Like a Dragon/Yakuza exhibition offers wedding ceremonies with charavter of your choice, provides paperwork to tie the knot and sever it too.
The storylines of Sega’s Like a Dragon/Yakuza games get into some pretty crazy scenarios. Sure, they start off gritty and grounded, with missions focused on loansharking and personal injury scams, but before you know it you’re raiding a backup version of Osaka Castle that’s made out of gold, or infiltrating a secret battleship that’s been hiding underwater for decades.
And yet, the most loyal fans of the franchise will tell you it’s the characters that really make them love the series. That’s why an upcoming event will give you the chance to marry your favorite member of the Like a Dragon/Yakuza cast, and also the chance to divorce them.
To mark 20 years since the release of the first game in the franchise, the Like a Dragon 20th Anniversary exhibition will be opening in Tokyo in November, followed by dates in Osaka in February. Production materials and retrospectives will be on display, and there’ll be exclusive merch available for purchase as well, and the venue will also have a wedding corner with life-sized wedding-themed standees of 11 characters from the games.
Fans can post for pictures with the character of their choice, with the list of eligible spouses consisting of the series’ original protagonist Kazuma Kiryu, new protagonist Ichiban Kasuga, scene-stealing Goro Majima, and six other men from the criminal underworld: Akira Nishikiyama, Taiga Saijima, Daigo Dojima, Yoshitaka Mine, Joongi Han, and Tianyou Zhao. There will also be two potential brides, Seonhee and, for those who prefer a romantic partner from the side of law and order, detective Kaoru Sayama.
▼ “Be joined with the person you love!” encourages/commands this promotional image for the event.
For those looking for a more extensive coupling, an additional fee grants access to an AR app that allows you to pose at your leisure, with what appears to be a more immersive digital background, and lets you retain the data and print hard copies at convenience store kiosks.
But if you really want to express your devotion, you can opt for a full-on wedding ceremony with your favorite Like a Dragon/Yakuza character! These premium packages include a wedding dress or tuxedo rental and the services of a professional makeup artists and hair stylist. Once you’re all spruced up, you’ll walk down the aisle to where your beloved is waiting for you to say your vows while a professional photographer preserves the occasion, and you can invite up to 10 friends or family members to attend the ceremony.
The package even includes a marriage registration form to fill in with your and your crush’s particulars. Though not legally binding, it’s a way to make the experience feel a little more realistic…but heightening the realism actually causes some difficult questions to spring to mind. While the Like a Dragon/Yakuza cast work well as fodder for fantasized romance with a dashing yet dangerous lover, when you stop and think about it, would you really want to date someone who’s a professional criminal? Even the “honorable” Kiryu and Ichiban live very violent lifestyles, and are generally incapable of walking more than a block or two without getting into viciously violent fights with packs of total strangers, fights in which they routinely do things like stab their opponents with knives, body slam them into the pavement, or microwave their heads, all things that, in the real world, would likely be considered attempted murder.
So while the marriage certificate makes the fantasy feel more realistic, that realism runs the risk of reminding you that a relationship with the Like a Dragon/Yakuza cast member probably wouldn’t work out, and so the wedding ceremony package also includes divorce paperwork for you to fill out if/when you realize getting hitched was a bad idea.
The marriage registration and divorce papers will also be sold on their own at the exhibition, but they’re included in the wedding ceremony package, which is priced at 150,000 yen (US$1,000). With the Like a Dragon 20th Anniversary exhibition scheduled to run from November 28 to December 22 at the Shibuya Beam Gallery in Tokyo and February 6 to 24 at the Osaka Nanko ATC Gallery, there will be a limited number of available ceremony slots, to be awarded by lottery. Application details are yet to be announced, but the organizers have said that a total of 15 ceremonies will be held. With only 11 characters to choose from, that means at least one of them is going to be marrying with more than one fan, though, so those divorce papers really will come in handy if you’re not down for a polygamous relationship.
Related: Like a Dragon 20th Anniversary exhibition official website
Source: Like a Dragon 20th Anniversary exhibition via Famitsu via Hachima Kiko, PR Times
Top image: PR Times
Insert images: YouTube/龍が如くスタジオ 公式
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