Digital Media Concepts/Yakuza: Goro Majima

Goro Majima

Goro Majima is a fictional and rivalry anti-hero character in Sega's 2005 action adventure game series called Ryu Ga Gotoku also known as the Yakuza Series in America. Goro Majima is a Yakuza member who is part of the Tojo Clan and his best-known rival and ally to the Dragon of Dojima Kazuma Kiryu. He appeared in almost every Yakuza from 1 to 7 games as the main protagonist including a few spinoff titles in the series. Goro Majima is also best known as the "Mad Dog of Shimano" in the Majima Family and believes that he is the only person strong enough to challenge Kiryu to fight.

Goro Majima was not only created for a rivalry and ally to Kiryu but he was created to appeal more people from the audience to gain more fans of the series. Ever since the release of the 2017 Yakuza 0 title Majima became highly popular to the new fans of the series and a few of the veterans do to Majima's origins story and his character development throughout the prequel. Many people have loved Majima since the beginning of the original PS2 title of the first Yakuza game of when first appeared being crazy while one of the new fans of the series praised him from the prequel before he becomes the legendary "Mad Dog of Shimano." He was also being compared to one of DC's well-known villains in the Batman lore which is the Joker do to Majima's crazy personality and actions.

Appearrances

Yakuza 0
Main article: Yakuza 0

In the prequel, Goro Majima was once a club manager that works around in Sotenbori of Osaka Japan. He works at a club named Sotenbori’s famous Grand. This was back before Majima was the legendary “Mad Dog of Shimano.” Everything was fine ever since Majima left the world of the Yakuza as a civilian until he gets pulled right back in to be requested to assassinate a person named Makoto. Little that he didn’t know that Makoto was a just an innocent blind girl working at a acupuncture. Throughout the story Majima had a change of heart and decided to protect Makoto and find out why most of the Dojima Family wanted Makoto for.

Yakuza/Kiwami
Main article: Yakuza (video game) and Yakuza Kiwami

Yakuza 1 and the remake was the first Yakuza game that first introduced Goro Majima in the Yakuza series. In the original Goro Majima has made a few appearances throughout the story and during the gameplay aspects in terms of fighting him as one of the main boss fights, and in this story his only motivation was to challenge Kiryu into a fight and he cares nothing less about either the ten billion yen or who killed the Patriarch of the Dojima Family. However, in the remake which is called Yakuza Kiwami the Mad Dog of Shimano’s motivation is the same but he appears in various ways in order to fight him called the Majima Everywhere System that allows Majima to appear in trash cans, cars, cones and many more.

Yakuza 2/Kiwami 2
Main article: Yakuza 2 and Yakuza Kiwami 2

In the original story of Yakuza 2 Goro Majima disbanded the Majima Family because of the disagreements with the Fifth Chairman and how the Tojo Clan is holding up after the events back in 2005 over the ten billion yen. Do to all of these conditions with the Chairman and the Tojo Clan he decided to disband the Majima Family and forms a construction crew called Majima Construction. Majima's goal with the crew was to overall build Kamurocho Hills just to take over The Florist's Purgatory as the new owner. While the story in Yakuza Kiwami 2 expands more from the original, in the reamke of Yakuza Kiwami 2 the story first takes place in the Tojo Clan about the Fifth Chairman disscussing about the Tojo Clan Reformation about electing the next main captain of the clan based only on their support in profits, however, Goro Majima and the rest of the Tojo disagreed with the Fifth Chairman because the Tojo Clan weren't defined by only profits. Furthermore to the story of the Mad Dog himself, Majima was being framed of a murder he didn't commit on killing a Family member rival named Uematsu from the Umematsu Family, and Majima overall wanted to find out the murderer and to clear his name.

Yakuza 3
Main article: Yakuza 3

It's been over a year since the events of the Jingweon Mafia and the events of the Yakuza war between the Tojo Clan and the Omi Alliance, and Kiryu wanted to meet Goro Majima to request him to return to the Tojo Clan in order for letting Majima to protect the sixth chairman of the Tojo Clan Daigo Dojima. Majima was intrigued on Kiryu's request that he accepted the loss after a fight between him and Kiryu. A year later Goro Majima met Kiryu again at the Purgatory under Kamurocho Hills, after a short fight between Kiryu and Majima he told Kiryu that Daigo Dojima was set up by Goh Hamazaki and the involvement of the mysterious group called Black Monday along with Mine.

Yakuza 4
Main article: Yakuza 4

In the year 2010, Majima is in the search of finding Yasuko Saejima to make sure she is safe and to track down his sworn brother Taiga Saejima. Since Majima have been informed that Saejima is back in the streets in Kamurocho; the Mad Dog has sent one of his member of the Majima Family named Minami to recruit him to the Millennium Tower for challenging him on a group fight of the Majima Family. After the fight Majima took his brother to the batting center, and challenged Saejima on a fight to answer Saejima’s questions about the truth on abandoning his sworn brother back in 1985, and how he lost his eye in the process. Later throughout the game Majima was arrested in order to be avoided from Munakata’s plan and begs to Kiyru to protect Yasuko and warn her that she’s in danger.

Yakuza 5
Main article: Yakuza 5

In 2012, Goro Majima was sent a request from Daigo Dojima to negotiate the Sapporo Branch of the Omi Alliance to prevent a Yakuza war between two clans, however, Majima was assasinated and have managed to survive the assasination wounded. Although many news reports have been reported that Majima was considered deceased after the assasination. But what really happened is that Goro Majima retreated after the assasination and head back to the Millennium Tower of Tojo Clan HQ to recover from the attack. However a few minutes later a man named Kurosawa who ordered the assasination told his men to find Majima, and they were able to find him in the tower to capture him in time. All through the events of Yakuza 5 was about the assasination on killing Haruka hiring a expert sniper named Baba. Majima wanted to prevent this from happening by challenging his sworn brother Tagia Saejima to a fight to the death after that Kurosawa realized that he had been tricked and Baba was defeated while Kurosawa was distracted during the fight all along and was shot by Daigo Dojima.

Yakuza 6
Main article: Yakuza 6

The story of Yakuza 6 continues after the events of Yakuza 5 where Majima and Taiga Saejima appeared in the hospital to make sure Kazuma Kiryu was alright after a long rivalry fight that Kiryu faced. When suddenly the police came up to the police and wanted to arrest Taiga Saejima and Kazuma Kiryu, Majima refused the Toyko Police HQ to arrest Saejima but Saejima had accepted it to finish his terms in jail. During the rest of the events of Yakuza 6 Goro Majima and the rest of Taiga Saejima and Daigo Dojima have been absent throughout the entire story until the end of the game where they are disscussing whether or not to send an outrage war between Hiroshima and the Tojo Clan do to the Fourth Chairman's death (Kazuma Kiryu ).

Personality

The character of the Mad Dog himself started as a sane person in Yakuza 0 as a manager,and he had a unique personality to him that seperates him from the Yakuza. Later in the recent games his personality changes from a sane person to a Mad Dog personality where Majima had a breakdown atittude throughout the series and gained his full on thirst on defeating the Dragon of Dojima believing he has a chance to kill Kazuma Kiryu himself. Although he later then had a switch in his personality when he starts to be serious at times during a specific situation on the clan or around his brother by being sane or depressed.

Abilities Throughout the years besides Yakuza 0 Goro Majima's abilities were highly invovled with his knife in Yakuza's 1 through 5. Although there were many abilites from Yakuza 0 that he manages to use in combat and later in the old games uses his legendary Mad Dog Style with the knife instead.

Thug Style
One of Majima's basic styles is more of a beat em up type fighting stance which is thug style. This style can basically allows Majima to throw his basic attacks for kicks, punches and grabs and it can perform brutal heat actions using by only his legs and hands.

Breaker Style
A style that was mostly used by fans which is the breaker style, the style can not only attack but it can do some unique dancing moves against his enemies. This style can be only useful if you're surrounded by thugs or other Yakuza but of course it doesn't matter which style you choose all of these styles are pretty useful no matter which style you choose. But for this style Majima would be able to counter or dodge faster although for the legendary style he is much more faster and overpowered.

Slugger Style
For this style its really nothing special; Majima's slugger style brings out his personal bat into the fight which can execute some big damage depending on your stats on combat. He also brings out good heat actions with the bat and swings the bat very slowly at times.

The Mad Dog Legendary Style
Majima's Legendary Mad Dog Style is what made Goro Majima a legend throughout the entire series. His original style consist of only the usage of a knife which allows Majima to be fully insane with it and can gain more damage than any of the other styles in his disposal. He can attack with his knife by slashing his enemies very brutally and can gain more heat faster producing with his original legendary color heat which is his purple heat. As for the heat action its incredibly brutal Majima can stab and slash three enemies at once and he can also grab an enemy and pushes him to a wall to stab his hand in the process. For his style its really useful for any enemy type since its his original style and it can take much more damage on bosses and any Thug or Yakuza.