Masayoshi Yokoyama, the director of Ryu Ga Gotoku and the producer of Yakuza: Like a Dragon, claimed that One Piece was one of the game’s primary influences and that the characters were closely modeled by Luffy and his friends.
According to Yokoyama in an interview with Crunchyroll, the popular manga and anime series remained on his mind throughout the entire writing process, which is why Like a Dragon is essentially Yakuza: One Piece in his mind.
“I’ve never really talked about this before, so I’m not sure if I should just go for it now, but for [Like a Dragon] I was inspired by One Piece,” Yokoyama said. “To me, Ichiban is Luffy. And around him, there’s Zoro and Nami and the rest of the party. One Piece’s party composition was on my mind so much during writing that it was a massive influence.”
He added: “This is not official, but in my own heart, [Like a Dragon] was my ideal version of what would be Yakuza: One Piece. That’s how I got the inspiration to make it.”
The influence even bled into Like a Dragon’s promotional material. “If I recall correctly, even the catch copy for [Like a Dragon] was something like ‘Life is an adventure,’ with the keyword being ‘adventure’, Yokoyama added. “You can feel the One Piece inspiration coming through there.”
In retrospect, that makes sense because Like a Dragon was a more humorous spin on the Yakuza series with a hero who could alternate between being a badass and a ham, much like Luffy from One Piece.
After more than 1,000 chapters and 25 years, the manga is finally nearing its conclusion, albeit the series will probably keep expanding. In addition to a new video game arriving in January and a card game that is now in development and is anticipated to be published this winter, Netflix is currently working on a live-action series with fantastic sets that reproduce the strange and wonderful pirate ships from the manga.
Also read:
Deathloop and Dishonored are set in the same Universe
