Yagami vs Kiryu - Who ACTUALLY Wins? 

Rubber bullets or gameplay gun. What was he shot by? Definitely not referencing any recent events btw

Kiryu wins because he doesn't have like 4 girlfriends to distract him from fighting

Sure Yagami wins in GAMEPLAY, but then the cutscene starts and Kiryu drops him like he did to Ichiban and says something like "Heh, you remind me of myself." Then they go play Mah-jong together.

They would just tiger drop each other's tiger drop infinitely

As Nagoshi once said: "Yagami is good in a fight. He's a tough guy. However, he does not possess the monstrous, superhuman physical energy of Kiryu." .... "Actually, at one point we considered the possibility of Kiryu appearing in this game. Then we realized this would blur the line between human and monster. Like, If Kiryu was in this game, people would be like, "Can't we just let Kiryu handle everything?"

idk man, i aint seeing yagami fighting 100 tojo clan members with rockets

This feels like extreme Yagami glaze ngl. Gameplay wise even with his op items Kiryu just pops y5 extreme heat, no damage dealt lol. Lore wise: Kiryu is touted as a legend of power, speed and endurance because he literally has shown feats no regular human can. Going toe to toe with a guy who beat up a much larger bear than normal, beating up 100 Tojo clan members with weapons and rockets by himself. Yagami is def more skilled than Kiryu but skill can be negated with pure stats Kiryu has lol

man explains gameplay conveniences as lore, part 1

Come on mate, y r u comparing 2 weak ass characters the real one should be joongi with head trauma and adachi with arrest

kiryu can wield a giant tuna as a weapon

If kiyru and yagami tiger dropped each other in the same time they will create blackhole, The new game will be in space Titled "Like A Dragon in Space"

Boomer Kiryu - years of training and discipline needed to master the Komaki Tiger drop and has to relearn it again every few years. Zoomer Yagami - scans QR code on the street

I usually say Kiryu because in Judgement Yagami wins a fight against a group of thugs in an alley, but is notably tired and visibly injured. Kiryu in Yakuza 5 on the other hand canonically took on 100 armed Tojo clan grunts and walked away without any visible injuries and not at all visibly tired. If you'd like a more recent example, Kiryu in Like A Dragon 7 managed to take on Ichiban's whole group and defeated them all handily, again without any visible injuries and not seeming at all tired. Those may be group fight examples, but I think it's a testament to durability and endurance that keeps Kiryu in the win. No shade to Yagami, but Kiryu had been injured more because he's dealt with higher stakes.

I love how all of the comment section agrees that kiryu would win this one

In the newer Yakuza games, it's established that all substories exist In Yakuza 5 Saejima got trained by a literal mountain god, and even then he was still only matching Kiryu's strength if not weaker. That enough says Kiryu probably win, and that's not even considering Heat Mode

Yagami would win because he manages to do so many kicks in skin tight jeans. Imagine his power level if he had loose fitting pants like Kiryu.

Does Yagami get Stinger missiles shot at him cause he's too dangerous to be alive? I rest my case

Now we just need one more battle: Yagami’s superpowers and extracts vs Ichiban’s Essence of Orbital Laser.

Just look at Yagami in cutscenes: he has serious problems with concussions. One kick from Soma and he was floored for minutes. Kiryu on the other hand takes full blooded punches (like from Ichiban) straight to the head and doesn't even flinch.

I don't care who the government sends, im never admitting that Yagami could defeat Kiryu in a fight.

Yagami vs Kiryu is like a slingshot versus a heavy machine gun

If you TRULY want to give them all their abilities along with yagami's extracts, give Kiryu his limit break from Yakuza 0. Yagami would explode with 1 punch and kiryu would be invincible. The yagami glazing is on another level 😂

this is legit just jake paul vs mike tyson ramped up a couple notches

Yagami needs help in large crowds meanwhile Kiryu just solos 100 guys and casually just steps aside from a heat seaking rocket. Kiryu would just mop the floor with Yagami.

Problem: Kiryu also has superpowers. A normal human can't shatter a solid marble statue in one punch, and that was done by a _very_ non-prime Kiryu. If we go by lore in the sense of "not gameplay", Kiryu is way stronger, but Yagami is _maybe_ more agile. I won't even say faster, because Heat Actions are fully animated and thus are in this weird middle-ground between gameplay and cutscene and Yakuza 5 Kiryu has this one Heat Action that has him borderline _teleporting_ with his speed. And that's completely disregarding the fact that Heat is actually canon.

"Ishin combat doesnt count, because that is not fair" Meanwhile Yagami with literal superpowers

Realistically Kiryu would speedblitz Yagami, especially considering how his styles give him the clear advantage in strength, speed, and defence. Even with Cancer, Kiryu’s feats still outclass Yagami. His mimicry unironically would probably just allow him to copy snake, crane, tiger, and boxer 😭😭😭

Yagami glaze is crazy. Has yagami even fought in a underground tournament yet?

18:24 While Yagami DOES have the Extracts, they run on a timer and also has a limited supply. That also doesn’t change the fact Kiryu has Dragon’s Spirit from Yakuza 5 (The Climax Heat/Red Heat ability) which makes him untouchable AND uses his regular Heat Gauge instead of the Climax Heat Gauge used for special Heat Actions like Essence of The Dragon King. Even if he only had Extreme Heat (which is definitely weaker), he would still be unkillable. The only issues would be A. That he runs out of Heat, but even then the War God Talisman is still a thing, and B. Waiting for his Heat to recharge.

Prime Kiryu would absolutely decimate Yagami and it isn't even close lol.

Gonna "um achtually" you on Yagami at 3:50. He learned the foundations of his martial arts from his father, who was implied to be an expert. Crane and Tiger are just slight improvements on what he learned there. Snake though, yeah he just kinda figured that out lol

Come on guys v all know who it is ADACHI!!! With his arrest

"never lost a fight in their lives". But Yagami absolutely did lost to Soma their first bout. You won gameplay as a player, but Yagami in a story got saved by the caller, otherwise he'd be dead.

Surely if Yagami is allowed to use the extracts, Kiryu can use the fuck ton of war god talismans he's got, basically unlimited heat which means unlimited extreme heat mode which means impossible to kill

Let's hope Kiryu doesn't remember that he used to be level 999 in 0

A quick note, Yagami does say in Judgment that he was taught the basics of martial arts from his dad, but that everything after that is stuff he learned from fighting on the streets.

Aight, I reckon it's time to kick up a fuss about not having a Yakuza fighting game again

There is actually a very well made mod for lost judgement called “legend gauntlet” wherein kiryu and yagami can fight in a gauntlet match and kiryu, with the kiryu AI using his movesets from the games along with all of his agent gadgets, so if you wanted to actually compare them gameplay wise while fighting in lost judgement combat, it is possible

The writing makes it pretty clear Yagami is meant to be more grounded and weaker, similar to Shinada, with emphasis on his underdog energy and fighting alongside his friends. Yagami is overpowered in *gameplay* but the story makes it clear he is NOT an invincible monster like Kiryu. He struggles and even loses 1v1 against random enemies, he has trouble with students, and his long battles emphasise him working with his friends to take on great odds (even if in gameplay they can be useless). Even a single Yakuza family is treated as beyond Yagami's abilities to handle alone in Judgment. Kiryu singlehandedly destroys entire Yakuza clans, special forces and mafia groups, and its written in a way where everyone knows that is par the course for him. He gets scenes where he beats a 100 men at once as a foregone conclusion, and writers make sure he never loses a 1v1 fight. It gets to a point where someone giving Kiryu trouble is a big deal. He's also written in a less grounded manner so he can get up to random superhuman shit even in story cutscenes.

Sooooo you’re basically saying Yagami would win because RGG wanted to evolve their combat mechanics with each subsequent game, and both Judgment games just so happen to be some of the latest games at the moment? Ok boomer *(casually Tiger Drops you, negating **_all_** damage this time for real)*

I would argue Kiryu being written as a moron is intentional. People in game call him out on stupid decisions he makes, which means the writers are well aware of how stupid those decisions are.

In all honesty, Kiryu and Yagami would became allies if they were to meet.

The super power thing would be a good feat for yagami… but Kiryu can beat saejima, and saejima can beat a mountain god that can shoot fireballs, teleport, turn invisible, summon snow clones, and control avalanches

kiryu does have superpowers aka regen powers. when he got shot by the chinese assassin in yakuza 0, his wounds healed completely after a couple of hours. he could also go on fighting after being stabbed in yakuza 2. And he can sing, so he automatically wins

If we take Yagami super powers into consideration than let's also take Kiryu lvl. 999 from Yakuza 0 ;)

Yagami vs Kiryu is an immovable object vs an unstoppable force. Unless Kiryu decides to use Ultimate essence, in which case Yagami is Ultimately goobed

21:43 Yagami's endless crusade against the health ministry, to be more specific lol

Yakuza fans tend to conflate how stong a character is with how important they percieve them to be. Like when gaiden came out people were acting like shishido couldn't possibly come close to other characters in the series like saejima, and im like??? shishido is a big fucking guy he apparently has been fighting all his life, on paper he should be one of the strongest people kiriyu has ever faced, his only major weakness is being a side character and lacking the proper plot armour/strength, compared to saejima who wasted away in prison most of his life after being a yakuza for like 20 minuites he has heaps more experience. Plus hes probably been working out all that time eating fairkly well, as opposed to saejima who has been depressed and eating prison food.

When you talk about the realistic perspective coming to down to the winner being whoever we play as, i find that flawed on the basis that in Y7 even though we play as Ichiban and "win" the fight against Kiryu, its shown after in a cutscene that we actually lost. So i dont think anyone is winning solely based on who we play as. Also why are we counting Yagamis extracts but excluding Kiryus Extreme moves from IW? Your whole point for not excluding extracts was to not make any caveats? So Yagami can use extracts, lets see Kiryu summon a whole ass fucking dragon on Yagamis ass then. The double standards are crazy.

Actually come to think of it, if we are counting Yagami's extracts as a factor, should we count also Kiryu's max level 999 bullshit from Yakuza 0? Cause that system is also overpowered and stupid

Kiryu: Nah, i'd win. Yagami: About To Go Fight I'll Post The Video After Yagami: I Got My Ass Beat Bruh I'm Not Posting That Shit

Kiryu literally crawled his way halfway through Kamurocho after two massive back to back battles one of them with a man equal to his skill with an open wound and survived. To top that he fought two tigers at once. Yagami's first game had mortal wounds in it and he learned fighting through watching TV. I love Yagami but it's not a contest who's stronger.

21:16 "He still can't pay his bloody landlord despite making 20 billion yen." Average description of rent in Japan.

I think Kiryu already has the lead.

I love how the most you said of IW Kiryu is "uh he's in turn based so Yagami would just fight him." Completely foregoing any potential analysis of his styles and combat techniques there. But sure, let's just ignore that Kiryu has access to infinite katanas, knives, bowling balls, staffs, and whatever other weapons he can use for special moves. Let's ignore that rush giving him two turns essentially confirms he can use something equivalent to godspeed in 2023. Let's ignore how guarding with beast ups his physical damage. Let's ignore that he has the ability to perfect guard, not to mention the Sea God's Talisman? You know, the thing that would negate any extract move Yagami could try to do to him? Oh, also essense of gun cannot miss. So yeah, IW Kiryu alone solos Yagami, and it isn't even close

Kiryu might win, one small issue for him, though. Hold △ + Hold △ + Hold △ + Hold △ + △

My friend told me about the Yakuza games a few months ago, and I’ve completed the story in each and every single one of the mainline games, except for IW. I love this series so much, and have found so many awesome content creators because of it :D keep it up dude!

Kiryu is so good at martial arts he could look at a random situation and learn a brand new technique and has fought master martial artists in the coliseum and has decades of experience fighting the strongest mfs in the series him forgetting doesn’t take away anything he only forgot a few specific techniques and still had the foundation of his fighting style which he was still better than everyone he faced in hand to hand combat

I don't see this battle ever happening story wise. As you said, if you haven't played Infinite wealth, you're warned Kiryu is way too old to be fighting, however I would want to see Yagami and Kasuga + Crew

Ngl. Yagami gets stomped

The battle will ultimately come down to their essence as warriors. It'll always come down to Yume vs Sawa-sensei. An unstoppable force meeting an unmovable object

"He got 4 fighting styles" Agent Style is malding rn

I think tney should both kiss

0:16 ah yes, the legendary battle between Saitama and Kiryu.

From reading the title i guess someone finally said it... Yagami beats Kiryu in a modern dance battle

Kiryu easily

Without memes or jokes, the only one close to kiryu is Saejima

How come you didn't mention limit break from Yakuza 0? If we're being fair and giving Yagami all of his dragon extract abilities, It's only fair we let Kiryu literally get infinite health and infinite damage...

Kiryu wins. You're throwing a baby with a wallet chain up against a main battle tank in a bad suit.

Kiryu: "Tiger..." Yagami: "Drop!" Planet: cracks in half

Fun fact: yagami gets soloed by kiryu in yk1 with rush style alone.

Yagami vs Kiryu is basically the Bruce Lee quote of "I do not fear the man who practices 1000 kicks one time each, I fear the man who practiced one kick 1000 times."

Yagami beats kiryu in having underage girlfriends

Yagami would hurt his hands hitting kiryu lmao, I'd end like the ichiban fight

Okay, but Kiryu can throw sand into Yagami's eyes and he' be blinded, but Kiryu will never be because Gaiden removed the mechanic. Also, realistically, you said Kiryu's Yakuza 5 Red Heat mode can basically stop any attack. In fact: It does. So it would stop Yagami's magic powers too. This sounds.. too convenient.

The way I see it, i think it would be more interesting to compare their antagonists. Like, does kiryu have a harding time beating the mole? I dunno probably not

Dunno about Yagami's superpowers, but canonically Kiryu DID fight Amons, Jo in 4 and So in 0 have their insane laser beam attacks that Kiryu can dodge or sustain (on lower difficulties at least) 🤓

Yagami hasnt grinded the real estate minigame and mr shakedown to get his legend style to level 999 tho...

3:37 Cmon, give Kiryu some time. He got bashed on the head SO many times during the franchise that he FORGOT most of his moves, styles, techniques, and even that he is a virgin. Give the man a break.

The way I've always seen it is Yagami would dance circles around Kiryu but if he gets hit even once or twice it's over. At least pre Y8.

Yagami can’t dodge two rockets thrown at him and take down armies chasing him with a single fire weapon or fight 100 men alone.

This is a good video but leaning on gameplay wise, lore wise kiryu would probably win. but gameplay wise yagami might win(without taking into account one single kiryu thing you forgot). although I don't believe orbital cannons or summoning fire orbs is canon. with the fact that if we take yagami's fighting opponents compared to kiryu's. Yagami lost to soma in their first fight and then tied with a highschool teacher 2 times then barely winning. Yagami needed his pals to fight 100 men. kiryu solo'd 100 tojo men. If we specifically focus on the gameplay elements you can say ichiban is better than kiryu because he can nuke him. you also forgot limit breaker yakuza 0 kiryu which would literally one shot yagami at a sneeze and take like 5 hours to kill making yagami run out of his extracts

Yagami after the Ultimate Slap:💀

Yagami would win the fight because he would do this research on a lot of things and instantly who kiryu is. He does his preparations and tries his best to avoid Kiryu at all cost so he won’t be hostile and went they do meet it is friendly encounter and avoiding the fight in cutscenes. The only time they will fight is the Area where the two actually have stakes to win.

Kiryu spent 10 years in the joint Yagami spent 10 million yen on his multiple girlfriends

I completely skipped over extracts because I didn't think they were worth the grind. By god. What I missed.

hello again south-eastern hemisphere japanese mafia man

My favorite take on the whole "Kiryu vs Yagami" debate is that Kiryu wins in terms of lore and feats, while Yagami absolutely bodies him in gameplay.

i feel like IN-UNIVERSE, kiryu is meant to be one of the strongest people alive (at least during his heyday/before he got cancer) while yagami is supposed to be a guy of above average strength/skill to uses his wits and acrobatics to get the upperhand in battle and still needs his friends to help him fight large groups of people. HOWEVER gameplay-wise they made yagami super OP in LJ because it made his combat some of the most fun to play in the entire series by giving you tons of options for combat and tons of moves that feel rewarding when you use them skillfully. Another thing I think of though, is that while yagami may not be offensively stronger thatn kiryu, he might be defensively stronger. if you look at all the punishment he takes, especially in LJ that he's still able to stand and fight and then seemed to be completely healed with no effects the next day. although i guess we've never seen yagami get shot or stabbed. I love how confident you are that yagami and kiryu will meet someday because i really want it to happen. reminds me of my story idea is that haruka knows kiryu's still alive so she goes to kamurocho and hires yagami to find him (i made this idea pre-gaiden but it could still work if it took place after gaiden but before kiryu got sick). eventually yagami finds kiryu and they fight because yagami wants to help his client and solve the case but kiryu needs to hide his identity and keep himself away from haruka. it's an epic fight of ideals and dedication.they don't try to kill each other, just defeat each other. yagami puts up a good fight and confuses kiryu a bit with his acrobatic moves, but eventuall kiryu overpowers him with his raw strength. just as kiryu's about to deliver the final blow, haruka steps in and makes them stop the fight. yeah i think it would go down like that.

I always liked to think of Kiryu as the born superhuman warrior who can take on anything and Yagami as the normal man who still could take on anything if he has to because he is just that skilled of a professional. As a criminal goon I would be scared of both but with Yagami it would be an unpleasant surprise since Kiryu exudes intimidation aura

Yagami might almost win against Kiryu, but then out of nowhere, Shinada defeats him with a steel chair, by gawd!

As one good old game OFF showed us. The played decides who wins

1:30 that cutscene is so realistic

yagami backwards is

Remember, we still lost with kasuga in yakuza 7 fighting with kiryu, and we were playing with him, so if yagami wins vro probably gets destroyed by kiryu in a cutscene and yagami did so little damage

Gameplay Yagami or cutscene Kiryu with stage 4 cancer, 4 shot wounds, shirts on, at the orphanage, no tigerdrop?

In gameplay? Yagami wins,no question. Even if you take away extracts or some other dumb shit, it's just way easier to fight as Yagami. In lore? Kiryu wins,no question. I'm confused,when did Yagami fight a tiger?

Kiryu win no doubt about that, but it would one crazy fight

1:50 I love the idea of Kiryu just randomly running into mid 20's law student Yagami and being surprised this random dude in skinny jeans knows kung fu and can destroy his innards with Chi energy.

I think Yagami’s greatest advantage is consistency, with Kiryu dipping at the end of each game, only to be pulled back in and learning to fight again and again.