, for short, is a character in Sega's 2018 action-adventure video game Judgment, which is a spin-off from the Yakuza game series. Yagami is a former defense attorney who resigns after a client he successfully defended kills their partner. Three years later, Yagami is a private detective in his own and investigates a serial killer who gouges out their victims' eyes. The character returns in Lost Judgment as he investigates a criminal accused of both sexual harassment and murder. Yagami is voiced by Takuya Kimura in Japanese and by Greg Chun in English. Yagami's physical appearance is also based on Kimura.
When developing Yagami, the Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio team wanted to create a new type of main character following the release of Yakuza 6: The Song of Life, which concludes the story of series protagonist Kazuma Kiryu. In contrast to the Kiryu's strong, heroic presence, Yagami is meant to be a more relatable character due to his troubled life. To differentiate between the two protagonists, Yagami was given sidequests in which he becomes friends with residents of Kamurocho. Takuya Kimura was chosen to voice Yagami to appeal to a wide audience. Greg Chun, who played Yagami in English-language versions of the game, said the role was challenging but enjoyable.
Critical response to Yagami has been generally positive. Video game journalists have praised the depth of Yagami's character arc and backstory in Judgment, and have favorably compared him to former protagonist Kiryu. Kimura and Chun have both been commended for their portrayals of the character.
Creation and development
Personality and influences
Since the game Yakuza 6: The Song of Life concluded the story of Yakuza series protagonist Kazuma Kiryu, the Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio game developers wanted to create a distinctive character for the story. At the behest of producer Kazuki Hosokawa, the team decided the character should be a detective. The biggest influence was the Paul Newman film The Verdict, in which Newman's character Frank Galvin suffers a crisis similar to Yagami's in regards to his career as a lawyer. In order to a stark contrast between Kiryu and the new protagonist, the staff wanted to develop Yagami as a more relatable character, with his fall from grace and gradual redemptive arc designed to appeal to players. Due to the popularity of detective stories, Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio wrote Yagami as a man who would become more knowledgeable alongside the player as the game progressed.
Sega described Yagami as "a man of conviction who fights for his beliefs, despite the overwhelming despair surrounding him".
Executive director and writer Toshihiro Nagoshi said the detective idea drew on multiple influences, primarily Korean films. Because there are few games based on detective dramas, Hosokawa wanted Yagami to stand out but recognized creating a new character is a major challenge. To make a protagonist who would be a fitting successor to Kiryu, Hosokawa wanted Yagami to be "more grounded to fit the noir vibe". He also said: "When you’re writing a story and there’s a really solid character that’s been around for a long time, the character dictates what happens next. In contrast to that, with Yagami, at the start of development we didn’t really have anything attached to him at all. It was a challenge, but also an opportunity for a development team that has been working so long on the same series."
The staff wanted the protagonist to have a deep connection to the city. To emphasize this, they introduced a gameplay mechanic known as the Friendship System, allowing Yagami to befriend and form bonds with the residents of Kamurocho. The developers used the main story to explore facets of Yagami's personality, using sidequests to please fans wanting a balance between seriousness and comedy. Hosokawa regarded the friendship system as one of his favorite parts of Judgment due to the bonds Yagami forms with other characters. As a result, Hosokawa believes that a Judgment sequel would have to remain in Kamurocho due to Yagami's strong connection with the city and its people. In contrast to previous Yakuza protagonists, who are often only visitors to Kamurocho, Yagami was written as a civilian resident in the city, allowing his social life to be further explored.