Characters / TNO Guangdong Flavor Characters

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Lam & Yoshiko

General Tropes

• Cynic–Idealist Duo: Lam is the cynic and Yoshiko is the idealist:
  • Lam dismisses Morita and Li and says that they shouldn't be taken at face value. Yoshiko believes in them due to their history on the streets and is content that she at least plays her part regardless of whether the Chief Executive succeeds or not.
  • Best shown when Yoshiko initially takes a factory owner's word of Morita's government "strangling" industry at face glace, she develops second thoughts when she sees Lam visibly uncomfortable. After the interview she asks what made him uncomfortable, to which Lam explains that the owner is not telling the full story and that any local that you ask will say that the place is a sweatshop. Yoshiko then simply asks what the real story is as Lam mulls over what their next course of action should be, entertaining her wishes to investigate further.
• Forgotten First Meeting: Lam and Yoshiko first meet one another when Yoshiko and her father arrive in Guangdong after being left destitute by the Yasuda Crisis and Lam steals a thousand yen from them, having been ordered to confiscate cash "for the good of the state". Yoshiko and Lam had an even earlier encounter when Yoshiko looking in on Lam and his police colleagues eating lunch whilst on her first trip to Guangdong. Neither of them remember these encounters.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: The relationship that develops between Lam and Yoshiko will change depending on who the Chief Executive is. In Morita's path Lam assists Yoshiko in her journalistic career to report on the livelihoods on those in Guangdong, eventually forming a friendship as Yoshiko adopts a Zhujin identity. In Matsushita's path neither remain in contact with one another with them living separate lives and only encountering one another when Yoshiko tries to interview those on the front lines of the riots. In Ibuka's path, Yoshiko's rapid ascent under the meritocracy leaves her rarely thinking about Lam, only pondering the question towards the end of the path. Komai's reign destroys their spirits seeing the abuses inflicted and their livelihoods threatened, only meeting for one last time after the riots for an awkward conversation.
• Odd Friendship: Lam is a cynical, middle-aged Chinese man who became a distinguished Zhujin police officer, while Yoshiko is a younger, more naive Japanese woman who came from a noble family, until the Yasuda Crisis brought her down to Guangdong. Despite their different backgrounds and occupations, Yoshiko is officially paired with Lam as her minder on the journalist job and they form an unusual friendship with each other, especially in Sony's path.

Lam Haau-cyun / Hayashi Kōsen

Role: N/A

A decorated Zhujin officer of the Guangdong Police Force, Lam Haau-cyun originally came from a Chinese village and left for better opportunities. Though deeply cynical thanks to the hardships he's encountered in his long career, he still remains as one of the few sensible voices in a police force chock-full of violence and corruption.

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• All for Nothing: He helps combat the Guangdong riots in Matsushita's Guangdong, but he realizes that all his efforts were in service to a cause that doesn't care for a Zhujin like him. Unfortunately, by the time he comes to this epiphany, it's too late and the riots have concluded, with the status quo returning in its place.
• Alternate Character Reading: Lam's Japanese name uses the exact same characters as his Chinese name (林巧川), just read in Japanese (in a mixture of kun'yomi and on'yomi) instead of Cantonese.
• Ate His Gun: Subverted by the end of the riots in Komai’s paths. Guilty for his complicity and assaults on desperate protestors, Lam contemplates shooting himself, but he chooses not to because his death will not change anything and that he is too cowardly to let the rioters take his life or do it himself.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: During the second 1952 flashback, a police inspector is puzzled at the kilograms of contraband and an uncooperative witness, complaining that there are no leads. Lam singlehandedly solves the case with his ingenuity, suggesting to look for a pattern in the delivery manifests to the warehouse and, in lieu of evidence, search the countryside as the police have less of a presence there. The inspector promptly tells him not to talk out of line, which infuriates Lam, but he doesn't let it get the better of him.
• Bearer of Bad News:
  • In a Hitachi-led Guangdong, Komai can try to keep silent on his crimes, but this still means that Lam has to deliver the news of a person's death to their loved ones. Lam is so ashamed of himself that he starts praying and wondering if anyone will miss him, if he perishes too.
  • In the non-Hitachi variant of the IJA coup, Lam is the one to inform them of Chun’s death, and warn them that the circumstances of his death is likely to draw attention from the authorities and that they should get out of the city.
• Beneath the Mask:
  • In Matsushita's path, Lam tries to play the role of a dispassionate police officer carrying out morally questionable actions because of his duty, but the guilt of his actions slowly gnaws at him inside, knowing that he has no honor from striking his own countrymen and serving a cause that is completely in the wrong. He openly calls his Hayashi identity as a mask to wear when things get uncomfortable.
  • If Morita's Civil Service Ordinance fails to pass, Lam will try to conceal his disappointment and anger at being passed up for promotion even though Yoshiko can see through it.
• Blessed with Suck: Lam's occupation as a police officer is both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, he enjoys more opportunities and wealth than the average Chinese living in Guangdong. On the other hand, it's making him lose his identity as a Chinese man and some people, like his uncle, will see it as a mark of his treacherous collaboration with the Japanese.
• Broken Pedestal: In the Morita plan path of the Yasuda Crisis, Lam gets reprimanded by his sergeant for not doing enough against the protest outside the Government Complex, calling him an ideal officer who squandered his goodwill because he got too squeamish.
• But Not Too Foreign: Part of Lam's conflict is his status as a Zhujin. He's officially no longer recognized as Chinese when he accepted the Japanese regime and became a decorated officer for them, but he's not considered Japanese either because of his Chinese heritage. In the end, Lam feels like a fixture, meant to guard the Japanese elite class, while never being considered a member of them.
• Calling the Young Man Out: Upon returning to his native fishing village, Lam is called out by one of his uncles for selling out to the Japanese and his flimsy excuse of waiting for a letter rather than sending one himself.
• Child of Two Worlds: After spending years living in Guangdong and serving in the police force, Lam considers himself a being of two natures, with a Chinese ancestry and an adopted Japanese culture. At the end of Morita's route, he returns to his home village and resolves his internal turmoil by affirming his Cantonese identity.
• Companion Cube: Having no other friends in Ibuka's Guangdong, Lam treats his FACOM R as the only buddy he has left on his side, using it to pinpoint areas of conflict during the Guangdong riots.
• Contempt Crossfire: As a police officer, Lam is despised and targeted by rioting Chinese for serving the government. Meanwhile, his Japanese superiors look down on him as a Zhujin and get particularly frustrated by his shortcomings, calling him slurs like "mutt".
• The Cynic:
  • Having seen the small highs and massive lows of Guangdong for years, Lam has become pessimistic of things possibly changing for the better. Case in point, during a smoke break, he listens to Morita's pledges with deep skepticism as the past few exhausting months are too engraved in his mind.
  • Lam's cynicism reaches a new low in Ibuka's Guangdong, Years of being rejected by everyone have shattered his faith that his actions can change anything, turning him into an emotionless wreck who's only focused on his job and nothing else. In the Persistence path, not even seeing his old home village, now renamed "Shenzhen Research and Digital Accessories Park", being remodeled is enough to faze Lam, having no optimism that he can stop it or recover his old life.
• Despair Event Horizon:
  • After a Matsushita-led Guangdong resolves the riots, Lam realizes that the status quo of Japanese oppression and discrimination against the Zhujin will never change and now embraces that reality with cold, defeated acceptance. He can only hope that the material benefits of his position can alleviate his hopeless situation, though he has his internal doubts about this.
  • Despite all the fancy computers Ibuka installs in the police department to cull its incompetency, Lam despairs at how the brutality of the police and Kenpeitai haven't been completely quelled, with his actions failing to inspire permanent change or even earning him the disdain of his colleagues. It's even implied by the reaction text he's having suicidal thoughts over his hopeless situation.
• Disappointed in You: If Morita decides against charging Legislative Council members complicit in the corruption ring of Sagawa Minoru, Lam will be disappointed in how the men of politics continue to get away with corruption and that he shouldn't have expected anything else.
• Dislikes the New Guy:
  • During Ōmori's shakedown of the Guangdong Police, Lam mentions his distrust of the new recruits, suspecting that they are members of the secret police out to spy on everyone for corrupt activity.
  • When Matsushita beings integrating the corporate security forces into the police, Lam isn't very impressed by them. Sony and Cheung Kong are the least awful, but they're still loyal to their respective companies. Meanwhile, Matsushita’s men are racist, Fujitsu’s people are domineering of the police's intel systems, and Hitachi’s forces act more like soldiers than police.
• Driven to Suicide: After the IJA coup against Komai, Lam quits the police force and considers jumping into a toxic river below, lifting his leg up, but setting it down when he realizes that this is the fate he doesn’t deserve after suppressing his countrymen for two decades. As he contemplates what he should do next, he considers various ways he could be punished and how that would be just.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Lam wants to take down the Triads, but not at the expense of working with the Kenpeitai. If Ibuka invites their participation in Operation 489, Lam feels squeamish about their desire to raid every single facility that is even remotely associated with the Triads, regardless of their actual innocence.
  • In Hitachi's Guangdong, Lam sees his share of horrifying scenes and violence, but what finally traumatizes him is the sight of rioters injured in Komai's pragmatic response to the demonstrations. There, he sees rioters with broken bones and arms, screaming in agony, and one protestor not moving at all, which Lam feels horrified about and tries to forget on the ride back to the station.
  • Despite being a member of the Guangdong Police Force and aiding the corporations, Lam refuses to participate in the plain butchery of the IJA when they reorganize the GPF into the Auxiliary Enforcement Corps after their coup.
• Face Death with Dignity: If Long Yun defeats Guangdong in the Western Insurrection, Lam will refuse to flee Kōshu. Though Yoshiko begs Lam to save himself and offers to use her connections to buy a ticket for him, Lam declines because his status as a Zhujin will be worth nothing in the rest of the Sphere and condemn him as a second-class citizen forever; if he's going to die, he'll die in the country he was born in.
• Face–Heel Turn:
  • In 1946 a group of Japanese businessmen escorted by soldiers arrive in Lam's village to offer food and work tools in exchange for some of the men going and working on rebuilding the province. The crowd mocks, jeers and laughs at them, promptly ensuring they leave. But just before they leave the gates of the village, Lam shouts "I'll go" to shock of everyone. He is brought in by the Japanese with rancor and clamour raging behind him.
  • This goes further in 1949 after his silk firm collapses and he is forced back into poverty. As propaganda vehicles drive around announcing the creation of the State of Guangdong, Lam reflects upon his life choices before stepping off the bus on front of the police station.
• Family Business: Lam's family has been running a silk business with a vast plantation for centuries in Chaozhou.
• Feel No Pain: In Komai's route, Lam is so distraught over his actions during the riots that he doesn’t notice that he has cut his finger with a knife while cooking. He only notices it when he is eating and he lets it bleed out out of a twisted sense of guilt.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Despite cooling down a race riot in Ibuka's path, Lam quickly becomes the most disdained officer in his department, perceived as a goody two-shoes stepping out of his lane. Every time he walks into the precinct, he's met with a wall of scowls.
• Going Home Again: Taking his overdue seven-day break from work, Lam goes back to the small seaside fishing village to reconnect with his family that he hasn't heard from in over a year.
• Good Cop/Bad Cop: Lam is the good cop in the second 1952 flashback, while the unnamed Japanese police officer is the bad cop. The latter draws his gun on an uncooperative suspect threatening to shoot if he doesn't move along, which fails to intimidate the dock worker retorts. But before the situation can escalate further, Lam intervenes to diffuse the tension and handle the situation, reasonably reading the worker's rights and arresting him without abusing his authority.
• Good Feels Good: Subverted. Despite knowing he’s doing the right thing by calling off the police and preventing them from suppressing a Yasuda Crisis riot, he feels something is wrong about disobeying his superiors.
• Have We Met?: After recovering from Lee's punch, he recognizes Lee as the countryman whose family he helped find accommodation. This brings Lam a great sense of failure.
• Heel Realization:
  • In the 1957 flashback, Lam recognizes his lost innocence and morality by collaborating with the Japanese and helping them administer a colonial monstrosity like Guangdong. A burning question he's left with is if he's even human anymore or just an empty shell of one.
  • During the Guangdong riots in Komai's route, Lam tries to justify his continued collaboration that he's on the "right side" and is going easy on the protestors. However, after seeing dozens of mutilated rioters, Lam can no longer delude himself with this justification, realizing that he's oppressing so many people out of pure self-preservation, yet can never change sides now. When the riots are finally put down, Lam collapses in a break room from the sheer guilt of helping Komai and would consider shooting himself, if he had his gun present.
• Hope Spot: If Morita's amendments to the Labor Standards Ordinance fails, Yoshiko will ask if people in Guangdong are always this sad, to which he will bitterly state that this time is worse because people had their hopes up.
• I Just Want to Be Loved: After a long day of fighting protestors in Komai's pragmatic response to the riots, Lam reflects on his loneliness and desire for a partner who would wait for him at home.
• I Never Got Any Letters: All the letters he sent to his family never made their destination because the mailmen didn't bother to do their jobs. This briefly worries Lam about the safety of his family, until he sees them in-person.
• Ignored Epiphany: As the riots break out and Lam is on the front lines against the mob, he grabs the first person he can reach when the police get the initiative. This person happens to be Lee Hei and hearing Chun screaming his name elicits sympathy from Lam for a brief moment before he snuffs it out and hauls Hei off to the police van.
• "It" Is Dehumanizing: Carrying out brutal suppression tactics for Fujitsu to put down the riots, Lam is repeatedly identified as LC049, dehumanizing him and showing how little the corporations care for him, beyond doing their dirty work.
• Jaded Professional: Lam is rather cynical of the reality he faces as a police officer in Guangdong. That being said this is partly subverted if Morita's Civil Service Ordinance passes and Lam is promoted. He is given his own patrol unit and starts to feel eager to do his job correctly.
• Jerkass Ball: The otherwise benevolent and sympathetic Lam turns surprisingly cold during the Guangdong riots in Matsushita's crackdown path. When he sees one of his fellow officers struggle to wrangle a scrawny protestor, Lam coldly thinks how weak and incompetent he is, briefly adopting the same dispassionate mindsets of his superiors. As Lam realizes, desk duty gives him time to reflect on his actions and ponder about their morality. In the field, however, he can only think about his duty and no one else.
• Lawman Baton: In Matsushita’s path, Lam frequently wields a baton during the riots, using it to suppress dissent whilst wearing the mask of Hayashi Kōsen. As far as he is concerned, his commanders just see him as someone to wield said baton and quash the opposition without hesitance.
• Loss of Identity: As a Zhujin officer, Lam faces an identity crisis with his Japanese superiors seeing him as an outsider and the Chinese seeing him as a traitor.
• Lost in Character: Putting on the police uniform and accepting his identity as Hayashi Kōsen makes it easier for Lam to dehumanize the enemy and carry out his questionable orders. He sometimes gets so deep in the role that he can be more vicious than he normally would be as his normal self.
• Mark of Shame: When getting into a confrontation with his uncle, Lam's police badge is pointed to as a mark of his collaboration with the Japanese and the abandonment of his roots.
• Moment of Weakness: Lam is one of the more benevolent and sensible members of the Guangdong police, which makes it sting when he's participating in their confiscation of money from random civilians "for the good of the state". He knows how flimsy that excuse is too. It's only after he "respectfully" steals some money from the Yasukawas that he realizes his fatal error in judgment.
• My God, What Have I Done?:
  • Played with. Lam goes along with the order's to take money from the Japanese expats arriving during the Yasuda Crisis and does so initially without remorse, but once he takes a break he becomes physically sick at the abuse he commits in the name of his Japanese superiors.
  • In 1949, when he scares off burglars from a Japanese run warehouse, he feels immense guilt over the dirty work he is doing and the look that the burglars gave him for collaborating.
  • If the Violent Crime Control and Incarceration Ordinance passes in Komai’s path, Lam is mortified as he watches two people be arrested for mere vandalism and chainted to other prisoners in the Kenpeitai's white van. He's sorrowful that they will be condemned to hard labor in Manchuria, even briefly considering a resignation from the force.
• Naturalized Name: Lam Haau-cyun adopted the name of Hayashi Kōsen to further his career.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: In the Morita plan route of the Yasuda Crisis, his refusal to suppress a Chinese protest for the RLSO's temporary suspension earns him a harsh scolding by his sergeant, who threatens to demote him if he ever shows compassion to "those savages" again.
• No Sympathy: Downplayed. Lam’s expresses little sympathy to the rioters he arrests in Matsushita’s path, seeing them as stupid for disrupting the peace and looks down at fellow officers for not being able to handle one protestor. That being said, having desk duty gives Lam a moment to think about what he is doing on a deeper level.
• Once Done, Never Forgotten: Except for the Hitachi route, Lam rejects joining a resistance cell after the IJA coup because, even if he survives the wilderness, they'll remember his past as a police officer and will likely kill him in retribution.
• The One Thing I Don't Hate About You: Outcompeted by the militia in Ibuka's path, many Japanese police officers resign and head back to the Home Isles. It's the only saving grace Lam enjoys from working with the militia, even if it also means quashing the morale of those who remain in the station.
• The Only One I Trust: Lam acts as this for one officer if Morita chose an independent ICAC, admitting to Lam that he gave into the ICAC's questions due to him believing that Lam is the only one he can say this to due to being the only one clean of criminality in the department. Lam admits that this is true as he notes that the ICAC didn't bother him.
• Paper Tiger: When he was younger, Lam could intimidate bandits by simply pulling out his Nambu pistol and possibly firing in the air. Even if he were outnumbered, this tactic was successful against upwards of half a dozen men.
• Punch-Clock Villain: He works for the Guangdong police, but he tries to avoid abusing his authority on the citizens and will internally criticize the decisions of his leaders, like the paltry, token reforms implemented by Suzuki.
• Rage Breaking Point: If Morita makes a pledge to invest in schooling, Yoshiko will take Lam on an hour long drive out of Kōshū to visit a rural school on his break day much to his frustration. After observing the terrible teaching conditions within the school, Yoshiko states that the children deserve better which puts Lam over the edge saying "have you paid attention to anything, Ms. Yasukawa? To your people, this is all we deserve."
• Rank Up: For his role in putting down the rioters for Fujitsu, Lam is promoted to Panyu Chief of Police.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: During the Yasuda Crisis, Lam didn't get the police officers guarding the Guangdong Government Complex to escalate their confrontation with protestors, citing his orders but also didn't want to on a moral level, much to the annoyance of his sergeant.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: With chaos erupting on the streets after the Yasuda Crisis, Lam calls back everyone after one officer gets hit with a brick. He figures that it isn’t worth it to continue fighting the rioters and risk more lives in the process.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
  • Subverted in Ibuka and Komai's routes:
    • Though depressed by Fujitsu's rule and the competition of the militias, Lam can't just throw in the towel and resign, unlike many of his colleagues who talk about leaving. Upon reflection, Lam realizes he has no home to look forward to and his job is the only thing he has left, so staying in Kōshu is the best thing he can do.
    • After Komai passes the Public Order and Police Ordinance, Lam is so disgusted by the presence of brutal Manchurian security detachments that he briefly considers leaving the force, only to realize that he can't because Manchuria will question anyone who wants to leave and is thus trapped in his occupation.
  • In the IJA ending, Lam turns his badge in and plans to either return to his family and lead a quiet life or do that and join a resistance cell, if Hitachi was Chief Executive. Neither will come to fruition and he immigrates to the United States to live a new life.
• Servile Snarker: The second 1951 flashback details Lam finishing his nightshift in the Kowloon Police Department before the sergeant tells everyone to meet in the briefing room, where there are told that they are to be transferred to Kōshu for the creation of the Guangdong Police Force. Lam promptly asks sarcastically if the Kenpeitai has anything to do with this, suspecting they want control of Kowloon to extort people for money, to which he is told to not ask questions of orders from above.
• Sleep Deprivation: During the Yasuda crisis, he is subjected to pay cuts, sleepless nights and half-empty bowls.
• Starting a New Life:
  • Four months after leaving his home village, Lam ends up in Hong Kong working as a porter with the flashback taking place during a smoke break with one of his colleagues. During this break he asks his colleague - and himself - why they came out here. Lam answers this question by saying he just wants to make a name for himself.
  • If the IJA takeover Guangdong, Lam flees the country and emigrates to somewhere in the West Coast of America and sheds his Japanese and Cantonese identity. The only reminder he keeps of his old life is a piece of silk tied to the wooden stick that marked his father's grave.
• The Stoic: Lam's disillusionment in Ibuka's path is so severe that he stops emoting all together. One officer even thinks that he could tell him his entire family died and Lam would only give a curt nod.
• Sympathy for the Devil: Subverted. While spying on a Triad member, Lam briefly wonders if the man has a family before burying this sympathetic thought and excitedly awaiting his due punishment.
• Tempting Fate: Lam's 1931 flashback ends with his uncle talking about local Chinese nationalism, which is very ironic as Lam would become a collaborator for the Japanese only a few decades later.
• Token Minority: If the Civil Service Ordinance passes, Lam will get his long-desired dream of being promoted to senior officer. However, being one of the few Zhujin in the position makes him distrusted by the other Japanese officers, who dismiss him as a "diversity hire".
• Took a Level in Cheerfulness:
  • By 1947 the war in China ends and Lam rushes to the postal office to see if he got any deliveries. He is overjoyed when he gets a letter and briefcase from his father in America, who has sent him money to help Lam set up a new life in Hong Kong. Lam celebrates by going drinking, thinking the world is his for the taking.
  • If Morita's Public Health Ordinance passes and Morita focuses on pollution, then Lam will sit by the Pearl River and reflect upon the river in his childhood before taking notice of how the factory smokestacks have stopped, the water was slightly clearer and the city a little quieter. After getting up, he entertains the notion of one day being able to go fishing again. This is subverted if the Public Ordinance fails to pass where Lam will wake up from his day dream and try to avoid reminiscing over a past that won't return.
  • Whilst Lam never gave job openings stuck onto the corkboard much attention, due to knowing that Zhujin and Chinese are unlikely to attain higher ranks than his, he starts to entertain the idea of moving up to Sergeant once rumours of Morita beginning to allow them into higher positions. He even reluctantly approves of the reforms that Morita is making to address working conditions in Guangdong. Once he arrives to find his colleagues cheering around a radio and is informed that Morita has lifted employment restrictions, he goes to his desk and grabs his application before heading upstairs to submit it. This is subverted if Morita chooses to stick with a trusted Japanese core even if Lam still plans to make scaled back career advancements much to his disappointment.
  • On a more downplayed example, he is grateful of the steps being taken by Morita to tackle corruption. However, he won't be fully satisfied if the ICAC is anything but completely independent, as he will point out that those at the very top are still unlikely to be prosecuted.
  • Downplayed in Ibuka's Reconciliation ending. After years of denying that he has a home outside of his job, Lam finally works up the courage to take a month-long break and revisit his home village, embracing his old Chinese name. There, Lam reunites with the loved ones he left behind years ago, taking the first steps to recovery.
• Took a Level in Cynic: With all the horrible crimes he commits in Hitachi's path, Lam becomes completely disillusioned in the idea that he's a lone good cop in a corrupt system and resigns to keeping his head down and carrying out his orders without question.
• Took a Level in Jerkass:
  • Becoming ostracized by his peers and having his humanity snuffed out by Fujitsu's rule, Lam becomes much more heartless and willing to commit morally questionable actions, since his job is the only thing he's got left in his life. In the Guangdong riots, Lam writes down locations of high riot activity and heartlessly recommends lethal action to be committed there, including the total demolition of some places. He also likes to employ lethal force, personally killing 27 CCL members with his Nambu.
  • The cruelty of Komai's regime gets to Lam and turns him into a monster. During the police's raids, he feels an animalistic rage motivating him and justifies instances of police brutality as "getting the job done". While he does feel guilt for his service, he still follows his orders to the point of violently beating rioters with a baton.
• Turn in Your Badge: After the IJA take over Guangdong, Lam is one of the many Zhujin officers who are fired and forced to turn in their badge. In most routes, Lam decides to return to his home village and get away from his past Zhujin life as quickly as possible. In Hitachi's route, Lam resolves to find his surviving family members and join a resistance cell to undo what he's helped cause, especially since Shenzhen was likely destroyed. Neither plan comes to fruition and he instead moves to the United States to start a new life.
• Turn the Other Cheek: Despite being assaulted by Lee Chun at a protest around the Guangdong Government Complex, he does not retaliate and tells Lee to leave while he can, knowing he is also a victim.
• Uncertain Doom: If Guangdong is overrun by Long Yun in the Western Insurrection, Lam will be forced to stay behind in a last, vain defense of Kōshu. The NPA will not spare any traitorous collaborators in their war and Lam himself is certain that this will be his last patrol, but his death isn't outright shown.
• Up Through the Ranks: The first 1952 flashback establishes that by this point Lam has become a sergeant and now has to embrace new responsibilities such as training the new recruits from upstream. During the event he gives a presentation to these recruits about the nature of detective work, to which he receives applause. By 1962, Lam has reached the position of officer.
• Waking Up Elsewhere: After his near-death experience in the 1952 flashback, Lam wakes up in a hospital room with bandages around his shoulder for the injuries he sustained from the Triads.
• We Used to Be Friends: While investigating a contraband smuggling ring in the 1952 flashback, Lam discovers that Ah Tan, one of his oldest friends from Hong Kong, is participating in the trade. Upon asking Ah Tan why he is doing this, he gets belittled and rebuked by his friend for collaborating with the Japanese. Ah Tan states that at least the Triads look after them and goes as far to refuse to turn himself in so that Lam can testify for him, stating he'd rather have a "Chinese dog" do it than a Japanese collaborator.
• What Is This Feeling?: Lam becomes so heartless and cynical in Fujitsu's path, that, when a repentant Ibuka orders the police to stand down against the rioters, Lam feels confused and needs a minute to recognize his feeling of relief.
• What You Are in the Dark: Though he enforces the Hitachi regime with brutal force, Lam questions his morals when the Violent Crime Control and Incarceration Ordinance passes, forcing him to arrest two Chinese boys to be enslaved for mere vandalism. He internally wonders why he would be in service to such an evil cause and is guilty that he shares responsibility for the crimes they've committed.
• What the Hell, Hero?: When Yoshiko unintentionally infuriates a shopkeeper with her questions, Lam scolds her insensitivity and how she's preventing him from doing his job."
• You Had Us Worried There: As Lam is driving back home to see his family, he begins to get anxious about why they have not contacted him in over a year and braces for whatever horrors he may find, only for them to be okay.
• You Remind Me of X: In Sony's Guangdong, Lam befriends a young recruit, Zhong Man, because he reminds him of himself, something that Lam internally mentions.

Yasukawa Yoshiko

Role: N/A

The daughter of Baron Yasukawa, who takes a keen interest in Guangdong following a quick visit. After a series of tragedies, Yoshiko Yasukawa becomes a journalist to interview and publish the daily lives of the people living in Guangdong.

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• Amateur Sleuth: As a journalist, Yoshiko often uses methods of sleuthing and amateur detective work to find her next big story.
• Because You Were Nice to Me:
  • Left to fend for herself after the Yasuda Crisis, Yoshiko forms an odd companionship with Lam, who escorts her to the districts so she can do her reporting. On the Chinese New Year, Yoshiko gives him a red envelope as a gift to express gratitude for putting up with her and for Guangdong taking her in after the Yasuda Crisis. This cements their friendship and takes Lam aback, after thinking about how rare gratitude is in a place like Guangdong.
  • Yoshiko takes a surprising turn of loyalty towards Fujitsu if they take over Guangdong because they treat her and the Kanton Fujin Koron so well. When she is taken on a tour of a Fujitsu lab and witnesses their technological breakthroughs, she reasons to return the favor by pumping more pro-Fujitsu articles for them.
• Beware the Nice Ones: She's a generally pleasant person, but she's far from submissive. When Lam's new boss starts verbally abusing him after the Civil Service Ordinance's rejection Yoshiko stands up for him and intimidates him enough to leave.
• Condescending Compassion: After Ibuka authorizes business subsidies during the Oil Crisis, Yoshiko interviews people on the street to get a glimpse on how they've been surviving the disaster. However, many of her interviewees know of her Fujitsu favoritisms and respond to her questions with bitter sarcasm, even lampshading her condescending concern for them.
• Contempt Crossfire: Yoshiko desperately tries to find work in publishing of any kind, but she's not accepted by either the middle-class Zhujin or her own ethnic group, the upper-class Japanese. Zhujin publishers don't want to hire Japanese people and Japanese publishers overlook her in favor of men.
• Creature of Habit: By the Oil Crisis in Morita's path, Yoshiko has developed an extremely consistent daily routine, which allows her to remain focused on the present. However, she is forced to deviate from her typical routine when the riots break out and she rushes back home earlier than usual to avoid the ensuing violence at nightfall.
• Disappointed in You: If Morita agrees to extradite Sagawa to Japan, Yoshiko will be frustrated at what she and much of Guangdong see as a half-measure that sets a precedent of corrupt Japanese going to Japan for a lesser sentence. The people are let down by Morita's administration pursuing justice for awhile, before giving into Tokyo's pressure.
• Fallen Princess: Yoshiko, the daughter of a Japanese nobleman, loses everything including her father and cannot even get the insurance payout.
• Forgotten Fallen Friend: Yoshiko used to be well-known by the Japanese elite as the Baron's daughter, but after her father's fall from grace and death, she's become all but forgotten and ignored by them. However, Yoshiko embraces this status, preferring to be alone than in the company of money-hungry opportunists.
• Going Native: Building a new life in Guangdong, Yoshiko considers the country her true home, despite her origins in Japan. At the end of Morita's focus tree, Yoshiko proudly accepts the Cantonese culture and becomes a Zhujin, no matter how much she will be mocked for it. Even if she is sent back to the Home Isles after the IJA takeover, Yoshiko still thinks that a part of her will remain in Guangdong.
• Have We Met?: A few days after her disastrous interview at the market, she gets into a meeting with her editor who tells her that he cannot have her remain helpless and has called in a favour from the Guangdong Police to have an officer mind her during her interviews. On cue, Lam Haau-cyun enters as this officer much to the surprise of both of them.
• History Repeats:
  • During the riots in Komai’s path, Yoshiko is forced from her home by the government in an effort to get Japanese citizens away from Chinese districts, left in a hotel room with her possessions spread on the floor. It's a self-aware repeat of her arrival to Guangdong after the Yasuda Crisis, listening to a Chief Executive make a meaningless speech while her livelihood is torn apart and her future uncertain.
  • After the IJA coup, she gets forcibly sent back to Japan after asking one too many questions to an IJA representative. Her arrival in Japan mirrors her past arrival in Guangdong, forced to resign from her journalistic career and returning home with nothing but a briefcase, little money, and no connections.
• Horrible Housing: After losing her father, Yoshiko takes up residence in a humid unventilated room with a small table and a gas stove. And this is considered to be good Zhujin housing.
• Horrible Judge of Character: Downplayed. Yoshiko usually has a good eye for criticizing the Japanese elite, but not even she can resist the affability exuded by Ibuka, whose compliments flatter her enough to believe his goals are legitimately meritocratic and a benefit to everyone in Guangdong. She's even one of the few to try defending Ibuka's unpopular Zoning Ordinance, ignoring his blatant disregard for individual lives.
• Human-Interest Story:
  • If Morita pledges to invest in public housing, Yoshiko will try to interview people with her improved Cantonese in a Zhujin district with slow success. Lam will then offer to show her the worst that Guangdong has to offer the day after, giving her a real story.
  • Alternatively, if Morita pledges to invest in schooling, she will get Lam to drive her out to a rural school one hour out of Kōshū to view the conditions. She comes to find an overcrowded, dilapidated and under equipped school, something that she wants to report on. The editor only gives her permission because it'd make a better story than their competitors, which ends up paying off when it goes viral among Kanton Fujin Koron's readership.
  • In Ibuka’s path, Lee Hei’s reputation as a model learner gains him an interview with Yoshiko, where they discuss various topics like the meaning of being a Zhujin, something that Hei himself is starting to identify as.
• I Let Gwen Stacy Die: Yoshiko blames herself for her father's death, thinking about what she could have done differently to ensure he would still be alive.
• Innocently Insensitive:
  • She tries to start an interview and ask questions to a shopkeeper, unintentionally distracting him from his job and hurting his business. Even when he finally snaps, she still doesn't understand that she's bugging him due to not understanding Cantonese. Fortunately, Lam intervenes and defuses the situation. When her Cantonese improves, she eventually figures out what the shopkeeper was saying to her, much to her embarrassment.
  • Shortly after Morita visits a factory, Yoshiko interviews the factory's owner in pursuit of a good story. Initially she takes the owner at face value when he tells her about "good-for-nothing bureaucrats" "strangling the industry" and it is only until she notices Lam visibly uncomfortable that she begins to think of another angle. After the interview she asks Lam what made him so uncomfortable and what the real story is.
• Intrepid Reporter: Yoshiko is brave enough to personally search for news stories, visiting potentially dangerous scenes to report on the societal ills that exist in Guangdong.
• It's All About Me: Stubbornly pro-Fujitsu in Ibuka's path, Yoshiko gets into frequent arguments with her manager about it, who comments that her articles are defending an increasingly unpopular Chief Executive and turning the newspaper's audience away. However, Yoshiko doesn't even care, only wanting to write what she wants and willing to risk the entire business for her own political biases.
• Jerkass Has a Point: In her article "Two Swarms", Yoshiko condemns the Guangdong riots as a pointless affair which has no chance of overthrowing the ruling class and building a new, fairer society from its ashes. While she writes the article at the peak of her favoritism towards Fujitsu, she's sadly right; the rioters, much as they try to start a revolution, cannot possibly succeed in overthrowing the government. Even if they did, the IJA would intervene and put an end to the affair.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: Contrary to Ibuka's change of heart in his Reconciliation ending, Yoshiko has no regret for her defense of the Chief Executive and blatant favoritism towards Fujitsu. However, she knows that she'll be fired if she continues down this path, so she reluctantly agrees to her manager's demands that she moderate her stance.
• Language Barrier: As part of her new job, Yoshiko tries to interview a shopkeeper despite not knowing any Cantonese, much to the frustration of the shopkeeper and Lam Haau-cyun who arrives to break up the commotion.
• Naïve Newcomer: Yoshiko isn't a long-term resident in Guangdong; she visited the country a couple of times with her father and only immigrated there during the Yasuda Crisis. When she tries working for a press company, her inexperience and lack of fluent Cantonese nearly gets her attacked by aggravated Chinese citizens, which requires Lam to be assigned to work with her.
• Not So Above It All: Unlike most of the Japanese elite in Matsushita's path, Yoshiko tries to recognize the ongoing Guangdong riots after months of their outbreak, resisting the popular notion that they are over. However, when she's invited to a party and sees one of the guests accidentally spill a drink on his lapel, she laughs along with the other partygoers and forgets about the riots, ultimately caught up in the celebratory mood that everyone else is in.
• Oblivious to Her Own Description: Gaining a massive ego under Fujitsu's influence, Yoshiko denounces all of her critics as "lesser tabloids and yellow papers", which would describe her own journalism, except that it's heavily biased in favor of Fujitsu.
• Passing the Torch: In Ibuka's Persistence ending, the Kanton Koron's manager decides to move to the Home Isles and passes ownership of the business to Yoshiko. Placing her nameplate on her desk, Yoshiko eagerly awaits the chance to turn Yasukawa into a renowned name in Guangdong.
• Polluted Wasteland: Yoshiko has an encounter with Guangdong's wretched landscape during one commute to work, watching the smog released from factories the night prior blowing over Kōshū before having to put on a mask to avoid inhaling sulphurous smoke and the stench of the sweaty humidity of the tram. By the time she gets to work, the pale blue mask has gone dark with smoke and soot.
• Propaganda Machine:
  • In Fujitsu's path, Yoshiko writes favorable articles endorsing their policies and politicians, genuinely buying into Ibuka's rhetoric. By the time of the Oil Crisis, people have caught on with her bias and denounce her as such, which offends her greatly.
  • Yoshiko reluctantly becomes a propagandist for Hitachi in their path, as the Kanton Fujin Koron is threatened with closure if they don’t comply. During Komai’s unrestrained response to the riots, Yoshiko is present at the verdict declarations of sixty captured rioters because the government wants reporters to detail these sentencings to demoralize the resistant population.
• Properly Paranoid: By the end of the Oil Crisis in Komai's route, Yoshiko has become extremely paranoid about stepping out-of-line with her Hitachi censors or having her house burned down by angry Chinese citizens. Considering that failing to abide by government censors could get her disappeared and the rising discontent against Japanese expats among the Chinese population, her paranoia is warranted.
• Rags to Riches: Her family starts out losing all of their wealth in the Yasuda Crisis, but Yoshiko climbs back up the ranks in Ibuka's path, becoming a respected journalist and elevating Kanton Fujin Koron to national fame. She thanks Fujitsu for facilitating her transformation from an unmarried daughter into an independent, ambitious jouranlist, which no one, not even her late father, can claim credit for.
  Are you proud, father? Or jealous?
• Rebellious Spirit: Downplayed. She doesn’t do anything illegal, but she expresses a lot of interest in the livelihoods of the Chinese and Zhujin, something that father doesn’t approve of because Japanese elites are supposed to be elevated above them.
• Rich Kid Turned Social Activist: Despite a rather sheltered upbringing, she expresses interest in the lives of the Chinese and Zhujin upon visiting Guangdong for the first time with her father. By the time her father dies and she becomes a journalist, she is actively reporting on the difficulties experienced in the lives of the Chinese and Zhujin.
  • During an auction held by Morita, if he chose to sell Yasuda's assets to the Japanese, she expresses disdain for the "profit-loving power-hungry money insects" and believes she is better off no longer being associated with them. Watching the auction play out, she also wonders what Morita has to gain from this, a thought ironically shared by Morita himself.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: Desperate to find a job, Yoshiko storms into the offices of Kanton Fujin Koron, a women's magazine, demanding work. When she is being forcibly removed by security, she states that she is the daughter of Baron Yasukawa. It sort of works; the editor brings her in, but only because her story would be interesting to the Japanese readership and not because he's intimidated. If anything, his tone to her is dripping with condescension.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: If Guangdong surrenders to Long Yun in the Western Insurrection, Yoshiko will be among the many Japanese citizens who flee the country. Sadly, Lam does not go with her, declining any opportunity to do so and accepting his doom.
• She Knows Too Much: Subverted in the IJA coup. After the Legislative Council is dissolved, Yoshiko asks an IJA spokesperson about how long the declared martial law will last, who grows annoyed with her questions and sends her out with an escort. At first, Yoshiko fears that she's going to be executed for asking too many questions and puncturing their facade of a temporary regime, but they instead send her on the first plane to the Home Isles, since her nobility spares her further punishment.
• Sheltered Aristocrat: Yoshiko empathizes with the Zhujin and Chinese of Guangdong, but her aristocratic upbringing has sheltered her from knowing the full extent of how much poverty and oppression they face. She comes to realize this after becoming an interviewer and going out in the field with Lam to see how horrible the living standards.
• Stranger in a Familiar Land: After nearly a decade of living in the tenements of Guangdong, Yoshiko briefly returns to her former, illustrious life when she visits a luxury hotel and sees the rest of the Japanese elite there. She finds out that she's been long forgotten by everyone else there and can no longer fit in with the dreamy crowd, spending most of her time near the exit. Instead, she's retained her investigative abilities to pick up on conversation, showing that she's now become more familiar with living in the middle-class of Guangdong.
• Teasing from Behind the Language Barrier: Yoshiko is the victim of this when the shopkeeper she tries to interview yells abuse at her, with the police officers understanding Cantonese reacting with shock.
• Took a Level in Cynic: After Komai violently suppresses the Guangdong riots, Yoshiko realizes that her old life of venturous journalism is completely destroyed. The surviving Chinese citizens will hate the Japanese more than ever and entering the Chinese districts would be a death sentence for her, leaving Yoshiko forever condemned to the walled enclaves built by Hitachi. The whole situation depresses Yoshiko and she hates Komai for it, but knows she can't do anything to help herself and dedicates the rest of her life to just staying alive.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Initially, she's sympathetic to the plights of the lower class, notably expressing opposition to Fujitsu's plans to bulldoze their districts in the Chinese New Year. However, spending more time in Ibuka's Guangdong has a toll on these views, whom she originally expressed concern for. Now, she considers them all freeloaders who refuse to work in a supposedly fair meritocracy and blame all of their troubles on Fujitsu like spoiled children. After her biases are chastised by her manager, she reaches the peak of her jerkassery, denying all criticism aimed towards Fujitsu and even unsympathetically ignoring a beggar on the way to her apartment.
• The Unapologetic: With an inflated ego in Fujitsu's path, Yoshiko doesn't like being admonished by her manager, even though the Oil Crisis makes her support of Fujitsu anathema for the paper's audience. She curses everyone but herself for her own troubles and stubbornly declares that she will write whatever she wants, regardless of the consequences.
• Urban Hellscape: Taking up Lam's offer to see the worst that Guangdong has to offer, the two of them go to one of Kōshū's walled cities. They spend half an hour touring the walled city experiencing the tall dim alleys with water dripping from ACs and drying clothes, children playing around a limp addict and unlicensed doctors advertising their services on front of brothels. Yoshiko will remark that "it's a completely different world" to which Lam will reply that it is the life of thousands of people in this one city and that there are many more.
• Unfulfilled Purpose Misery: In Ibuka’s Reconciliation ending, Yoshiko feels that Fujitsu and the society she worked so hard to advocate for has betrayed her. As far as she is concerned, being forced to moderate her articles is the equivalent of the unfulfilled potential of the aristocratic daughter she once used to be, chaperoned around at the use of other people. She even briefly considers to start her own pressing business, but reckons that the Yasukawa name has lost all meaning outside of Guangdong at this point.
• You Can't Go Home Again: No matter the path, barring the IJA coup, Yoshiko can never return to Japan because the Yasukawas have lost almost everything in the Home Isles and she's already become deeply integrated in Guangdong society.

Corporate Executives

Yamauchi Hiroshi

Role: President of Nintendo

The President of Nintendo, a playing card company that he inherited from his grandfather. Hiroshi has decided to move his business to Guangdong in an effort to resuscitate the company and hopefully make it prosper. Time will tell whether his gambit will work or not.

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• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: Affected by the Guangdong Riots in Matsushita's path, Yamauchi begs for the CCL to relent on their terms and end the strike on Nintendo. He considers his own pleading to be childish and pathetic, but he's too desperate to maintain his dignity.
• All for Nothing:
  • Under Fujitsu, Yamauchi brings Nintendo back into the forefront with Yokoi's help, but it could go to waste in the Guangdong riots, which will destroy his largest factory and deal an irreversible blow to the company if the CCL were destroyed. However, this can be subverted if diplomacy is used for the CCL, where negotiations have preserved most of the company's assets and its video game business can restart operation.
  • By the end of Hitachi's path, Nintendo is shut down and Yamauchi drowns his sorrows in alcohol, now only in possession of a few assets he's trying to sell. He ponders what he could've done better, whether being more ruthless or getting lucky with a more generous Chief Executive, but it's all in the past and Yamauchi has no choice but to leave Guangdong for Japan.
• Boring, but Practical: In Matsushita's route, Yamauchi presents a number of electronic products to get an investment from Matsushita Electric. None of the investors are impressed by what they see, but they still deem them practical enough to have potential, so they permit the production of one product, the vacuum cleaner.
• Despair Event Horizon: Even though Hitachi can suppress the Riots, Nintendo will be shut down by then. Having lost every financial avenue in Guangdong and losing his family business, a depressed Yamauchi gives up and immigrates back to the Home Isles.
• The Determinator: Though knocked down by the Yasuda Crisis, Hiroshi becomes even more determined to bounce back and keep his business alive. This eventually pays off in Sony and Fujitsu's path. Not so much with Matsushita Electronic and especially not Hitachi's path, though Yamauchi still doesn't give up hope in the former route.
• Drowning My Sorrows: When his love hotel business gets shut down by Hitachi, Yamauchi starts drinking to cope with the sorrow that Nintendo might close its doors under the repressive boot of Komai.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: If Sony successfully stops the Guangdong riots, Yamauchi will finally enjoy his long-desired dream of being an entrepreneur and make Nintendo more prosperous than ever. He even receives congratulations from Ho for making it so far.
• Family Business: Yamauchi runs Nintendo, a playing card company set up by his great-grandfather, Yamauchi Fusajiro, and depending on the choices taken by the player, Nintendo's future could look very different compared to the one seen in our timeline.
• Hero-Worshipper: Yamauchi idolizes his great-grandfather, relating his current financial struggles to his ancestor's difficulties when he was manufacturing and selling hanafuda cards. His determination inspires Yamauchi to do the same, no matter how many times he's pushed to the ground.
• Historical In-Joke: If the CCL were negotiated with in Fujitsu's path, Yamauchi brings up the Magnavox Odyssey from the United States and proposes that Nintendo should create their own console to compete with it, foreshadowing Nintendo's rise to become a world-famous video game company like they are in OTL.
• I Did What I Had to Do: After the Hitachi coup, Nintendo struggles as they are squeezed out of the market like every other business in Guangdong. Desperate, Yamauchi reluctantly takes a deal with Yakuza thugs so he can manage Love Hotels and keep Nintendo alive by any means necessary. However, it ends up being for naught when the hotels are raided and shut down.
• In Spite of a Nail: Despite Japan winning WW2 and Guangdong's creation, if Ibuka becomes Chief Executive Yamauchi will meet Gunpei Yokoi under the same circumstances as OTL, leading to the creation of the Ultra Hand and Nintendo's entry into the toy business. The Reconciliation ending even has Yamauchi suggesting they look into video gaming after showing Yokoi the Magnavox Odyssey.
• It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time: While looking to enter the instant food market, Hiroshi decides to sell rice. At the time, it seemed like a Boring, but Practical idea, since it's easy to rehydrate and no other company has invested in the rice market; every other food was cornered by someone else, like Momofuku Ando's control of the noodle market under Nissin Foods. However, the Yasuda Crisis and downward spiral of Nintendo makes Hiroshi realize why no one has bothered to sell rice; it's so easy to make that no consumer would shell out cash to buy something they already have. Hiroshi berates himself for not seeing this crucial error before.
• I've Come Too Far: Suffering from the Yasuda Crisis and his tragically miscalculated decision to invest in instant rice, Hiroshi nearly calls it quits, until he reflects on how far he's gotten. After a moment of contemplation, Hiroshi decides to press onwards, not yet ready to give up all the work he's done so far.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: Getting into the taxi service in Matsushita's path, Yamauchi's business is disrupted when the Oil Crisis strikes and his CCL-affiliated drivers walk out of negotiations for higher wages that cannot be afforded. Without any drivers, Yamauchi folds this venture and sells all of his taxi-related assets to scrape whatever he can.
• Necessarily Evil: With Komai in charge and running other businesses out for Manchuria, Yamauchi becomes a shady love hotel tycoon owner, since there's no other way for Nintendo to survive.
• Nervous Wreck: Yamauchi becomes anxious when his love hotels are shut down in Hitachi's path, as he anxiously works through the financial reports, while shaking, sweating, and suffering from a headache. It's well-justified too, as three armed Kenpeitai men suddenly barge into his office and demand his signature to surrender his assets to Hitachi.
• Point of Divergence: The hook of his subplot is seeing how Nintendo grows and develops its identity in each route:
  • In Sony's route, Nintendo retains its primary business in hanafuda cards and is assisted by Stanley Ho into becoming a famous gambling company.
  • In Matsushita's route, Nintendo wallows in obscurity. Matsushita Electric is only willing to invest in Yamauchi's vacuum cleaners, which are criticized for their subpar quality and can't compete with the established corporate titans in Guangdong. Yamauchi tries to breathe life back into Nintendo during the Riots by starting a taxi business, but it flops without any hired drivers. Despite these setbacks, Yamauchi refuses to give up just yet and ends the first decade on an uncertain note of what he'll try next.
  • In Fujitsu's route, Nintendo becomes a renowned novelty toy company, embracing Ibuka's vision by investing in revolutionary electronics, like the light gun. It's ultimate fate depends on how the CCL were dealt with. If they were dismantled, Nintendo's largest factory is destroyed and Yamauchi is forced to close the business. If they were negotiated with, Nintendo survives and Yamauchi thinks about entering the video game industry by creating a console to match the Magnavox Odyssey.
  • In Hitachi's route, Nintendo suffers under the Kenpeitai's oppression and the Manchurian companies' dominance. Yamauchi tries to invest in a chain of shoddy love hotels, but the business goes under when discovered by the Kenpeitai, forcing him to sell Nintendo to Hitachi as a desperate last resort. Nintendo finally perishes when the Guangdong Riots break out, so Yamauchi cuts his losses and heads back to the Home Isles.
  • In the IJA's route, Yamauchi is arrested with thousands of other businessmen, shutting Nintendo down for good.
• Put on a Prison Bus: Yamauchi isn't killed during the IJA coup, but he is arrested and thrown behind bars, while the soldiers seize his financial assets.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Despite losing money in the Guangdong Riots, Yamauchi still tries to negotiate with his former workers in the CCL. Unfortunately, the rioters aren't yet keen to settle a deal and only offer their thanks for being cordial, though Yamauchi is still hopeful that the matter can be settled peacefully.
• Richard Nixon, the Used Car Salesman: In OTL, Hiroshi was the third president of Nintendo, overseeing revolutionary new products in the video game industry, including the Game & Watch and the Nintendo Entertainment System. In this timeline, Hiroshi moves to Guangdong to resuscitate the dying Nintendo company by treading new ground.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Even if Komai dismantles the Riots, Yamauchi has lost everything in Guangdong, with Nintendo's closure. Though he can blame Hitachi and the Kenpeitai for his misfortune, there's nothing he can do besides board the next ferry to the Home Isles, hoping he'll have better luck there.
• Self-Made Man: With Sony and Cheung Kong's aid, Yamauchi can go from a struggling business owner into a rising star in the gambling industry.
• Sole Survivor: In Hitachi's route, Yamauchi is the only worker in his love hotel business to not be arrested by the Kenpeitai. Yamauchi isn't sure why he was spared beyond a vague belief that he still has a use for Hitachi.
• Starting a New Life:
  • Yamauchi migrates from Japan to Guangdong to start over again and resuscitate his family's struggling hanafuda playing card business, which saw brief success in the post-war period before the market became oversaturated. Seeing Guangdong as a land of opportunity for businesses under the rule of Suzuki, he arrives in Honkon to lay the foundations and what happens next will depend on how Guangdong politics develop.
  • By the end of Hitachi's path, Nintendo has crashed and burned, with Hitachi squeezing everyone out of the market and the Kenpeitai cracking down any sources of income from the black market. This prompets Yamauchi to leave Honkon after a decade of failure, hoping to start anew in the Home Isles.
• Took a Level in Cheerfulness: Yamauchi's spirits are raised if Morita takes over Guangdong and Nintendo gets the funding needed to enter into the gambling industry, the first long-time success he's gotten in years. As he stands in awe at the factory floor printing his cards, Yamauchi reflects on Nintendo's turn of fortune, contrary to his past skepticism of Morita's promises. By the end of the path, Yamauchi is riding high on his success and expresses gratitude to the administration that catered to him.
• Took a Level in Cynic: Yamauchi suffers under Hitachi's reign and understandably gets more cynical. All of his financial ventures flop, he's forced to sell his private assets to Hitachi, and Nintendo finally dies when the Guangdong Riots hit. Even though Yamauchi still has money and investments to his name, he can't muster any optimism to think that he can recover in Guangdong.
• Uncertain Doom: If the IJA take over Guangdong, Yamauchi's story is cut short as he is arrested by the IJA and sent behind bars, never to be heard of again.
• Workaholic: Arriving in Guangdong, Yamauchi works diligently to revive Nintendo, spending hours in his unremarkable Honkon office, reading through every financial report, and arriving to work early so he can deal with the administrative tasks and spend the rest of the day exploring new opportunities.

Gunpei Yokoi

Role: N/A

A Nintendo factory worker, who Yamauchi meets by chance in Ibuka's path. Yamauchi catches him building a prototype novelty toy, which impresses him enough to make Yokoi his business partner and switch Nintendo to the toy business.

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• Gadgeteer Genius: Gunpei Yokoi is smart enough to design a complicated, plastic toy that piques the interest of Yamauchi and starts Nintendo's path to becoming a toy company. Soon, he becomes Yamauchi's right-hand man and in charge of designing revolutionary novelties, like the electronic Love Tester and the optoelectronic light gun.
• In Spite of a Nail: Gunpei Yokoi can still rise to be a major figure in Nintendo, despite the vastly different circumstance sin Ibuka's path, turning the company into a distributor of novelty toys. His introduction to Yamauchi also parallels their OTL introduction, where Yokoi was a Nintendo factory worker who was tinkering with a toy and caught Yamauchi's attention.
• Mysterious Past: It is not explained what Yokoi is doing in Guangdong or how he got into Yamauchi's employ.
• Number Two: Yokoi can become Yamauchi's right hand man in Ibuka's path, coming up with revolutionary toy designs that put Nintendo on the map.
• Rags to Riches: Gunpei Yokoi is introduced as one of the countless maintenance workers living in Guangdong before becoming a renowned toy inventor when he's noticed by Yamauchi, exclusively in Ibuka's path.
• Satellite Character: Yokoi only appears in Fujitsu's path and he only directly interacts with Yamauchi.

Matsushita Kōnosuke

Role: President of Matsushita Electric Company

The patriarch of the Matsushita family and founder of Matsushita Electric. Though based in Osaka, he indirectly exerts his influence in Guangdong through his son-in-law, Masaharu, who's desperate to earn his approval.

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• Affably Evil: At work, Kōnosuke is dispassionate and heartless, holding everyone to a high standard and abetting to the exploitation of thousands of Chinese workers. However, when he's off the clock, he becomes a lot more pleasant and excited to spend time with his family.
• Anti-Nepotism: Outside of work, Kōnosuke will treat Masaharu like family. On the job, Kōnosuke is aloof towards his son-in-law, unwilling coddle him with undue praise and implicitly expressing his displeasure over his inadequacies.^note This has some basis in real-life too. When Masaharu led the company, Kōnosuke was reportedly disillusioned with his leadership and Masaharu's desperate attempt to reassert control partially led to the company's creative decline in the 1990's.
• Egocentric Team Naming: Kōnosuke named his electronics company after his family's name.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones:
  • He adores his daughter, Sachiko, despite otherwise being a ruthless businessman.
  • While he holds Masaharu to a high standard, Kōnosuke still cares for him as his son-in-law. Even if Masaharu gets puppeted, Kōnosuke just comments his relief that he's safe after the Guangdong riots and doesn't blame him for the nigh-unwinnable situation.
• Evil Old Folks: Kōnosuke is 67 years old and abets to all of Masaharu's abuses against the Guangdong populace.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Masaharu may be the one actively oppressing the Chinese people of Guangdong, but Kōnosuke is Matsushita Electric's true leader and earning his approval is what motivates Masaharu in the first place.
• Historical Villain Upgrade: While OTL Kōnosuke's private opinion on World War II is unclear (he was a private man in general), his company did produce material for their war effort, up to Japan's surrender to the Allies. In this timeline, Kōnosuke is much worse, being an unambiguous imperialist who exploits the labor off of countless Chinese citizens to build his products.
• Innocently Insensitive. Though Kōnosuke doesn't blame a puppeted Masaharu for disappointing him again, he clearly still doesn't respect him and invites him to a stockholder's meeting in Osaka that he can be a great help to. The comment was intended to be reassuring, but it only depresses Masaharu more, thinking that he should be the one people turn to for help and not the other way around.
• Living Legend: Kōnosuke is hailed as one of the few self-made men in all of Japan, which sets a high bar of expectations for Masaharu to meet.
• Minor Major Character: Most of his appearances are relegated to flashbacks and he mostly resides in the Home Isles, so his presence in Guangdong is limited to phone calls. However, he is the founder of Matsushita Electric and his relationship with Masaharu is a key theme in his route.
• Pet the Dog:
  • His relationship with Masaharu took a hit in the 1950's, but he still invited him and Sachiko to dinner one night so that the family can eat together again.
  • If Masaharu does a good job in advancing Matsushita Electric's interests in Japan, Kōnosuke will smile and praise him, especially when he wins the middle class over with his cheap air conditioners or sparks a 500% spike in air conditioner sales during an intense heat wave.
  • Even when Masaharu gets puppeted and fails his father-in-law for a second time, Kōnosuke doesn't hold it against him too much, just glad that he's still alive and thinking that he can still help the company through other ways.
• Self-Made Man: He started out as an elementary school dropout and meager door-to-door, electrical fan salesman. Eventually, he rose to found one of the few non-Zaibatsu mega-corporations in Japan.
• Sore Loser: Though outwardly composed, Kōnosuke was clearly displeased when Sony dealt their first victory against Matsushita Electric, subtly blaming Masaharu and his complacency for leaving the company so vulnerable.
• Start My Own: He used to work for Osaka Electric Light Company before leaving and founding his own company, Matsushita Electric.
• When He Smiles: When a victorious Masaharu comments on his busy schedule, Kōnosuke lets out a chuckle, one of the rare times he's ever laughed and cathartic proof that Masaharu has finally earned his respect.

Director Samejima (UNMARKED SPOILERS)

Role: N/A

The Mangyō and Nissan representative sent to monitor Komai's handling of the Guangdong Riots.

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• Allegorical Character: Samejima exists to give a human face to Mangyō and Nissan, as well as personify their doubts of Komai's capabilities.
• Faux Affably Evil: His outward politeness is even more fragile than Komai's, with the slightest trouble being enough for him to expose his temper. Not to mention the fact that he's working for a cruel corporation working thousands of people to death.
• Jerkass Has a Point: He's an corrupt, greedy businessman, but he is right that Komai is purposely downplaying the severity of the Guangdong Riots in the face of his superiors, which is tantamount to treason. If Komai relied too much on Manchuria's help in the Oil Crisis, the Manchurian delegation will personally witness the riots' chaos and validate Samejima by taking away Komai's autonomy.
• No Full Name Given: "Samejima" is a Japanese surname, leaving his first name unknown.
• Pragmatic Villainy: If he personally sees the damage wrought by the Guangdong Riots, Samejima tears Komai for lying about their severity and says that he could be fired for this. However, Samejima lets him keep his position because removing him now would make the rioters even more powerful.
• Remember the New Guy?: Samejima is never seen or mentioned, until the Guangdong Riots, hence why his appearance and role in the story is an intrinsic spoiler.

Guangdong Police

Kawasaki Minori

Role: N/A

A police sergeant in charge of investigating and shutting down the opium trade that plagues Guangdong, dragging him into a wider conspiracy that extends the trade's reach far longer than he could have comprehended.

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• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: As morally questionable and Sinophobic as he is, Kawasaki is affectionate with his wife. If he succeeds with the investigation, he promises to take her on a vacation, proposing Mexico or Peru.
• Lead Police Detective: Kawasaki is the protagonist of the opium trade war plotline, as he discovers Manchuria and the Kenpeitai's facilitation of the opium market and exposes the connection so that it can be destroyed.
• A Lighter Shade of Black: Kawasaki is serving a corrupt regime that benefits corporations and profits above the Chinese people, but he does legitimately believe he is protecting the public welfare and trying to take down a corrupt drug trade run by the more merciless Kenpeitai.
• Moral Myopia: If he fails the investigation, Kawasaki expresses great disappointment at filing the case away as a failure, pondering how much suffering is going to be left unanswered with these documents. However, this is undercut by his description of the Chinese population biting at his heels and dragging him down.

Ito

Role: N/A

A police lieutenant who helps Kawasaki Minori's dismantle the opium trade.

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• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: When the opium trade is dismantled, Ito celebrates by visiting his wife and kids, who are living in Thailand.
• A Lighter Shade of Black: He's just as Sinophobic as his partner and serves a brutal corporate regime, but he at least wants to do something against the exploitative and violent opium trade facilitated by the Kenpeitai and Manchuria.
• No Full Name Given: Only his surname is revealed.
• Number Two: Ito is the deuteragonist to Kawasaki, giving him a character to bounce off of and help destroy the opium trade plaguing Guangdong.
• Rank Up: If the opium trade is successfully dismantled, Ito will be promoted to captain as a reward.

Lui Lok

Role: N/A

A corrupt detective in the Guangdong Police with connections to both the Triads and Yakuza. A shady individual involved in Guangdong's long-standing drug trade, Lui is Chief Executive Morita's first target in his campaign to cleanse the Guangdong police force of corruption.

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• Dirty Cop: Lui has corrupt ties to the gangsters running Guangdong's drug trade, which makes him a target for Morita to clean the police force of its seedy individuals.
• The Determinator: Inspector Lui will never give up his corrupt practices or participation in the Guangdong drug ring, no matter how much Sony and Ōmori try to crack down on it.
• Fall Guy: If the ICAC is anything but completely independent, they can arrest Lui and try him. Unfortunately, he's also the fall guy for his colleagues to take the blame for the police's corruption, so there are still stragglers who escaped and can continue their crimes. During his arrest, he will lampshade this fact and point to Sagawa as the one really in charge, a claim which Sagawa calmly denies.
• Karma Houdini: If Morita's Corruption Ordinance fails to pass the Legislative Council, Lui will be free to continue his corrupt practices.
• Smug Snake: Lui doesn't bother checking over his shoulder, believing he is untouchable from Morita, Ho, the Police, the Triads, and the Yakuza.
• Wild Card: Lui has connections with both the Triads and Yakuza, even being bold enough to work with both in the same day.

Sagawa Minoru

Role: N/A

A senior investigator in the Guangdong Police and the equally corrupt superior of Lui Lok.

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• Dirty Cop: Sagawa is a senior investigator of the Guangdong Police and the supervisor of Lui's drug smuggling ring.
• Karma Houdini: In most scenarios involving the ICAC, Sagawa will escape proper punishment for his corruption because of his connections and seniority. It can get downplayed if the ICAC is powerful enough and can force his resignation or send him to Japan to face a lighter trial. However, this can be subverted if the ICAC is completely independent, a deal is reached with the Police to restrain it, and Morita refuses to compromise on letting him go to the Home Isles.
• Resigned in Disgrace: If an Inspectorate-General led ICAC is formed, Morita may choose to pressure Sagawa into resigning. Despite rehearsed excuses, the evidence presented against him by Li and Ōmori is too strong and he is forced into resigning with the tycoons wanting it dealt with quietly.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: If an Inspectorate-General led ICAC is ordered to arrest Sagawa, a member of the Legislative Council will inform him, leading him to take the first flight to Tokyo and to flee from prosecution, with the Japanese government refusing to extradite him. When informed about this situation, Morita will explode with anger knowing that he had made a mistake and that corruption will continue to go unpunished.

The Lee Family

General Tropes

• Allegorical Character: The Lee family represent the average working class Chinese family forced to work in Guangdong's factories and barely able to survive. The trajectory they experience depending the Chief Executive reflects on how the government is affecting Guangdong's working class as a whole.
• Bittersweet Ending: There are mixed things for the Lee family in Matsushita's ending. While they are happy that Chun has returned home safely and that no one died in the Guangdong riots, there is an underlying feeling of bitterness that the oppressive status quo has been maintained and that they'll return to being nameless cogs for the corporations to exploit.
• Bystander Syndrome:
  • If the NPA defeats the Republic of China and turns its attention to Guangdong, thousands will march on the streets in opposition to the Japanese regime. However, the Lee family does not participate befcause the parents need to continue working and do not want to endanger their family. In particular, Hei expresses annoyance when ac up falls on the floor and is shattered by the crowd's rumbling, all for a cause that he considers lost. The only one who isn't keen to sit back is Chun foreshadowing his latter involvement in the Guangdong Riots.
  • With the exception of Chun, most of the Lees are reluctant to join the Guangdong riots, preferring safety than active participation in politics. This gets completely subverted in Komai's path and his introduction of the Entrepreneurial Recovery Ordinance, where Hei and Wai can no longer stand idly by and encourage Chun to support the CCL.
• Forced from Their Home:
  • They're introduced being evicted from their village by Kenpeitai officers and sent to the tenements so they can be put to work.
  • In Ibuka's path, this happens to the Lee family again, as the construction of larger tenements are ordered and they will be moved from their claustrophobic apartment into the new facility. Much as they hate their current living standards, there is a feeling of sadness over their predicament, knowing that they won't be able to eat together as a family again in their new home.
• Jobless Parent Drama: In the wake of the RLSO's repeal, Leong, the family's patriarch, gets laid off and the youngest members of the family have to be pulled from school as a result to keep food on the table.
• Pyrrhic Victory: While all of the Lees survive the Guangdong riots in Matsushita's path, they're still stuck in the old, exploitative hierarchy where they are subject to abuse from their Japanese overlords. Most of the family is relieved of Chun's safe return from the riots, but there's hardly a mood for celebration when they know what's to come afterwards.
• Revenge by Proxy: If the IJA intervene in Hitachi's route, they target Chun's family in retribution for him executing Komai. This is subverted in all other paths, where the IJA leave his family alone, though a death-seeking Hei wishes that they did.
• Throw the Dog a Bone:
  • While it's not a perfect ending, the Lee family comes out in relatively better condition at the end of Sony's path. All of the Lees are still alive, Chun's job is more bearable, their hovel is good enough to be a suitable home, and Hei and Wai have potential careers in Sony and Cheung Kong, meaning they can move out at some point, if good luck continues to favor them.
  • If Ibuka chooses the Reconciliation path and the CCL were negotiated with, the Lee family gets a fairly happy ending, Chun returns home with no charges against him and a remorseful Hei gives up his toxic membership in Fujitsu to start his own engineering business. Better yet, Chun accepts Hei's apologies and invites his little brother on a walk to catch up, mending the rift that has developed between them. The only downside is Wai needing to work an internship before entering college, since Hei no longer has a stable income, but there is a cautious hope that things will get better.
• Too Broken to Break: If Matsuzawa repealed the RLSO and the effects of the Yasuda Crisis begin to wear off, the Lee family begin to return to a melancholy norm without the RLSO and Wai still in hospital. The morale of the family is low, but there is nothing else they can do but continue onwards in "the hellhole that was Guangdong."
• Took a Level in Cheerfulness: Downplayed. If the RLSO was only delayed during the Yasuda crisis and the effects begin to wear off, morale in the Lee family will be decent with both Hei and Wai going back to school and the parents smiling more frequently. Reflecting upon this, Chun recognizes that they are still subject to the same oppressive nature of Guangdong as always and there is nothing they can do but continue back on the grind.
• Trauma Conga Line: If Matsuzawa sides with Ibuka and fully repeals the RLSO, Chun's sister Wai gets pulled from school because the family cannot afford it anymore and then gets hit by a truck leaving her in critical condition. Lee doesn't even have time to grieve with long hours at the factory.

Lee Chun

Role: N/A

A cynical factory laborer working to support his family, pressued on both sides by both his abysmal working conditions and his family's deteriorating living standards.

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• An Arm and a Leg: Barring Hitachi's route, Chun perishes in the IJA coup when a pipe bomb explodes in his hand. When Lam recovers the body and sends it to his family, they're horrified to see that he's missing an arm on the charred side of his body.
• Ascended Extra: Unlike most fictional characters in TNO who are usually restricted to their own storyline without affecting the overall plot, Lee Chun becomes a key figure in Guangdong by assassinating Komai.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Chun hates going to work and toiling in the factories for miniscule wages, wishing that he could be freed from his harsh job. However, if Matsuzawa allows the Kenpeitai to set up a curfew, Chun gets his wish in the worst way possible; a checkpoint gets set up between his home and his workplace, meaning that he can't go to his night shift without risking arrest. This means he now has to face the threat of starving to death, without the money to fulfill his basic needs.
• Bearer of Bad News:
  • Chun hates to tell his parents about the economic ruin brought by the Yasuda Crisis, which puts him at great risk of losing his job.
  • Subverted when Chun observes his Hei reading and making copies of technical magazines and cannot bring himself to tell Hei that the current lackluster education in Guangdong has placed a ceiling on how high he can rise.
• Better to Die than Be Killed: When Komai suppresses the Guangdong riots, Chun shoots himself with his last bullet to protect his family from Hitachi retribution, which he calmly accepts, since he's already bleeding from his wounds and cornered at an apartment complex.
• Big Brother Instinct:
  • Even with his pay getting smaller and smaller, Chun will refuse to let his siblings be taken out of school again after the Yasuda Crisis has settled, even if it means he has less to eat.
  • Chun watches out for his younger brother Hei during the riots in Matsushita's Guangdong. When Hei is grabbed and arrested by a police formation, Chun tries to hold on to him, but to no avail.
• Book Dumb: Subverted. Given his occupation as a factory worker, most Japanese would think he's of average intelligence. However, Chun is actually smarter than his station would imply, something that Hei can vouch for.
• Broken Pedestal: Hei loves and adores his older brother, but upon accepting an offer to join Fujitsu, the admiration turns into conflict, as Chun thinks he's selling his soul out to Ibuka and Hei espouses the same Fujitsu propaganda that blames the Chinese people's poverty on their own actions.
• Defiant to the End: Komai can broadcast the executions of captured rioters to demoralize the others, but this has the opposite effect on Chun, who feels emboldened to fight for the CCL's ideals with his dying breath and take down as many Japanese officers before he goes down.
• Determinator: Chun is not one to give up easily. In Fujitsu's riots, he resists the CCL's potential destruction with every ounce of energy he has, attempting to reach for a pistol when his rifle jams and trying to bite Lam while he's being arrested, only giving up when he's hit with a baton. Meanwhile, in Hitachi's riots, he dares to kidnap Komai to execute him, even if it would result in his own demise.
• The Dog Bites Back: Years of exploitation and abuse by the corporations drives Chun to join the Guangdong riots, demanding justice and fairer treatment for the marginalized Chinese.
• Et Tu, Brute?: Chun is shocked and enraged to hear Hei apply for Zhujin membership in Ibuka's path, officially joining the Japanese's side and leading him to punch Hei in response. Worse still, the rest of the family is okay with Hei becoming a Zhujin, if it means a stable income.
• The Face: His zeal, connections, and uncanny ability to inspire fervor makes Chun the spearhead and representative of the CCL in Ibuka's path.
• Face Death with Dignity: As Chun faces off soldiers at gunpoint without fear in the prelude to the Hitachi variant of the IJA takeover, he only offers a contemptuous remark before he executes Komai and is gunned down.
• Formerly Friendly Family: As Hei shoots ahead in a Fujitsu-run society, Chun is left behind, and in the end they're barely on speaking terms.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: Which riot organization Chun is a member of changes depending on who is Chief Executive. In Matsushita and Ibuka’s paths, he is a member of the CCL with their appeal to the Chinese working class and opposition to corporate rule. Due to Morita’s extensive reforms to improve the societal standing of the Chinese and Zhujin, Chun is a member of the GFT in that path, still angry with corporate oppression but not to the same extent as seen in other paths. On the contrary, Komai’s brutal disregard for human life pushes Chun to become a runner for the CCL and actively aid the resistance before the Riots even begin.
• Gilded Cage: It's the title of an epilogue event, if the CCL were negotiated with in Ibuka's Persistence route. Chun will be placed under house arrest for his leading role in the riots where Fujitsu promises that these accommodations are temporary and that he will be relocated to more permanent facilities repurposed from Hitachi buildings, but Chun doesn’t expect this to be followed through with. When Hei visits his temporary holding place, he finds the room's smallness extremely uncomfortable.
• Happiness in Minimum Wage: By the end of Morita's route, Chun knows that his family will probably not ascend to the upper class, but he's since stopped caring about his paycheck. He's just content that the Lees are living in relatively comfortable circumstances and that he's with his family.
• Heroic RRoD: As the Guangdong riots wane under Komai's boot, Chun feels exhausted from the whole conflict, yet content that he's sacrificing his life for a good cause rather than perishing in a factory. When he lies bleeding in a corner and one step away from death's door, Chun decides to shoot himself through the mouth, but not before thinking about how tired he is and that he doesn't want to run away from his fate anymore.
• Hope Bringer: The CCL are inspired by Chun's bravery and conviction, believing that he is the perfect flag-bearer for their cause.
• Hope Spot: Desperate for recognition and a raise, Chun points out to his foreman of an improvement the factory can make to maximize efficiency. The foreman seems grateful to take his advice and brings it up to his supervisor, but he steals all the credit and gets rewarded for it, leaving Chun with nothing.
• Implicit Prison: If the Kenpeitai are deployed to clean the streets of protestors in the wake of the Yasuda crisis, a curfew will be established in the Chinese parts of Kōshu with checkpoints between Chun's home and factory. This means that for a time he won't bring in any wages, trapped within his home.
• The Informant: Chun becomes one if Morita chooses to tighten the enforcement of tax laws through watchdogs. A Japanese government agent from the Financial Office visits Chun at his workplace to ask about whether or not his managers' Toyota Crown is his own or the comapny's in flawless Cantonese. Chun tells the agent that his manager frequently brags about having bought the car and having "made it" in life. The next day the agent and his colleagues drag the manager off for questioning and Chun finds a packet of money and a thank you note.
• Inspirational Martyr: This is what Chun hopes he will be in the ending where he kills Komai, hoping that others will finish the work he started. His gambit is successful, as a couple held up in the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall discuss if he should get a statue and the remaining resistance fighters commemorate him as a martyr.
• Know When to Fold 'Em:
  • If the RLSO is delayed instead of repealed, Chun will be outraged at another "indefinite postponement" and join a crowd clashing with the police. However, he sees the police ready their batons when the situation is about to get out of hand and is composed enough to withdraw back into the crowd, since getting arrested would put his entire family in danger. It also helps that his younger sister doesn't suffer a car accident in this scenario, where he's more outraged than ever.
  • With Ibuka offering an olive branch to the rioters, Lee Chun willingly ends his crusade and disbands the CCL. Though there is a part of him that is disappointed he didn't achieve more and will probably never see his comrades again, Chun is too tired to keep fighting and just wants the conflict to end at this point.
• Living Is More than Surviving: Not willing to remain silent in the face of corporate oppression, Chun will join with one of the protestor organizations during the riots. He knows it will be risky and that his family worries about him, but the protests give Chun purpose and camaraderie with his fellow protestors.
• Misplaced Retribution: Angry at the world after his sister gets hit by a truck, he takes to yelling insults at police officers around the Guangdong Government Complex at night before assaulting Lam Haau-cyun. Fortunately, Lam is sympathetic enough to let it slide and just warn Chun to leave before the less merciful Kenpeitai get involved.
• Mood Whiplash: After Morita's visit to his factory, he takes great enjoyment at how his manager got chewed out and instructed to abide by labor laws and his younger siblings are ecstatic to hear this as well. This turns to a brief dissapointment when he and his entire shift are laid off, reinforcing the cynicism common in Guangdong. However, upon returning home, he finds a recruitment letter from Cheung Kong who offer him good pay for providing steady hands.
• Necessarily Evil: As the IJA coup tears through Guangdong, Chun prepares to throw a pipe bomb at several soldiers, even as they are dragging an innocent woman to be killed. Chun is sullen that his desperation has driven him to sacrifice his morals and he mutters a quiet apology to the woman before he throws the bomb. Chun ultimately doesn't go through with it because the bomb prematurely blows up in his hand and kills him.
• Not-So-Small Role: Chun seems to be just a portrait of the "man in the street" for Guangdong, but he can potentially take on a leadership role an anti-Japanese guerrilla organization and personally kill Komai during the Oil Crisis.
• Put on a Prison Bus: If the CCL were dismantled by Ibuka, Chun is last seen being arrested by Lam, with Hei not knowing where his brother is being detained.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Defied. The soldiers watching Chun hold Komai hostage expect him to make one but he has nothing to say to them.
  Chun: "Were you expecting a speech? I have nothing left to say to you."
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: If Komai is unable to control the Guangdong riots, Chun and others will make an assault on Komai's Hitachi headquarters in revenge for his brutality against the Chinese and in particular, his family, cutting down his men and executing Komai himself.
• The Sleepless: By the end of the riots in Komai’s path, Chun is severely sleep deprived and only gets four hours of sleep in a resistance warehouse before continuing his war of attrition. Despite this, he still has some energy to keep up the noble fight, with some of his comrades entertaining the notion of using amphetamines to keep him and everyone else going.
• Shotguns Are Just Better: Chun makes use of one as he scavenges it from one of his deceased comrades and kills Komai's remaining bodyguards, breaches his panic room, and murder Komai with said shotgun.
• Sole Survivor: Downplayed. Chun is the last remaining member of the raiding party set out to kill Komai. That being said, once he holds Komai hostage and executes him, Chun is immediately killed.
• Stranger in a Familiar Land: Downplayed in Fujitsu's path, but Chun starts feeling uncomfortable in the family apartment, which he's been appearing more sporadically in. Everything feels the same to him, but Hei's absence leaves an unfamiliar feeling of incompleteness and reminds him Chun of how little they speak with each other, ever since Hei came under Fujitsu's umbrella.
• Stunned Silence: When Morita chooses to tackle workers' rights, he will visit Lee's factory as part of an inspection. Lee's manager tells the workers the day prior to make preparations and that they would have to make up the time lost. During the visit, if Morita chose to focus on work hours and pay, Li will play the audio recording of the manager telling the workers to work more and asks Lee whether he or the manager is being more truthful. He answers honestly, after he and the other workers are taken aback by the development. If Morita chose to focus on safety, then Morita will make a break for the real factory floor upon the visit to discover the unsafe work conditions. The workers follow in silence and then even more shocked to see Morita berate the manager in Cantonese in front of them.
• Suicide Mission: If the riots go south for a Komai-led Guangdong, Chun and members of the Guangdong People's Anti Japanese Guerrilla embark on an attack on Komai's refuge. Chun is fully aware that no matter the outcome, they will not survive.
  Scout: "Soldiers two kilometres away! What are we going to do, comrade?"
  Chun: "Die I guess, but we all knew that anyway."
• Taking You with Me: Even as the IJA depose Hitachi and are tearing Guangdong apart, Chun and a cadre raid the destroyed Government Complex to personally kill Komai. He knows that he's not getting out of the situation alive, but he wants to ensure that Komai perishes beforehand and can be a hero, if only for one day.
• That Man Is Dead: As his relationship with Hei falls apart in Ibuka's path, Chun finally disowns him in preparation of the Guangdong riots, reluctantly accepting that he is now the enemy. However, Chun takes it back in Ibuka's Reconciliation ending, especially if the CCL were negotiated with.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: Despite the limited concessions made to worker rights in the RLSO, Chun ends his working day on a bright note when his father earns a lot more money than he usually does and promises to buy pork for the entire family the next day, a luxury in the tenements of Guangdong.
• Took a Level in Badass: In the Komai variant of the IJA coup, Chun goes from an ordinary laborer to leading an assault on the Legislative Complex. He valiantly fights through the Hitachi security, killing multiple guards with a variety of guns and successfully assassinating Komai.
• Took a Level in Cheerfulness: Downplayed. At the end of Morita's economic focus tree, Chun notices the elevated living standards and social mobility for the Chinese. Though he observes an elitist attitude among Sony and Cheung Kong's men, Chun acknowledges that it's, at least, an improvement from before, to a point that he can imagine Hei or Wai potentially moving up to the growing middle class of business people.
• Took a Level in Cynic:
  • He was already depressed about living Guangdong under Suzuki, but he starts becoming even more temperamental and cynical after the Yasuda Crisis repeals the few benefits of the RLSO and leaves his family in a more dire financial situation. Even in this most optimal outcome of a Morita ascension, Chun does not share his younger siblings' enthusiasm and faith in Morita's pledges to improve their lives, remarking that "words are cheap" and implying it will be yet another broken promise.
  • The horrors and atrocities brought by Komai really take their toll on Chun, who starts wondering if it's really worth living in the corporate nightmare brought on by Hitachi. If Komai invites Manchurian executives to visit Guangdong, Chun recognizes the futility of his life and struggles to think of his family as motivation to keep working.
• Undignified Death: In all scenarios except Hitachi's route, Chun perishes in the IJA coup because a poorly-made pipe bomb explodes in his hands, not even given the chance to kill some soldiers beforehand.
• Up Through the Ranks: If Morita invests in education and Hei submits his essay to Sony, Hei will also make a recommendation for Chun saying that he could do more than he is doing at Cheung Kong. Chun's current managers ignore his suggestions for improving efficiency, so he eagerly accepts an offer from Sony to work as a factory foreman.

Lee Hei

Role: N/A

The teenage brother of Lee Chun, Lee Hei is an engineering prodigy with a creative mind who devotes most of his time to creating blueprints for his ambitious designs. While Guangdong has no need for a genius inventor like Hei at the moment, Hei's fortunes will definitively change depending on who becomes Chief Executive.

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• The Ace: Hei is an engineering prodigy who becomes a model of Sony's and Fujitsu's governments. He's apparent proof of the validity of "the Fujitsu method" in Ibuka's raw meritocracy, and Morita's administration gives him and other Chinese the tools they need to succeed.
• Anti-Villain: After joining Fujitsu, he starts approving urban redevelopment programs that evict and/or resettle thousands of innocent civilians, including his own family. However, Hei doesn't have a full grasp on the consequences of his actions and earnestly believes that Fujitsu's vision for the future will be a net positive, even potentially securing Wai's application to a university.
• Bait the Dog:
  • Hearing about Wai being bullied in school for mediating the ethnic tensions, Hei expresses his sympathies for her, explaining that he faces similar jeers while working for Fujitsu and even giving her an inspiring message to stand up for what's right. Then, he goes on a long-winded tangent about how ungrateful the Chinese people are for Fujitsu's hard work, ranting about his own problems, confusing Wai, and being outraged to find out that his brother has joined the CCL.
  • If the CCL are dismantled in Ibuka's Persistence ending, Hei writes a letter to an arrested Chun, seemingly indicating he wants to reconcile with his older brother. Unfortunately, the letter turns out to be a passive-aggressive message informing Chun that Hei's collaboration with Fujitsu has been vindicated, with his family now being moved to a better home and Wai preparing for college. Hei then patronizingly talks about his disappointment that Chun won't get to enjoy the rewards he's reaped, making no guarantees that they will stay in contact and even hinting that he'll become a Zhujin very soon.
• Bayonet Ya: When the IJA retaliate against the Lee family for Chun murdering Komai, Hei charges at the soldiers to buy his family time to escape, which gets him killed when he's stabbed with a bayonet.
• Believing Their Own Lies: He's convinced himself that he joined Fujitsu of his own volition and achieved all of his success by his own merits. However, deep down, he knows that these are lies.
• Big Brother Instinct:
  • In Hitachi's path, Hei and Wai rush to a grocery store to stockpile for the Oil Crisis, only to find a Japanese sergeant arguing with Lam in front of the building. Knowing that a Hitachi patrol is about to be set up for inspection, Hei urges Wai to run back home, so that he's the only one risking his life to get food on the table.
  • In a non-Komai IJA coup, Wai intends to work at a dangerous bullet farm to support her family, which horrifies Hei. He does everything he can to dissuade her, but his pleas fall on deaf ears.
• Big Brother Mentor: Hei is close with his younger sister Wai, giving her advice on how to succeed in Guangdong and promising that he'll always support her through the thick and thin.
• Big Brother Worship: Hei idolizes his older brother, Chun, thinking that he's even smarter than himself. This becomes especially important when Hei is visited by Sony's men and Chun is recommended for a scholarship.
• Bookworm: Hei is frequently reading technical documents and magazines brought to him by Chun and their father. He uses these documents to make amendments and additions to his existing designs. Unfortunately, the limiting education system in most Guangdong paths means that these magazines are often the only way Hei can learn more.
• Break the Haughty: Hei develops a really bad ego working for Fujitsu and having his achievements praised, going as far as to apply for Zhujin membership to secure his position there. However, an enraged Chun punches him across the face for his betrayal and the angry mobs he faces in the Guangdong riots is enough to disillusion his continued occupation in Fujitsu. In the Reconciliation ending, it sticks and he returns home without becoming a Zhujin.
• Broken Pedestal: Downplayed. Ibuka personally meets Hei to complement him for his efforts, but while Hei knows he owes it to Fujitsu for getting him where he is, he already resents Ibuka's government for leaving the rest of the Lees in the dust.
• Challenge Seeker: Hei thinks some subjects, like thermodynamics and calculus, are challenging, but he still finds the work exhilarating and a proper challenge for his intellect.
• Les Collaborateurs: Much to the displeasure of Chun, Hei accepts Fujitsu's offer to work for them and elevate his own status above the rest of the family.
• Contempt Crossfire:
  • Aims rather than receives one, specifically at Matsushita. To Hei, Matsushita just represents business as usual when it comes to Japanese exploitation, and he doesn't have the scientific ambition of Ibuka to compensate.
  • Played straight under Ibuka. Hei's derided by other Chinese as A Quisling due to his high publicity, and those Japanese who don't genuinely share Ibuka's vision of a Guangdong where merit is what matters instead of race see him as a mere pawn with which they can advance their interests. Over time, Hei becomes more and more aware of this, rendering him a pariah and prompting him to double down on his studies.
• Cowardly Lion: Unlike Chun, Hei doesn't want to be part of the Guangdong riots, merely wishing to be an observer of a historical event, not part of it. He reluctantly joins Chun in Matsushita's path to appease his older brother and at the assurance that they'll leave as soon as things get dangerous.
• A Day in the Limelight: Chun is usually the focal character of the Lee family, but this role switches to Hei in Ibuka's path, following his story and recruitment into Fujitsu.
• Defiant to the End: If the IJA targets the Lee family, Hei attacks the soldiers to buy the rest of his family time to escape. He tackles one of them, spits in his face, and gouges his eyes for a few seconds before another soldier fatally stabs him with a bayonet.
• Despair Event Horizon Hei is utterly destroyed to see Chun's recovered corpse in the immediate aftermath of the IJA's intervention. Seeing half of Chun's body completely charred and the other half conveying no emotion in death, Hei tears at his hair and bangs his head on a wall while screaming, wishing that the IJA would kill him next.
• The Dog Bites Back:
  • During the Oil Crisis, Hei finds a smug satisfaction with telling Fujitsu's auxiliary companies that they need to fire more people, enacting revenge on the Japanese workers who have looked down on him with racist prejudice. The fact that his orders are also laying off thousands of Chinese workers too is ignored by him.
  • The passage of Komai’s Social Spending Reconciliation Ordinance guts welfare in the midst of the Oil Crisis and causes Hei to more actively support Chun’s membership of the CCL during an uneasy dinner, much to Chun’s surprise. At this point, the average worker is sick of Komai and his disregard for them, being pushed to rebellion when no one in power will do anything but oppress people while they are down.
• Downer Ending:
  • Unlike a Morita or Ibuka-led Guangdong, there's no way up for Hei under Matsushita; he goes into the 70s not as a prodigy or an academic, but instead as an unknown prisoner in the wake of the riots. While he is eventually released, the experience is enough to disillusion him and give up his dream of becoming a famous engineer.
  • In a Hitachi-led ending, an adult Hei burns all his old workbooks because there is absolutely no way he can ever achieve his dreams under Komai, while bitterly musing that it's better not to hope in the first place.
  • An IJA takeover leads to Hei dying to a Japanese bayonet in a failed attempt to protect his family.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Hei expresses interest to join Fujitsu in Ibuka's path, but he still has a conscience for the lower-ranked Chinese engineers, feeling sorry about them being used as lab rats and benchmarks to judge the expertise of Zhujin people by.
  • He and his brother don't get along in Ibuka's path, but he's no less horrified by his death in the IJA coup.
• Fish out of Water: When hired by Fujitsu, Hei becomes one of the few Chinese citizens in their employ, something which his Japanese colleagues are wary of. Hei himself is insecure about being surrounded by so many Japanese people and is caught off-guard when a Japanese gial tells him he sounds "funny".
• Guile Hero: Hei is a genius inventor and savvy enough to only give his less ambitious blueprints to the companies he visits, knowing that some of them will inevitably try to steal them. This works out for him.
• Heel–Face Turn: Hei gives up his Fujitsu membership and Zhujin application in Ibuka's Reconciliation ending, recognizing that it isn't worth giving up his dignity and now expressing his deepest apologies to Chun.
• Hero-Worshipper: Downplayed. As much as Hei admires Ibuka's ideals, he despises him for the fact that they mean that his family is being left behind. He still acknowledges that Fujitsu is at least Equal-Opportunity Evil, though, and appreciates Ibuka's praise.
• He Who Fights Monsters: Hei devotes his life to trying to secure a better lot for himself, his family, and his fellow Chinese, but as a leading Fujitsu executive only starts having doubts when he lays off more than two thousand Chinese employees during the Oil Crisis.
• Hope Is Scary: In Komai's route, Hei becomes disillusioned in the idea of hopefulness after Chun's death, so he burns his old books and with them, the dream of becoming more than a laborer or consumer.
• Horrible Judge of Character: Despite being warned by his parents to not trust Ibuka and hearing rumors of Fujitsu employees being overworked, Hei still accepts a Fujitsu offer to join a partnership, eventually being hired as an intern and accepting a scholarship from them.
• Hypocrite: He willingly carries out Fujitsu's orders to lay off thousands of workers, even happy to do so, if they are Japanese. However, when he thinks about the possibility of being fired too, Hei starts sweating bullets.
• I Am Who?: Hei isn't sure what he is after joining Fujitsu. He's definitely not Japanese, but not exactly Chinese anymore because he can speak Japanese and works for a Japanese company. The closest category he fits is a Zhujin, but he's still unsatisfied with this answer because his life story doesn't follow the typical narrative of one.
• Iconic Item: Hei is almost always carrying around a toolbox, which contains notes and ideas he gets from visits to manufacturing firms and technical journals.
• Ignored Epiphany: Along the line, Hei realizes what Fujitsu's system is doing to his family and that he's a mere cog in its machine, serving as the poster boy for a ruthless meritocracy. He pushes on anyway.
• I've Come Too Far: With Fujitsu laying off their workers in the Oil Crisis, Hei realizes that he could easily share their fate, since the gimmick of a self-taught Chinese has worn off and he has now become expendable. Even though he knows Fujitsu has no love for him, he doesn't resign and return to his family, knowing that they will be furious with his collaboration and thinking he's worked too hard to his position to turn back now. Therefore, he decides to apply for Zhujin membership, securing his place in Fujitsu.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Hei reaches the peak of his haughtiness while working for Fujitsu and viciously argues with Chun about it, but the one thing he's not wrong about is that it is a stable income, which could pay for Wai's entrance into college. If Hei leaves Fujitsu and his Zhujin application form, the reconciliation of the two brothers is slightly undercut with the knowledge that Wai will have to wait before getting a tertiary education.
• Married to the Job: He starts slipping into this if Ibuka takes power; he's just as resentful as his older brother Chun of the Suzuki administration, but after Fujitsu's takeover, he throws himself into his rapidly improving career and ends up being repeatedly absent from the family.
• My God, What Have I Done?: On the cusp of unconsciousness after being beaten by some rioters, Hei realizes that he doesn't want to be part of Fujitsu anymore and thinks about rejecting his Zhujin application form. However, this can turn into an Ignored Epiphany in Ibuka's Persistence ending, with Hei having secured the money to move his family into a better residential facility and secure Wai's college entrance, no longer regretting his membership in Fujitsu.
• Rage Breaking Point: After Chun kills Komai but is killed by the IJA in turn during their takeover, Hei realizes that the Japanese will retaliate against his family. During the inevitable assault on their home, he charges furiously and blinds one of them with his thumbs. He dies hoping he's at least saved his family in the process. He hasn't.
• Red Baron: His stellar academic performance and quasi-celedbrity status in Ibuka's Guangdong earns him the nickname "Model Learner".
• Reconcile the Bitter Foes: Hei can decide to lay off his cutthroat advancement in Fujitsu to make amends with Chun. If the CCL was dismantled, Chun won't immediately accept, but is willing to give Hei a change to redeem himself. Meanwhile, if the CCL was negotiated with, Chun welcomes back his brother with open arms.
• Rejected Apology: Downplayed, if the CCL were dismantled in the Reconciliation path. No longer wanting to work for Fujitsu, Hei visits Chun in detention and profusely apologizes for turning on his family for the past few years, which Chun doesn't readily accept, but is willing to forgive him at some point in the future.
• Senseless Sacrifice: When the IJA depose Hitachi and try to kill the Lees in retribution for Chun's actions, Hei attacks them and sacrifices his life so that the rest of his family can escape. It ultimately proves for naught, as they don't even make it out of the neighborhood before they are captured and forced to march with the other prisoners. Leong and Mei perish from exhaustion and Wai is traumatized from the entire experience, to a point death could be a mercy.
• Sibling Team: If Morita invests in education, Hei will submit an essay on industrial processes to Sony. When two Sony representatives arrive at his school to discuss the essay, Hei takes the opportunity to praise Chun and say he could do so much more than his current position at Cheung Kong. This pays off as the same representatives go to Chun and offer him a position as a factory foreman at Sony and a scholarship for Hei.
• Start My Own: No longer working for Fujitsu in the Reconciliation ending, Hei informs Chun that he's going to start his own engineering firm, confident that he can make it work through his own intellect.
• Stupid Neutral: Not on his own part, but Matsushita, who is Guangdong's resident pragmatist and adheres to no particularly unique vision for it, neither improves Hei's life as an intellectual or the Lees' lives as Chinese people. As a result, Hei's family is just as miserable under Matsushita's as they were before he came to power (unlike under Sony), but so is Hei himself (unlike under Fujitsu).
• Taught by Experience: Unlike most of his competitors, Hei has direct experience with blueprinting and creating devices, which gives him a major advantage that could catch the eye of Fujitsu.
• Teen Genius: As a schoolboy, he gets full marks on every math test and constantly has science and engineering on his mind, to the point that he literally dreams of new schematics that he desperately tries to copy after he wakes up. Hei regularly travels around Guangdong giving companies whatever ideas he's willing to risk being stolen, all before even going to college.
  • If Morita becomes Chief Executive, Hei submits an essay for a competition regarding industry using ideas that Chun, a Cheung Kong factory worker, contributes that so impresses Sony that they hire Chun as a foreman just so that Hei's approach can be used. Eventually, though, Hei's disappointed that the school curriculum under Morita is too accommodating of less stellar students, and thinks it's holding him back.
  • If Ibuka takes control and decides to empower working-class Chinese innovators, Hei handily wins a twelve-hour invention competition and lands an internship at Fujitsu. If Ibuka prioritizes middle-class Zhujin instead, Hei comes up with a way to make Fujitsu better at candidate-searching. Either way, he becomes known across Guangdong as an example of what "the Fujitsu method" can produce.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: During the hard times of the Suzuki administration, while Chun is being dejected over the limited nature of the RLSO's labor reforms, Hei enthusiastically announces that their father's earned far more money than usual; the Lee father promises to buy the whole family pork the next day.
• Took a Level in Cynic:
  • In Matsushita's Guangdong, Hei resigns to becoming a humble factory worker than trying to brainstorm more inventions, even convincing Wai to accept the mediocrity of their current livelihoods than pursue higher ambitions.
  • After Chun's death in Komai's route, Hei resigns to his fate of becoming a factory worker to be exploited by Hitachi, destroying his old books and sketches so that he won't hope for a better future again and be bitterly disappointed.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Spending time in Fujitsu slowly starts to override his compassion and replace it with blind loyalty towards Ibuka's vision, even if it means dispensing with his fellow countrymen and his own family. In one notable example, a frustrated Hei wants to one-up his Japanese colleagues by finding a construction site for Ibuka's ultramodern architecture and evicting the thousand residents present there, something he would've never done when he first came to Kōshu/Guangzhou.
• Victory Is Boring: As he academically excels under Morita's Guangdong, Hei becomes completely bored with the school curriculum that he's long surpassed and starts daydreaming about technical drawings instead. Wai tries to bring him back down to Earth on one journey and asks about the scholarship offered by Cheung Kong or Sony, but Hei reluctantly accepts because his superiors would just try to pass off his innovations as their own, still leaving him unsatisfied with his academic achievement.
  "I don't want to be a cog in their machine."
• What You Are in the Dark: Beneath his demeanor as a Fujitsu success story, Hei feels ostracized by his Chinese neighbors, who regard him with sadness, spite, or greed over throwing his lot with Ibuka. Chun notices and asks Hei if it was worth it to reach so high, but his younger sibling dodges the question. The very same event is even titled with this trope word-for-word.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: Downplayed. If Fujitsu takes over. Ibuka's non-racialist and hardline technocratic governance highly appeals to Hei, and indeed, a Fujitsu-run Guangdong is where he's most successful. However, Hei isn't totally blind to what Ibuka's system is doing to Chun and the rest of his family, and actually hates Ibuka himself for it.
• Workaholic: Hei is ecstatic over Ibuka taking over Guangdong and giving him an opportunity to realize his inventions, spending entire nights studying and working to gain Fujitsu's attention and join the dream set out by the Chief Executive.
• You Are a Credit to Your Race: Hei's rapid academic rise makes him a useful political tool by the Fujitsu regime to boast about how supposedly egalitarian their policies are, enough that a Chinese person can be self-made and successful. In a graduation ceremony, Ibuka calls Hei out and applauds him as a rising star, despite not even being one of the graduating students.

Lee Wai

Role: N/A

The youngest member of the Lee family, Lee Wai has the misfortune of growing up in the slums of Guangdong and enduring all of its horrors, while lacking the life experience needed to cushion the blow. As she grows up, her worldview will be shaped by the Chief Executive's broader actions and the fates of her family members.

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• The Baby of the Bunch: Wai is the little sister of Chun and Hei, as well as the most innocent member of the Lee family.
• Beware the Nice Ones: She's the most innocent member of the Lee family, but if sufficiently pissed off, she will yell back.
• Big Brother Worship: She is extremely close with her older brother Hei, expressing the most concern for his well-being.
• Break the Cutie:
  • Out of all the Lees, Wai takes it the hardest when the RLSO is weakened by the Ibuka plan, depriving her the chance to continue her schooling. Then, just to twist the knife further, she gets hit by a stray truck just as she steps out of the school gates and has to go to intensive care.
  • Wai's school is closed down in Komai's route, since many of the Chinese and Zhujin teachers and students were arrested for participating in the Guangdong Riots, while the Japanese ones fled. With no school to go to and Chun's death in the riots, Wai is forced into back-breaking labor in a factory to support her family, barely meeting the quota, facing physical abuse from her supervisor, and witnessing her fellow workers get taken away by Kenpeitai men for some failure. By day thirty, Wai is exhausted and hopeless that things will ever get better for her or her family.
  • Wai is emotionally broken in the IJA failstate and the news of Chun's death. So broken that she seeks a job at the bullet farm, the last place still hiring, and doesn't even care about the possibility of dying there, seeing no hopeful future past this point. It's even worse if the failstate happens in Komai's path, where she loses Hei to the IJA as well.
• Children Are Innocent: When the Western Insurrection escalates enough to involve Guangdong, Wai is confused by what is going on, not even knowing who Long Yun is. Leong tries to maintain her innocence by distracting her.
• Contempt Crossfire: Unfortunately, she suffers the same fate as Hei in school. The Chinese students know she's the sister to the "Perfect Learner" and are contemptuous of her attempts to mediate their arguments with the Japanese students, who aren't friendly to her either because of her ethnicity.
• Death Seeker: After Chun's death in the IJA coup, Wai tells Hei that she's going to work in the bullet farm as a desperate means of supporting the family. Hei panics and tries to dissuade her with the fact that half the people who work there don't come out alive, but Wai doesn't care.
• Little Miss Snarker: Having grown up by the end of the first decade, Wai is a bit more sassy than she used to be, sometimes trading barbs with Hei.
• Mediation Backfire: As the Oil Crisis afflicts Ibuka's Guangdong and raises tensions, Wai tries to keep the peace between her school's Chinese and Japanese students, neither of whom appreciate the attempted mediation. It gets so bad that they start throwing stuff at her and sending threatening messages.
• Prayer Is a Last Resort: In Komai's route, Wai is horrified to learn that some of her classmates who participated in the riots have disappeared and she begs for Hei to help her find Chun. When Hei points out that no one knows where Chun went, Wai sobs and desperately prays for any god, if they exist, to vaporize Komai.
• Scylla and Charybdis: About to finish high school by the time of the Oil Crisis, Wai is stuck at a crossroads if she should enter college under Fujitsu's Guangdong, which presents two unenviable positions. She doesn't want to be a factory worker like most of her family, but she doesn't want to work for a corporation, like Hei does. Wai wants to be her own individual self, but in a place like Guangdong, there might not be a third choice.
• Sole Survivor: If the IJA take over Komai's ruined regime, Wai becomes the sole surviving member of the Lee family. Chun is gunned down after holding Komai hostage, Hei is bayoneted to death by IJA soldiers to buy the rest of his family time to flee, and Wai's parents succumb to exhaustion after their capture and forced march under IJA soldiers.
• Successful Sibling Syndrome: As Hei's successes are flaunted in Fujitsu's path, Wai is overshadowed by the accomplishments of her older brother, with most of her classmates only seeing her as Hei's little sister and not her own individual. In Ibuka's Persistence path, Wai's accomplishments are finally recognized, partially thanks for being Hei's sister, so she excitedly awaits the chance to go to college and determine her own future.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: Wai starts out as the most idealistic member of the Lee family, hopeful that her siblings will work hard enough to move out of their shabby living quarters. Inevitably, maturity and time spent in Guangdong wears on this naivety, but how much is dependent on what future befalls the country.

Lee Leong and Mei

The parents of the Lee family. Forced to work in some of the most brutal conditions in the Sphere, Leong and Mei fear for their childrens' safety and can do nothing but hope that the family sticks together throughout the ordeal.

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• Bearer of Bad News: Subverted when Mei encounters a new city arrival who buys into Matsushita's campaign that city life is better than the countryside. Mei considers him overtly optimistic, but can't bring herself to tell him what life is really like.
• Death March: Leong and Mei die in the Hitachi variant of the IJA ending, where they and Wai are forced to walk days on end with other prisoners. They're slowly picked off by exhaustion, Mei first and Leong next, leaving Wai as the only surviving Lee.
• Incurable Cough of Death: Ibuka's Reconciliation ending briefly mentions that Leong has developed a cough due to his deteriorating health, rendering his days numbered.
• Stronger Than They Look: Mei possesses a strength that surprises many and draws double takes when she brings heavy bags of groceries to her apartment.
• Too Broken to Break: Leong doesn't share Guangdong's visceral hatred for Ibuka's Zoning Ordinance, having already been divided long before the law passed.
• Your Worst Memory: Leong has had a very difficult youth and gravely fears the prospect that his children may experience the same hardships. These memories haunt him, despite his efforts to hide them, and the sights of new families from the countryside washing up in Guangzhou only reminds him of the possibility of things getting worse.

Other Citizens

Baron Yasukawa

Role: N/A

A wealthy Japanese nobleman and an old friend of Chief Executive Suzuki. The ensuing Yasuda Crisis forces him to emigrate to the artificial state, much to his dismay.

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• Beneath the Mask: The Baron tries to remain hopeful that Matsuzawa will meet him personally because of his formerly glorious reputation, but he secretly knows how little it means by the time he's lost his wealth. It's only a coping mechanism to reassure himself.
• Broken Pedestal: Interviewing and witnessing the spoiled attitudes of the Japanese elite makes Yoshiko question if her father was just as childish and obnoxious, something she would've never thought about before coming to Guangdong.
• Broken-System Dogmatist: Unlike his daughter, the Baron has no interest in helping the Chinese or even getting to know them better. As far as he’s concerned, he and the Japanese have their own role and the Chinese should remain separate. This belief ends up shattered during the Yasuda Crisis, stripping his family of most of their wealth and sentencing him to Guangdong for good.
• Cigarette of Anxiety: He develops a bad smoking addiction after he loses most of his wealth in the Yasuda Crisis. When Yoshiko tries to meet him at one point, the smell of cigarettes almost overwhelms her.
• Driven to Suicide: If the Japanese are turned away during the Yasuda Crisis, he will reassure Yoshiko one last time before jumping into traffic the morning after.
• Empty Promise: After losing everything in the Yasuda Crisis, the Baron tries to reassure his daughter that everything will work out in the end. He tells Yoshiko that the Chief Executive knows they are here and surely Matsuzawa would not turn down a chance to meet them. But after months of no developments and their funds beginning to dry up, Yoshiko begins looking for work to which he warns her of the dangers outside and says he will cut back on smoking and food, another promise that Yoshiko doubts.
• Hope Spot: After weeks of waiting, Yasukawa finally gets a call from Chief Executive Matsuzawa, who apologies for not reaching out sooner and invites him to a meeting. Unfortunately this optimism is cut short as the taxi he takes ends up going down the wrong route and hitting a cyclist in a Chinese/Zhujin neighbourhood. Yasukawa is pulled out of the taxi and beaten by an angry crowd, leaving him battered and broken eventually leading to his death.
• How the Mighty Have Fallen: After the Yasuda crisis, Yasukawa returns to Guangdong with his daughter bringing what remaining funds they have left with them.
• Moral Myopia: If the Japanese refugees are given more aid during the Yasuda Crisis, the Baron will be elated to finally meet Matsuzawa and find a proper job, ignoring the countless Zhujin managers who will be fired so that he and the other Japanese can keep themselves afloat.
• Morton's Fork: Regardless of whether or not the Japanese are given safe harbour or not, Yasukawa will still die during the Yasuda Crisis.
• Old Friend: Baron Yasukawa is an old acquaintance of Suzuki, having worked with each other during the latter's time in the House of Peers. They reunite at a formal in Guangdong after Yasukawa moves for better business opportunities.
• Parents as People: He clearly cares for his daughter, but his concern can also make him condescending to her. He chastises her curiosity with the poorer Chinese and Zhujin residents living in Guangdong and expects her to get married rather than “worry about the world”.
• Riches to Rags: Downplayed. Whilst he and his family and not completely impoverished, they can no longer enjoy the luxuries they once had in the aftermath of the Yasuda crisis, such as having to disembark alongside many other destitute Japanese salarymen.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: Subverted. When he and Yoshiko arrive in Guangdong, he hopes that his past association with Suzuki will let them pass the security checkpoint with no questions asked. Not only does everyone ignore his connections, the guard outright steals a thousand yen right in front of him and there’s not a thing he can do about it.
• Stay in the Kitchen: Despite her persisting demands, the Baron does not want Yoshiko to get a job, even if it means an extra source of revenue to alleviate their troubles in the Yasuda Crisis. Besides the misogynist undertones, he also doesn’t want her working because he fears that she’ll be harmed by the street violence plaguing Guangdong.
• Tempting Fate: When he and his daughter visit Guangdong, the Baron reprimands Yoshiko for staring at the impoverished Chinese citizens living on the street, remarking that there’s no point in giving them any curiosity because she’ll never come back to this place again. He eats his own words when the Yasuda Crisis destroys their family’s wealth and sends them back to Guangdong, now as a washed up has-been.
• Torn Apart by the Mob: If Matsuzawa prioritises Japanese refugees over the Chinese and Zhujin of Guangdong during the Yasuda crisis, Yasukawa is beaten to death by a mob of angry Chinese and Zhujins after he indirectly causes his taxi driver to run over a cyclist.

Suen Fang (UNMARKED SPOILERS)

Role: N/A

A factory worker who suffers horrific mistreatment and abuses daily at the hands of her Hitachi bosses. Losing their jobs as part of a mass layoff proves to be the last straw, with Suen Fang leading her co-workers in a rebellion against their managers and holding them hostage. The hostage crisis and its ensuing massacre end up being the catalyst for the Guangdong Riots.

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• Allegorical Character: Suen Fang acts as a perspective character to the workers who riot in Hitachi's factories, after they fire more workers to downsize.
• The Dog Bites Back: Facing the worst kinds of abuses in Hitachi's factory, Fang and several other workers fight back when they lose their jobs. Fang personally gets revenge on her least favorite manager with a kick in the groin.
• Face Death with Dignity: In Ibuka's Persistent response to the riots, Fang is mortally wounded by a bullet and forced to retreat to the wrecked Hengli Residential Facility. Though she bleeds out and dies, Fang gracefully accepts her fate and expresses happiness that she died for a worthwhile cause.
• Small Role, Big Impact: She's an minor flavor character who makes sparse appearances, but her rebellion in Hitachi's factories spawns the Guangdong Riots and the final challenge for the Chief Executive in the first decade.
• Sole Survivor: Fang is the only surviving worker in the Hitachi factory riot, as the others are killed by the Police. As she escapes, Fang sweats to avenge their deaths.

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