Following the official announcement of Yakuza Kiwami 3 in the RGG Summit this week, RGG Studios has found itself in hot water yet again. Following the backlash to the numerous recasts made in Yakuza Kiwami 3, fans have uncovered a disturbing detail about one of the actors involved in the new release. It has been discovered that Teruyuki Kagawa, the actor taking over the role of Goh Hamazaki in the upcoming remake of Yakuza Kiwami 3 has been involved in sexual misconduct against a hostess in July 2019. The actor himself admitted to the allegations back in August of 2022.
This has sparked a massive campaign on Twitter against the casting by fans of the series, urging RGG to recast the character prior to launch. Many fans have even went as far as stating that they will boycott the game unless the actor is replaced.
A major reason of fan demand also stems from the fact that RGG has previously re-casted numerous characters due to real world allegations. This includes actor Pierre Taki as Hamura from the PS4 launch version of Judgment, as well as Hiroki Narimiya as Masayoshi Tanimura from the original PS3 release of Yakuza 4.
As such, fans are expecting RGG to uphold this precedent by removing Kagawa with a different actor with some demanding to restore his character’s likeness to the original Yakuza 3 version of the character with an entirely new voice actor.
The announcement of Yakuza Kiwami 3 was seen as a bit of a mixed bag by many series fans. Some fans rejoiced at the prospect of visiting its sunny beachside setting of Okinawa while others were upset at the creative liberties RGG Studios has taken in recasting some of the important characters from the original cast such as the aforementioned Goh Hamazaki as well as Rikiya Shimabukuro, a character that serves as Kiryu’s companion for a major chunk of the story.
It has to be mentioned that with the game only 4 months away from its launch, it feels a bit unlikely for RGG to make such a big change to the game in such short notice. It remains to be seen how the SEGA or RGG Studios choose to respond to these demands.
