Yasuko Saejima (冴島 靖子, Saejima Yasuko), also known as Lily (リリ, Riri), is a supporting character featured in Yakuza 4. She is solely motivated by her desire to reunite with her incarcerated stepbrother, Taiga Saejima.
Profile[]
Appearance[]
Yasuko wears a beige trenchcoat over a white shirt (and presumably a short skirt) along with a pair of black high heels. She wears a delicate looking silver necklace inlaid with an amethyst. During her initial introduction she wears a pair of dark sunglasses. Yasuko has pale skin.
In the 1985 Yakuza 4 flashback, she is seen wearing a blue blouse and plaid skirt underneath an apron, with her hair pulled into a low ponytail.
Personality[]
Yasuko is an extraordinarily strong-willed woman, willing to go as far as is necessary to repay her stepbrother. She is determined and fearless, showing great bravery in the face of danger.
Despite this, she is rather shy with Akiyama when she first meets him, polite, but quiet, stumbling over her words and showing her nervousness.
Background[]
Yasuko Saejima in 1985
Yasuko was born to an unnamed mother and father. At a young age her father left, and at some point between 1970 and 1975, her mother married another man. That man's son, Taiga Saejima, became the older stepbrother to Yasuko. After their mother died suddenly, she and Taiga were taken in by distant relatives. Worried about becoming a financial burden on their adoptive family, the two ran away.
One day, Yasuko found out she needed a living-donor kidney transplant. With her rare blood type, Saejima was not a match, and her only option left was to track down her biological father. Yasuko gave up hope, as her mother told her he was an abusive drunk, but Saejima tracked down her father anyways, finding him in Kansai. A member of the Omi Alliance, her father demanded ¥30,000,000 for the kidney, and Yasuko watched as Saejima dropped out of school and joined the yakuza in order to obtain the money. Feeling deeply indebted to Saejima, Yasuko tried to visit him in prison everyday after he was arrested, but was denied visitation every time.
While Yasuko was living in Chiba, she was contacted by a detective from the Tokyo police force, who promised he knew someone who could save Saejima from prison. Yasuko rushed to Kamurocho, however, found out the man was not a detective, but rather a yakuza named Isao Katsuragi. Yasuko was told he could prove Saejima's innocence since he was at the scene of the crime, on the condition that she does one of two things for him: gather a hundred million yen, or agree to murder. Unable to afford it, Yasuko chose murder, and killed the owner of Drama Queen soon after.
Involvement[]
Yakuza 4: 2010[]
Yasuko's first appearance is as she walks into Sky Finance asking Akiyama for a ¥100 million loan. In order to earn the loan, Akiyama gives her a test: earn ¥3 million as a hostess within three days at Club Elise, Akiyama's hostess club.
She passes the test with ease, and Akiyama tells her to meet him on top of Millennium Tower so that he can deliver the money. Akiyama confesses that the real reason he was testing her was because he was also testing himself.
Yasuko admits that she had been planning on running with the money, but vows she will work to pay off every yen. Akiyama refuses, saying that he doesn't need any of it back, but she must answer one last question. He asks why Yasuko has been going around seducing and killing Shibata's men - it had been the lighter that she had brought to Sky Finance on their first meeting that had given her away, since he had realized she must have taken it after she killed the owner of Drama Queen. Yasuko remains silent, and refuses to tell Akiyama the reason, stating that she will earn back the money if it means she doesn't have to answer the question.
She goes into hiding after receiving the money, shaking Minami and Majima off her trail.
Yasuko is later discovered by Masayoshi Tanimura after she begins working at Midori, a Korean salon. He tries to interrogate her, believing that she may know the circumstances behind his father's death in 1985, but she is taken by a group of Shibata's men before they are able to talk.
She is brought to the docks to where Shibata is, and he questions why she's been going around killing his men. Yasuko says that she had no choice; that she'd never expected to be able to acquire the hundred million yen so easily, but Shibata is unsure what to make of her admission. Arai insists upon killing her, but Shibata has other things on his mind. Not heeding Arai's command, Shibata is shot through the back, and Tanimura bursts his way in, scaring off Arai and taking Yasuko back to the safety of Homeland.
When they return to Little Asia, Tanimura reassures Yasuko that he has no intention of turning her over to the police for her involvement in the murders, though Yasuko is wary of him. Tanimura asks her to recount what had happened between her and his father, Taigi Tanimura, after the hit in 1985. She tells him that his father had rescheduled their meeting, and never showed up.
Yasuko also reveals that the reason she had killed Shibata's family members was because she had been under orders from Katsuragi, who promised that he would testify to her brother's innocence if she either procured the 100 million yen, or killed for him. Yasuko, thinking that no one would loan that amount of money to her, agreed to kill the men, until she realized that there would be no end and sought Akiyama's help.
She reveals the location of the cash loaned to her by Akiyama to Tanimura and asks him to return it in her stead. She travels to Okinawa in order to be near her brother during his execution.
Yasuko arrives in Okinawa, and is seen asking the local police about her brother's whereabouts, who insist that the penitentiary doesn't exist. She is approached by Kiryu and Hamazaki. They lead her to the Tamashiro Family's old office, where Yasuko learns of Saejima and Hamazaki's escape from Okinawa Penitentiary No. 2. While there, they are found and attacked by Saito and his guards. Kiryu fights them off while Hamazaki protects Yasuko. In the end, Kiryu and Yasuko make their escape due to Hamazaki's sacrifice, saying that he'll allow the guards to take him back to the penitentiary once they're gone.
The two arrive in Kamurocho, and Kiryu takes Yasuko to New Serena, where they meet Date. Yasuko tells them her reasoning behind devoting her life to having Saejima acquitted. Kiryu instructs Yasuko to stay with Date while he goes to find Saejima, saying that she's too unstable and he worries that she'll throw her life away for him without any second thought. Yasuko agrees, though once Kiryu leaves, she drugs Date and runs to find Saejima herself. She runs into Akiyama and Tanimura, followed shortly after by Kiryu at a distance. While Tanimura and Akiyama are fighting off Kiryu, she goes ahead to Purgatory, not knowing that Katsuragi and his men are waiting for her. She joins her brother as a hostage of the Ueno Seiwa clan, and the two are finally able to talk.
Kiryu agrees to Katsuragi's terms, fighting his way up to the top of Kamurocho Hills where he finds Yasuko and Saejima. She is handed over by Takeshi Kido to Kiryu in exchange for the documents he holds. Kido aims his gun at them before turning to Katsuragi and shooting him in the chest. In the mayhem that follows, Yasuko is able to untie Saejima, but their reunion is cut short as Katsuragi, having been given a second chance by Saejima after refusing to kill him, aims to shoot him in the back as he walks away. Yasuko jumps between her brother and the bullet, and it hits her in the back. She tells Saejima that he's innocent, but that she already has blood on her hands, and pulls out the gun Tanimura had given her in case she'd needed it. She shoots a pleading Katsuragi in the head before she collapses, dying in Saejima's arms.
Trivia[]
- As seen in the company picture that Shun Akiyama keeps hidden in his desk, Yasuko bears a striking resemblance to his ex-fiancée, Eri.
Gallery[]
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Ryu Ga Gotoku Online[]
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Notes[]
- ↑ As Taiga became Yasuko's older stepbrother between 1970-1975, Yasuko would have to have been born in 1975 or earlier.
References[]
- ↑ Hayashi Katsuhiko 林 克彦, Fujino Yutaka 藤野 豊, Murakami Tomonari 村上 奉功 and Saitō Takeshi 齋藤 猛, eds., Ryū Taizen 2: Otokotachi no Kiseki -Ryū ga Gotoku Jinbutsu Roku- 龍大全2 漢たちの軌跡 ―龍が如く人物録― [Ryu Compendium 2: The Paths These Men Paved -Ryu Ga Gotoku Character Records-], ed. Hayashi Katsuhiko 林 克彦, Fujino Yutaka 藤野 豊, Murakami Tomonari 村上 奉功 and Saitō Takeshi 齋藤 猛 (Tokyo: Kadokawa, 2020), 24.