History VideoGame / Yakuza4

* Bowdlerise: While the Pachinko parlor is accessible, it is not possible to play pachinko in any PC version of the game. However, it is still playable in the console versions. This even affects achievements, with 48 achievements on the Xbox One version, compared to 47 for the Windows version, as the Pachinko achievement would have been unobtainable otherwise.

* ComplexityAddiction: [[spoiler:Courtesy of Katsuragi not thinking things through, the Ueno Seiwa hit boiled down to a lot of this. The conspirators have Saejima seemingly do all the kills via non-lethal ammunition and take the blame, so that Katsuragi can get back up and kill the targets afterwards from beneath suspicion while extracting Ueno safely. Sugiuchi would then wound Katsuragi as part of the ploy and try to fudge up the police reports a little to cover for him. All of this so they and Shibata can rank up and get a higher personal standing in the years to come while butting Ueno out of the way. The moment Munakata looks at the fine lines of the reports, however, this overly-complicated plan falls apart in seconds as he points out [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome Saejima doesn't line up as some ace gunman that would perfectly headshot everybody there yet fail to kill his target]], and the bodies themselves still have non-lethal rubber bullet impact wounds -- the kind of thing only [[CorruptCop police]] would have access to at that time frame. Through Sugiuchi, the conspiracy is thus blackmailed by Munakata for the next 30 years.]]

* ComplexityAddiction: [[spoiler:Courtesy of Katsuragi not thinking things through, the Ueno Seiwa hit boiled down to a lot of this. The conspirators have Saejima seemingly do all the kills via non-lethal ammunition and take the blame, so that Katsuragi can get back up and kill the targets afterwards from beneath suspicion while extracting Ueno safely [[DeathFakedForYou and in secret]]. Sugiuchi would then wound Katsuragi as part of the ploy and try to fudge up the police reports a little to cover for him. All of this so they and Shibata can rank up and get a higher personal standing in the years to come while butting Ueno out of the way. The moment Munakata looks at the fine lines of the reports, however, this overly-complicated plan falls apart in seconds as he points out [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome Saejima utterly made a mess of the place and doesn't line up as some ace gunman that would perfectly headshot everybody there]], and the bodies themselves still have non-lethal rubber bullet impact wounds -- the kind of thing only [[CorruptCop police]] would have access to at that time frame. Through Sugiuchi, the conspiracy is thus blackmailed by Munakata for the next 30 years.]]

* ComplexityAddiction: [[spoiler:Courtesy of Katsuragi not thinking things through, the Ueno Seiwa hit boiled down to a lot of this. The conspirators have Saejima seemingly do all the kills via non-lethal ammunition and take the blame, so that Katsuragi can get back up and kill the targets afterwards from beneath suspicion while extracting Ueno safely [[DeathFakedForYou and in secret]]. Sugiuchi would then wound Katsuragi as part of the ploy and try to fudge up the police reports a little to cover for him. The moment Munakata looks at the fine lines of the reports, however, this overly-complicated plan falls apart in seconds as he points out [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome Saejima utterly made a mess of the place and doesn't line up as some ace gunman that would perfectly headshot everybody there]], and the bodies themselves still have non-lethal rubber bullet impact wounds -- the kind of thing only [[CorruptCop police]] would have access to at that time frame. Through Sugiuchi, the conspiracy is thus blackmailed by Munakata for the next 30 years.]]

* ComplexityAddiction: [[spoiler:Courtesy of Katsuragi not thinking things through, the Ueno Seiwa hit boiled down to a lot of this. The conspirators have Saejima seemingly do all the kills via non-lethal ammunition and take the blame, so that Katsuragi can get back up and kill the targets afterwards from beneath suspicion while extracting Ueno safely [[DeathFakedForYou and in secret]]. The moment Munakata looks at the fine line of the police reports, this overly-complicated plan falls apart in seconds as he points out [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome Saejima utterly made a mess of the place and doesn't line up as some ace gunman that would perfectly headshot everybody there]], and the bodies themselves still have non-lethal rubber bullet impact wounds -- the kind of thing only [[CorruptCop police]] would have access to at that time frame.]]

* ComplexityAddiction: [[spoiler:Courtesy of Katsuragi not thinking things through, the Ueno Seiwa hit boiled down to a lot of this. The conspirators have Saejima seemingly do all the kills via non-lethal ammunition and take the blame, so that they can swoop in and kill the targets afterwards from beneath suspicion while extracting Ueno safely for Katsuragi to be promoted by. The moment Munakata looks at the fine line of the police reports, this overly-complicated plan falls apart in seconds as he points out [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome Saejima isn't an ace gunman that would perfectly headshot everybody there]], and some of the non-lethal wounds lined up perfectly with their experimental police rubber bullet rounds.]]

** The leaders of the Color Gangs from the first Yakuza game reappear - the Akai Brothers of the Bloody Eye gang reveal that they disbanded shortly after their encounter with Kiryu and started a successful porn business. Shiraki of the White Edge reveals that his gang broke up and he became a semi-legit used car salesman and front for Yakuza business. Aota is still running with the Blue Z gang, and after getting beaten by Kiryu, the gang members show appreciation for Aota for sticking with him unlike the leaders of the other Color Gangs and decide to go legit with him.

* WorldOfBadass: More apparent, the new playable characters are all badass in their own way.

* BigBadWannabe: [[spoiler:Kazuo Shibata and Isao Katsuragi. Shibata gets killed by Arai when the latter has no more use for him, and Katsuragi, along with being out of his depth, get's outsmarted by Munakata, Arai, and Daigo.]]

** [[spoiler:Katsuragi, Sugiuchi and Shibata, the masterminds behind the staged Ueno Seiwa hit, were too ambitious and flew too close to the sun. Their plan had numerous flaws and too many loose ends. This allowed Munakata who quickly discovered the truth, to blackmail all of them into becoming his pawns.]]

* PoorCommunicationKills: [[spoiler:Kiryu's DualBoss against [[DuelingProtagonists Akiyama and Tanimura]]]]. All three of them manage to say ''the exact wrong things'' and start fighting, despite being on the same side. Because of their fight, [[spoiler:Yasuko goes up to the Florist's mansion on her own and gets kidnapped by Katsuragi.]]
* PurposelyOverpowered: Kiryu, the legendary Dragon of Dojima is by far the strongest playable character in the game. Even at level 1, he already has about half of his skills unlocked and his skills is good against all sorts of combat scenario, be it a one on one battle or against crowds of thugs.

** In Akiyama's chapter, [[spoiler:The woman that asked for a hundred million yen from him has been killing off Shibata family members. She is actually the younger sister of a death row inmate who gets wrapped up in a conspiracy to either procure the money or pick off yakuza in the hopes of seeing her brother again]].

* SmallRoleBigImpact: [[spoiler:In Majima's flashback to the day he failed to show up to support Saejima during the Ramen Shop shoot-out, he was held up by Shibata's henchmen who were ordered to keep Majima from meeting up with Saejima. Majima actually managed to [[OneManArmy take them all down...]]save for a single goon wearing leather gloves who had somehow managed to subdue Majima and chain him to a metal support post. If it weren't for him, Majima might have been able to at least reunite with Saejima and probably disrupt the schemes that would lead to the events of ''4''. Hell, that goon's the reason Majima got captured, tortured, and forced into menial labor as punishment which would lead to the events of ''VideoGame/Yakuza0''. Lastly, he's the man who [[EyeScream personally cut out Majima's left eye]] which would lead to his now iconic EyepatchOfPower. It's frankly staggering how much of an impact he has on the plot of the series when he's never even given a name.]]

* WhatAreRecords: Played for laughs at the end of Saejima's "Mother and Daughter" substory where he promises to buy Makiko's record, which gets her laughing. Justified due to him being out of the modern world for the last 25 years. After the substory, two [=NPCs=] can be heard in Theatre Square talking about her new album confused about why it's on both CD and vinyl.

* SmallRoleBigImpact: [[spoiler:In Majima's flashback to the day he failed to show up to support Saejima during the Ramen Shop shoot-out, he was held up by Shibata's henchmen who were ordered to keep Majima from meeting up with Saejima. Majima actually managed to [[OneManArmy knock them all out...]]save for a single goon wearing leather gloves who had somehow managed to bring Majima down. If it weren't for him, Majima might have been able to at least reunite with Saejima and probably disrupt the schemes that would lead to the events of ''4''. Hell, that goon's the reason Majima got captured, tortured, and forced into menial labor as punishment which would lead to the events of ''VideoGame/Yakuza0''. Lastly, he's the man who [[EyeScream cut out Majima's left eye]] which would lead to his now iconic EyepatchOfPower. It's frankly staggering how much of an impact he has on the plot of the series when he doesn't even have a name.]]

[[caption-width-right:300:The legend of the Dragon of Dojima is no longer the only one.[[note]]Front row, from left to right: [[DirtyCop Masayoshi Tanimura]], [[TheHero Kazuma Kiryu]], [[LoanShark Shun Akiyama]], [[GreatEscape Taiga Saejima]]. Back row, left to right: [[InspectorJavert Junji Sugiuchi]], [[AntiVillain Hiroaki Arai]], [[VisionaryVillain Seishiro Munakata]], [[MysteriousWaif "Lily"]], [[AntiVillain Takeshi Kido]]]]

** BonusBoss: Kazuya, Jiro, Sango and Jo Amon

* TheOner: Used in the cutscene in which Tanimura first walks through Little China, following behind him as he navigates its tight corridors.

[[caption-width-right:300:The legend of the Dragon of Dojima is no longer the only one.]]

* BigBadWannabe: [[spoiler:Kazuo Shibata. He gets killed by Arai when the latter has no more use for him.]]

* DidNotThinkThisThrough: [[spoiler:Katsuragi, Sugiuchi and Shibata, the masterminds behind the staged Ueno Seiwa hit, were too ambitious and flew too close to the sun. Their plan had numerous flaws and too many loose ends. This allowed Munakata who quickly discovered the truth, to blackmail all of them into becoming his pawns.]]

* EarlyBirdCameo: A lot of characters who become very significant to the plot appear in Akiyama's section before their importance is really known, and who disappear from the story for significant chunks. Arai appears as a friend of Akiyama's, showing up to his fistfight with [[spoiler:Ihara]] in Club Elnard; he disappears after shooting [[spoiler:Ihara]] dead, and only reappears at the end of Part 3, Chapter 1, talking with [[spoiler:Shibata]]. Sigiuchi hounds Akiyama throughout his section, and is entirely absent from Saejima's story, before returning in Part 3 as a foil for [[spoiler:Tanimura]]. Katsuragi appears in a single cutscene, as Sigiuchi explains the situation in the Tojo Clan to Akiyama and the significance of [[spoiler:Ihara's]] murder, and once again in the flashback of the Ueno Seiwa hit, before disappearing for the rest of Saejima's section; he reappears in Part 3, Chapter 2, as [[spoiler:Tanimura]] tries to learn about the circumstances of his father's death from him. Hamazaki appears in Part 2, Chapter 1, befriending Saejima and helping him break out of Okinawa Penitentiary No. 2; he's [[spoiler:shot 3 times by Saito]], and disappears for the rest of Saejima's section and all of Tanimura's, the player presuming him dead. He reappears in Part 4, Chapter 1, washing up on [[spoiler:Morning Glory beach]] in time to get [[spoiler:Kiryu]] involved in the plot.

* EurekaMoment:
** The "Master vs. Apprentice" substory has Matsuyama get his inspiration for the Black Tonkotsu Ramen by seeing Ueda with a suntan.

* FormerlyFat: If you go to Club Asia with Akiyama and take in the show, the manager tells Akiyama that the dancer used to be rather "plus sized" until she took up pole dancing and just melted off the pounds. It also works as a topic of discussion in the cabaret clubs, though the only one who'll enjoy that information is Nanami in Elise once you've finished her Hostess Maker story.

* TheFourGods: Each of the four playable characters is themed on one of the Four Gods, protective animal deities that preside over the cardinal directions:
** Akiyama as the Vermillion Bird of the South. This god is similar to a phoenix or firebird, rising from the ashes in a new form. The flashy, crimson-clad Akiyama moves as if flying and kicks as if pecking, and fell from grace only to rise back to the top with the explosive aftermath of the Ten Billion Yen incident.
** Saejima as the White Tiger of the West. This beast symbolizes strength, ferocity and courage, all represented well by the savage but honorable Saejima. He also has a tiger tattoo, and his first name is even the Japanese pronunciation of the English word tiger. Like Saejima, the White Tiger is the only match for the Azure Dragon.
** Tanimura as the Black Tortoise of the North. This god is often associated with water and portrayed as a large tortoise or turtle with a long serpent wrapped around its shell or protruding as a tail, reflecting Taninura's slow and defensive but fluid, adaptive fighting style. Tanimura wears a thick blue jacket, almost resembling a shell.
** Kiryu as the Azure Dragon of the East. Wise and majestic, it presides over springtime, but is vicious if crossed. Kiryu, the Dragon of Dojima, has a tattoo of a dragon on his back, and perfectly captures the wrath and compassion of the sacred dragon.
** Also if you take them to Orchid Palace Mahjong, they each have a Tournament named after their respective theme.
** The Dark Clan, the GreaterScopeVillain in Kiryu's Gang War activity is this. as well.

* LocalHangout: Typical of ''Series/Yakuza'', every character has one or two. Akiyama has his office, Sky Finance, as well as his hostess club, Elise; Saejima - at least, when he makes it to Kamurocho - will often come back to his hideout in the former office of Hatsushiba; Tanimura has Homeland, a chinese restaurant owned by his long-time friend, Zhao, and Kiryu as always comes back to New Serena, which now counts Date among its staff.

* TheCityNarrows: This game introduces the Little Asia district of Kamurocho, familiar to ''VideoGame/Yakuza0'' players. Tanimura, a polyglot, is able to freely explore the area, a warren of narrow alleys and apartment corridors run by Asian Gateway, a charity that provides homes for Asian immigrants and orphans.

* WouldHitAGirl: Feautres a female enemy, Nair, and Tanimura has no qualms fighting her. Granted it was a sparring match but neither of them pulls punches. Tanimura also has no qualms hitting Saki-Chan during a chase sequence, which is not ''"sparring"''.

** HighSpeedBattle:Masayoshi Tanimura chasing Sugiuchi on speedboats

* IdenticalStranger: The mysterious Lily bears an uncanny resemblance to [[https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/yakuza/images/8/87/Toto_Bank_Group_Picture.png Akiyama's ex-girlfriend from Toto Bank]], which Hana accuses Akiyama for why he decided to lend her the money. [[spoiler:It's a RedHerring, as Lily is actually Taiga Saejima's sister, Yasuko Saejima, and Akiyama's ex is never brought up again]].

--->'''Date:''' An ex-cop can't be a journalist and tend bar on the side?

* ABNegative: While the specific blood type is never mentioned, this resulted in [[spoiler: Saejima locating Lily's biological father when she had kidney failure, and doing whatever it took to get him to donate one of his to her.]]

* BigBad: [[spoiler: Seishiro Munakata.]]
* BigBadWannabe: [[spoiler: Kazuo Shibata. He gets killed by Arai when the latter has no more use for him.]]
* BigBrotherWorship: [[spoiler: Yasuko to her stepbrother Saejima, to the point where she visited the prison where he was being held every day for 25 years, and was willing to take out a loan of 100 million yen and kill members of the Shibata family in order to have a chance at freeing him/seeing him again. Mostly justified in that he became a yakuza in the first place as a result of a (successful) effort to save her life.]]
* BloodlessCarnage: Saejima's murderous rampage at the start of his story has a surprising lack of gunshot wounds on his victims, which is especially noticeable considering that Saejima in contrast had blood from ''his'' gunshot wounds when Katsuragi shot him. [[spoiler: [[{{Foreshadowing}} Which makes perfect sense]] when you later discover he was set up as TheScapegoat by Katsuragi, and that none of the victims actually died by his hand.]]

** DualBoss: [[spoiler: Shun Akiyama and Masayoshi Tanimura]]

** DuelingPlayerCharacters: Kazuma Kiryu, [[spoiler: Taiga Saejima, Shun Akiyama and Masayoshi Tanimura]]
** FinalBoss: [[spoiler: Seishiro Munakata]]
** HighSpeedBattle: Masayoshi Tanimura chasing Sugiuchi on speedboats

** SequentialBoss: [[spoiler: Hideaki Arai, Takeshi Kido, Daigo Dojima and Seishiro Munakata.]] The Amon brothers as well.

** The Florist of Sai's son Takashi also appears, who's now working a stable job, but is looking for his DisappearedDad now that Kyoka is pregnant and has no one on his side of the family to invite to their wedding. The Florist tasks him with stopping three troublemakers in the city [[spoiler: who happen to be Tanimura, Akiyama and Saejima]], before giving him the information he wants in a rather unusual way. [[spoiler: The whole thing was set up by the Florist as a SecretTestOfCharacter, which the other protagonists were completely in on]].

* CorruptCop: Tanimura is introduced as one, but aside from Date and Sudo, there's a lot of them. [[spoiler: Almost all the police in the game are corrupt to some degree]].

* DuelingPlayerCharacters: [[spoiler: In Taiga's chapter, he fights against Kiryu [[TigerVersusDragon shortly after meeting him]]. In Kiryu's chapter, he fights both [[DualBoss Akiyama and Tanimura at once]], who mistake him for one of Katsuragi's men]].

** A very minor example: in his first scenes, Akiyama is shown being very friendly with Kamurocho's homeless people, buying them beers and chatting with them around a fire. In Part 4, he uses his connections with those people to find [[spoiler: Taiga Saejima]].
** Akiyama tells Lily not to open the briefcase containing the 100 million yen he's loaning her on the roof of the Millennium Tower, telling her that it could blow away. This foreshadows both [[spoiler: Akiyama's past and how he first made his money, and more importantly, the climax of the game when his entire fortune is blown away by the wind from a helicopter]].

* GodzillaThreshold: Daigo Dojima. [[spoiler: The Tojo Clan is running out of money and is facing a big crisis to boot. Daigo starts plotting, manipulating behind the scenes and betraying his own men just for the sake of getting enough money to save the clan.]]

* GreatEscape: When Saejima learns from Hamazaki that he had been set up in the Ueno Seiwa hit, the two of them bust out of prison together, but end up getting separated at the last minute. When Saejima regains consciousness, he finds himself on a beach in front of a certain orphanage. [[spoiler: Hamazaki ends up in the same place days later, much to Haruka's horror]].

* TheLancer: Kido is that to his boss Arai, with a dose of UndyingLoyalty. [[spoiler: Subverted in the end when he allies himself with Daigo, and considering Arai shot him in the gut earlier as well, who can blame him.]]

* ManipulativeBastard: You will find a whole lot of them here, [[spoiler: such as Daigo Dojima, Kido, Munakata and Katsuragi (Even if the game makes it clear he's not a very good one.)]] It would be faster to name people who don't try to do that in this game.

* NewJobsAsThePlotDemands: "Kotaro Gets A Job" has Kotaro, a former Reaper from the [[VideoGame/Yakuza3 previous game]] unable to hold down a job, being introduced being fired from a ramen shack. He manages to get hired at Kanrai, but after Kiryu helps him beat down some unruly customers, he gets fired from that job. It's also shown his outright crude mouth is the problem. The next job he gets is at Sushi Gin here he gets a CurbstompBattle from the customers earlier after trying to not be violent or cuss them out. Kiryu gives them the beating and the Sushi Gin master keeps Kotaro on.

* OffscreenVillainDarkMatter: Averted. The Tojo Clan's ridiculous size finally gets hit with shortage -- [[spoiler:Namely that a clan that gargantuan need a ''lot'' of money to keep running. Money Daigo has all but run out of, forcing him to throw in with Munakata's scheme.]]

* PoorCommunicationKills: [[spoiler:Kiryu's DualBoss against [[DuelingProtagonists Akiyama and Tanimura]]]]. All three of them manage to say ''the exact wrong things'' and start fighting, despite being on the same side. Because of their fight, [[spoiler: Yasuko goes up to the Florist's mansion on her own and gets kidnapped by Katsuragi.]]

** In Akiyama's chapter, [[spoiler:The woman that asked for a hundred million yen from him has been killing off Shibata family members. She is actually the younger sister of a death row inmate who gets wrapped up in a conspiracy to either procure the money or pick off yakuza in the hopes of seeing her brother again.]]
** Saejima learns at the end of his chapter that [[spoiler:the reason why Saejima's blood brother, Goro Majima, didn't arrive for the hit was not because of betrayal, but because he had been abducted and detained by the Shibata clan. It was during this detainment that he lost his eye.]]
** Tanimura's chapter has him and the audience learning that [[spoiler:Taiga Saejima never actually killed anyone in the Ueno Seiwa hit he took part in: all of his guns were loaded with then-experimental rubber bullets designed to incapacitate without wounding. After he left the scene of the crime, an Ueno Seiwa traitor who wore a kevlar vest proceeded to murder his fellow yakuza to implicate Saejima.]]
** Tanimura also learns during his section that [[spoiler:his father had investigated the hit Saejima had taken part in, but stumbled upon a conspiracy, and was murdered in order to keep a lid on said conspiracy by his father's partner, and his superior officer, Sugiuchi.]]
** The big one: First off, from the page opening quote alone, Majima makes it crystal clear that Kyohei Jingu's ten billion yen, and its later theft during the events of the first game, is part of the reason why the Tojo Clan's in such dire straits. So how exactly was Jingu and his money involved in this? [[spoiler:Jingu, and the money he was asking the Tojo Clan to launder, was part of a conspiracy to construct secret privately-run prisons, like the one that Saejima had been transferred to. Those prisons would be used to house and quietly kill yakuza who were of no use to the police. The conspiracy goes all the way up to the top levels of the police brass, being overseen by the Deputy Commissioner of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police!]]

* SmallRoleBigImpact: [[spoiler:In Majima's flashback to the day he failed to show up to support Saejima during the Ramen Shop shoot-out, he was held up by Shibata's henchmen who were ordered to keep Majima from meeting up with Saejima. Majima actually managed to [[OneManArmy knock them all out...]] save for a single goon wearing leather gloves who had somehow managed to bring Majima down. If it weren't for him, Majima might have been able to at least reunite with Saejima and probably disrupt the schemes that would lead to the events of ''4''. Hell, that goon's the reason Majima got captured, tortured, and forced into menial labor as punishment which would lead to the events of ''VideoGame/Yakuza0''. Lastly, he's the man who [[EyeScream cut out Majima's left eye]] which would lead to his now iconic EyepatchOfPower. It's frankly staggering how much of an impact he has on the plot of the series when he doesn't even have a name.]]

* SuddenSequelDeathSyndrome: Goh Hamazaki, who was a major antagonist in ''VideoGame/Yakuza3'', helps Saejima escape from prison [[spoiler:and eventually dies from the efforts]].

* TigerVersusDragon: Taiga winds up meeting Kiryu shortly after his prison break. [[spoiler: Naturally, they end up fighting each other, and the fight ends in a draw due to Saejima collapsing from previously sustained injuries]].

** The "Master vs. Apprentice" substory has Matsuyama get his inspiration for the Black Tonkotsu Ramen by seeing Ueda with a suntan on him.
* EyeScream: This game reveals how Majima lost his left eye, [[spoiler: which was knife stabbed by a Shibata member after stopping him from meeting up with Saejima during the 1985 hit]].

* FiveStagesOfGrief: The "White Lie" substory is one for a woman named Chigusa, introduced by bitchslapping Kiryu thinking he was her lying boyfriend Yusaku in Anger. She takes Kiryu around town to their significant places like Mach Bowl and their office as Bargaining, along with Kiryu beating down some loan sharks. Denial comes from her playing a message on an answering machine that says he's dying of cancer and that he left her a claim ticket for something at Le Marche. Said ticket is for two engagement rings. It's back to bargaining when she has Kiryu try a ring on and it's too small for his finger, putting her right in depression, finally allowing her to cry. It's when she finally calls him Kiryu does acceptance set in and she gives him the rings so she can find the strength to move on.

** The heroes at the end also do this, ''twice''. [[spoiler:First they fail to react in time to a [[VillainousBreakdown furious]] Munakata going for a live gun on the ground, which gets Akiyama shot -- straight into a [[PocketProtector wad of cash]] beneath his suit. Once it seems like all is well, they just leave Munakata to mull on his loss -- and he grabs the exact same gun and [[DrivenToSuicide kills himself]] to escape punishment.]]

* FailedASpotCheck: Near the end of the game, Arai fails to notice [[spoiler:the complete lack of a bullet wound and splattered blood after shooting Munakata in the chest in his office. Had Arai closely inspected the gunshot wound for any amount of time, it would have been very obvious that something was off - namely that Munakata had loaded the gun he had given to Arai with rubber bullets]].

* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome: [[spoiler:Munakata sees through the entire rubber bullets assassination stunt within moments when he realizes the perfect headshot wounds don't add up with an inexperienced and hotblooded gunman like Saejima shooting everyone liberally with what left superficial wounds, plus the illegal allocation of experimental police resources to pull it off. Katsuragi and Sugiuchi consequently end up blackmailed and forced into manipulative secrecy that drives the rest of the plotline because of their reckless grab for power being so blatantly obvious.]]
** Why is Daigo [[spoiler: throwing his lot in with Arai to steal Akiyama's money? It turns out that turning down the Okinawa land deal in ''3'', while very honorable, is biting the Tojo Clan in the ass. The clan turned down enough profits to keep them in the black for the better part of a decade, and Daigo is desperately in need of cash. In the same vein, being the largest yakuza outfit in Japan is all well and good, but 30000 subordinates that are left without wages or equipment will either revolt or seek greener pastures.]]

* TinkleInTheEye: In "Kiryu the Babysitter" substory, a baby is left at New Serena and Kiryu wisely guesses it's crying cause he needs his diaper changed. Soon as he takes the baby's diaper off, he gets a facefull of pee for being right.

''Yakuza 4'', released in Japan as 龍が如く4 伝説を継ぐもの (''Ryū ga Gotoku 4: Densetsu wo Tsugumono'', lit. ''Like a Dragon 4: Heir to the Legend'') is the fourth main entry in Sega's ''VideoGame/{{Yakuza}}'' series, which was released in March 18, 2010 in Japan and March 15/18, 2011 for NA/Europe for the UsefulNotes/PlayStation3. A remastered port for the UsefulNotes/Playstation4 was released on January 17, 2019 in Japan, and in the rest of the world on October 29 that same year, with PC (via UsefulNotes/{{Steam}}) and Xbox One ports releasing on January 28, 2021.