Does Ichiban Have Schizophrenia? A Psychoanalysis of Ichiban Kasuga (Yakuza - Like a Dragon) 

Some astute players have pointed out that, in a very tense solo battle at the end of the game, the turn-based combat system seems to break down. This results in Ichiban and his opponent seemingly attacking each other in random intervals. This may be due to Ichiban’s fantastical view of reality breaking down as he’s forced to deal with the ugly truth of the situation head-on with no other way to frame it.

i'm surprised you did not mention the substory called "forget me not", because in that substory he goes on a date with a hallucination of a girl he saved 18 years ago and everyone notice his odd behaviour, the thugs that attacked him even called him out and told him hes a psycho

I think that Ichiban's overactive imagination makes him a unique character and I love him for that.

There is a substory in where ichiban was hallucinating the entire day with an imaginary person, feels like a missed opportunity leaving that out of the video

I always doubted about Ichiban having schizophrenia cause he acted really different from actual schizophrenic people. The only symptom he had was hallucinations. This video just confirmed my doubts. I have also seen some people say Kiryu is autistic. I believe he isn't but would love to hear your thoughts.

the substory forget me not is just downright got me having feels for ichi's condition when the girl he thought he had a date doesn't exist

It is worth noteing that he is helusinating only in battle with high adrenaline so that is something to consider

He's not schizophrenic, he's just a gamer

Wait wait, in the game there's a professor who has been studying the sujimon and when they first encountered the trench coat flasher, both nanba and adachi see him too and the professor showed them proof, you miss a clue

Awesome video topic! Ichi's wild imagination and Dragon Quest obsession add so much to his character, it makes him a very loveable and relatable protagonist. I especially like how his friends don't judge him for it and are always right beside him to help him out with no questions asked, because they know that even though he's most likely off in his own little world, he's doing okay, and he always knows when to get serious if the situation really calls for it. I can't wait for his next game!!

I'm glad you took into account his possible coping mechanism and used that to evaluate what his problem is. The biggest issue though is that personality disorders are an absolute hot topic in psych research and almost impossible to truly diagnose or prove they really exist

I discovered thanks to an anime the Chuunibyou disease which is a real syndrome, from the first half hour on this opus I directly made the connection that Ichiban was also affected by taking him and "his world" in an "anime-style". I partly agree with your video, I'm even more convinced that a video game hero like Ichiban with this kind of syndrome, shows the complexity but also really interesting to see his point of view, I see that it's not easy to live every day a person with Chuunibyou..

that thumbnail is hilarious

So, children with imaginations are creative, but Ichibans a Schizo? 😥

man 18 years in jail did some shit to him

Great video! You'll go far man

Babe wake up, new VGOLOGY came out

Works well too given how empathetic Ichiban is.

I'm so glad your videos got recommended to me!

i feel theres another, more common mental thinking pattern that may explain Ichiban and how he can sink hours into one activity. ADHD

BcSephiroth: hmmm will you do one on my *ahem* roommate Griffith from berserk he does have a video game.

ichiban is my favorite autism representation in yakuza

I think it's more like ADHD.

Man, I view my life as a video game too. Like going to work to make money. But I don’t get cooky and silly delusions. Damn :(

I think it would be interesting for Yakuza 8 to delve into the fact that people with "I'm the hero" mindsets usually have trouble accepting the objectives they deem their "quests" is in the wrong and resist very strongly before accepting this. I don't mean being tricked into doing something bad by a villain, I mean doing something morally grey and being presented with evidence of what you're doing is very wrong. The facts that the game will feature double protaginists (so two points of view) and that Ichiban has been a defender of grey zones can work very well to that end. An example of what I'm talking about can be the latter half of the Legion TV show.

He kinda reminds me of Sunny from Omori

The english version of traces of two pasts is out now

Prolly meth

Honestly bro why you didnt talk about the sub story where HE HALUCINATES TALKING TO A GIRL AND EVEN TAKING A PHOTO WITH HER AND AND AT THE END THE PHOTO IS JUST A PHOTO OF HIM BRO IS CRAZY

It’s not that deep

Kasuga suffers from chunibyo, which is second year middle school syndrome. Eighth grade in Japan, seventh grade in the U.S. He gets it from playing too many video games such as Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy. This game should not have been called Yakuza 7: Like a Dragon, this was more like Yakuza, Chunibyo & Other Delusions. Judgment was the real Yakuza 7 because it takes place in Kamurocho and the story is about two investigators, a former lawyer and a former yakuza aniki from the Tojo Clan solving a case of yakuzas from the Omi Alliance being found dead with their eyes gouged out.

I think it’s hilarious that Nanba, the burnt-out and disillusioned nurse, is the one who inadvertently feeds into Ichiban’s imagination lol

there's the part where adachi asks ichiban if he's seeing things and ichiban curiously doesn't try to deny it. And he's the type to talk back against Adachi's comments.

Strongest Dragon of Dojima vs Undiagnosed Schizophrenic

Maybe Ichiban isnt hallucinating at all and Sujimon are actually real?

not schizo just chuunibyo

Ichiban is literally me fr

10/10 would watch again, but it's amazing how much sense has the explanation about the fantasy stuff, gud vids btw

yakuza characters r always amusing to watch. the deep & complex yet has a dintinct charm to each of them. this game series is a masterpiece for sure. also love the vid ♥

I have a slightly different take As someone who's autistic, my take away from Ichiban was that he too was autistic. People with autism can have whats known as hyperfixations, where the person in question will fixate on some topic/subject We will often think about our hyperfixations a lot of the time, especially when bored/unable to do things As children, we often see the world in the view of our interests, seeing doing housework as leveling up, or doing school as raising stats etc As adults, a lot of us can still think like that, but also with the knowledge that the way we view these things arent real I see Ichiban as knowing that the transformations in battle and his own attacks arent real, but seeing a fight that way helps him really give it his all In that part in the game, he only recently gained a place to live after being homeless, and is still regularly struggling with all the things the story throws at him so, to him, having that fixation on JRPGs, seeing himself, his friends, and his daily life as an RPG helps push him through it all

For me? No. The bat did it. At most before obtaining it he was just a dude with a huge hobby for Dragon Quest but immediately afterwards his imagination went wild.

I've always wonder how Ichiban perceive the world around but also how fight actually unfold. In previous Yakuza game, the violence, strenght and brutality displayed in fights isnt actually what is happening (otherwise Kiryu and Majima would have killed many people) but it is the perfect balance between a video game and what could possibly happen in the said fight. However in Yakuza 7 the fact that it is a turn based RPG style, it is very hard to picture what could have happened. I mean you're not going to tell me the orbital strike is actually a thing. It makes you wonder what is actually being done when you use such skill. But if we put aside the gameplay vs reality aspect, the RPG element actually makes each cutscene hit even harder. I'll admit I have not played Yakuza 7 yet, but I've seen some boss fight and what happens after some of these boss fight and I felt a lot more emotion than when I played Yakuza 0. Why ? Because despite all the goofiness happening during the boss fight, we know the reality and meaning behind these fight is often very grim, dark. So once a cutscene start, you're snap back to reality and everything that is happening (for better or worse) is set in stone. No more singing to heal or motivation shout to avoid death. If someone gets shot and die, you feel it, when someone's betray you, you also feel it. I could often relate to Ichiban's emotion because it feels like he is a gamer that is suddently thrown into the dark underworld and its way to endure it is to see it as a RPG until reality slaps him.

So he's not schizophrenic, but just the most functional maladaptive daydreamer ever

Fun fact Majima's shadow clones are cannon because you fight them in Yakuza 5 and Kiryu isn't crazy Also I'm like 70% convinced that Majima's summon happens in universe because Majima

Bro the whole Ichiban schizo joke is so stupid. it's so obvious he isnt' but people still believe it for some reason

Imagine he takes his meds in the next game and all his friends disappear.

LAD always had a mind-over-matter sort of design, Ichiban was just another fun way to explore that.

Let me take a wrecking ball to your initial opening. You say that the main character appears to be clear and rational. Keep in mind that you're seeing things from his point of view. Crazy people don't know they're crazy, they only appear crazy to the outside world. To them everything they're doing and seeing makes sense. You're seeing what he perceives as making sense. To the outside world, a view we don't see, this could all appear to be very disorganized crazy and off the wall. He could appear to be a crazy person. After all when he's fighting imaginary dark versions of people what u think ithers are seeing?

You forgot to mention a substory in which Ichiban literally spends an entire day with an imaginary girl.

i just think ichiban is a highly imaginative guy, he know when to get out of his imaginative and has control of it, he only has it when it come to certain plot (in the beginning with the bat) and most of the battle he is in. schizophrenia is something u cant control. like how people could imaginative in dnd.

for the whole game I was thinking he was shizophrenic

😂😂 this is perfect timing I just got done playing the quests where ichiban was imagining the girl that was never there 😂

Did you forget about the random encounter with the girl he dates who doesn't exist?

Ichiban just has gamer brain and we love him for it

nobody talks about how Ichiban Ka talks about how Ichiban is constantly on drugs and alcohol

nice, make a video about vergil from dmc or master chief from halo

Can i suggest for another character...maybe like alex mercer? nice vid btw

Ichiban being schizophrenic didn't quite seem right to me, I just thought he was very creative whenever he got in the fighting moment. Same would go for the Kiryu being "autistic" argument, when really, he's just very serious/stoic with formal mannerisms. Or Majima being a closeted trans person because he dressed as Goromi once to get a reaction out of Kiryu. But it is interesting to hear different interpretations of each character, even if it's not canonical.

Please do video on krieg from borderlands.

i think it goes like this: he does have friends on his side, but he just imagines their attacks to be something else. or we should take it as face value

It's wonderful! I'd love for you to do one about Mine Yoshitaka from Yakuza 3, he's a character that I've always found quite interesting, because of how he acts or his way of thinking, I've tried to analyze him on my own but I've always ended up coming out with more doubts than answers.

so that basically means he is baki character

Suppose this also explains Infinite Wealth..... Kiryu was really lonely

You have potential, stay on this road and you'll go far on youtube.

What a bunch of hooey just to say that Ichi has an overactive imagination.

18 years in the joint made you a schizophrenic

No sir, I'm a dreamer

1:49 if you don't believe ichiban has schizophrenia then I'll tip my hat and be on my way good sir

I guess you could say his warped perception of reality is Like A Dragon Quest game

He just has a vivid imagination

simple answer Yes.

This was a pretty good analysis, I'm subscribing 👍

The problem is unplayable past segments, they just play as cutscene in some sort of side quest but it's main story and should be a playable segment in order to engage people to his hard past years

I'm still waiting for Kiryu psychoanalysis episode.

Ichiban being schizo is jus like me fr fr

Don quijote

Amazing work!! Makes me appreciate the game even more :-)

Finally a character i can relate to

What about the sub-story where he hangs out with a girl that seemingly never existed.

Yes. Next question.

Learned more about myself than Ichi.

I've never related so much with any character than I do with Ichiban

These are the questions that matter

Yes yes he is

🤓

Damn This video deserves the sub!

Yakuza 7 combat makes me cringe

No he's just a little silly guy

As a certified diagnosed schizo I am claiming ichiban as a schizo homie

Ichiban just have brain damage. And kiryu unlock ichiban's ability by having cancer 😂😂

He's just like me fr fr