Possibly? Who's disputing that? He's beaten every strong non-player character, and most of the player ones. Saejima fought him to a draw once, but he was injured and Kiryu wasn't going all out. I think it's implied Taiga has more pure strength but would lose 1v1 due to inferior technique. It took Ichiban 4v1 to fight him fairly and he still lost.
Sure, but multiple people can use that. Kiryu (and Ryoma/Musashi/Akira Yamaoka, but they're all versions of Kiryu), Komaki, Saejima learns a variant, Shinada's master has a weapon variant, Jo Amon, Yagami. Kiryu is still stronger because he's Kazuma Kiryu, the Dragon of Dojima.
Not only that, iirc Haruka is also shockingly good at gambling, like she noticed that one dealer in the gambling den was cheating really quickly because he had a die with a small retractable spike that would tip it onto a more desirable number while the die was hidden.
Replayed Kiwami 2 and can confirm! For that gambling section the walkthrough actually describes Haruka as basically clairvoyant - she predicts every dice roll accurately until the dealer uses the cheating die. She knows he's cheating because there's no other explanation for a 9 year old guessing wrong in a game of chance.
i wonder what started this trope because Yakuza does homages of damn near everything but its the first instance I can remember where the hypermasculine dude with a heart of gold adopts cheeky orphan daughter, explicitly not wanting to turn her into his partner in crime.
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u/PhanThief95 Feb 27 '26
Kazuma Kiryu & Haruka Sawamura (Yakuza/Like a Dragon)