of the girls calls her brother and his gangster friends to take care of him, Akiyama gladly takes his anger out on them instead, saying he has a thing against hitting girls.
• Younger Than They Look: He's only 32 in Yakuza 4 but is viewed as much older by a variety of characters, with one NPC even wondering he has grandchildren despite being just three years older than the youthful looking Tanimura. His rather disheveled appearance plays a part in this, but the stress of going bankrupt and living on the streets also likely aged him quickly.
• Your Size May Vary: Downplayed. His official measurements from the Coliseum in 5 apparently put him at 178 cm tall making him one of the shortest playable characters in the series but he generally doesn't seem that much shorter than the likes of the 184 cm tall Kiryu at all usually being close to the same height as him, especially in gameplay. Hell, the aforementioned Coliseum has a number of supposedly taller fighters that clearly aren't shorter than him at all though that may be more of a problem with their proportions rather than Akiyama's.