Like a Dragon: Kenzan!

Like a Dragon: Kenzan!
Developer	New Entertainment R&D Deptartment
Publisher	Sega
Platforms	PlayStation 3
Released	JP: March 8, 2008
Added to Museum	October 26, 2018

Like a Dragon: Kenzan! (龍が如く 見参！, "Like a Dragon Arrives!"), is a spin-off of the Like a Dragon series that is a prequel to Yakuza. It was released for PlayStation 3 in Japan on March 6, 2008.

Plot

In the 17th century, a rōnin named Musashi Miyamoto takes on the alias of Kazumanosuke Kiryu.

In 1600, at the end of the Sengoku period, Musashi Miyamoto is a sensei at a martial arts dojo. He is teaching his students a move he named the Dance of Two Swords. He claims that it is just a dance because no one could actually fight with two swords.

The swordsman of the House of Takugawa, Nagayoshi Marume, entered the dojo, telling the students that they want to use their dominant arm but that some people can fight with two swords.

He then apologizes for the sudden entrance, tells Musashi he wants to talk to him alone, and asks if he can tell his students to go home. He complies and asks his students if they have any questions before they leave. A student named Toutarō asks if it is true that there are different kinds of katana. He confirms that and tells him there are even rumors of a bewitched katana. He then shows students named Nujirō, Renzaburō, Boushirō, and Zengarō, how to use a sword.

After his students leave, Marume tells Musashi that he wants him to perform a test. Musashi asks if it is a test to see if he is worthy of fighting for the forces of Tokugawa in a civil war between Eastern Japan and Western Japan. Marume denies this but claims the task he wants Musashi to run will shake the foundations of Japan.

Marume initially declines before he is told that if he passes the test Musashi will recommend that he become an assistant instructor at the House of Takugawa. Musashi then tells him that the test is to fight him, so he does so and loses the fight. Despite the loss, Marume tells him that due to his fighting spirit, he passed the test.

On October 21, 1600, the aforementioned civil war took place in Sekigahara between the coalition of Toyotomi loyalists of Eastern Japan led by Ieyasu Tokugawa against the forces of Western Japan led by Mitsunariin Ishida.

In the years following the battle, a period of peace and prosperity took place with money held largely by the influential in the neighborhood of Gion, the home of the Imperial capital. Because this neighborhood was now a red light district, it signified the end of the era of rule by the sword to one ruled by money. In Gion, men were being forced into Gion to be sold as slave labor while women and girls were being sold to work as sex slaves.

In 1605, a rōnin named Musashi Miyamoto is living at the House of the Dragon under the alias of Kazumanosuke Kiryu, earning a living for a man named Ittōsai Itō who gives him work as a bodyguard for various business owners as well as a money collector. He spends most of his time sleeping, smoking opium, drinking, or spending time with a courtesan named Tayuu Yoshino at the biggest brothel in Gion, Tsuruya.

After a collection job, Kiryu is told that someone is at the front gate of Gion looking for him. He arrives at the gate but is surprised that the person looking for him is a beaten and bruised young girl named Haruka. He tries to ignore her but she hears him being called Kiryu. She tells him that she was saved by a man who she didn't know and that he told her to go to Gion, see Kiryu, and that then she'd be alright. He tries to leave as he thinks he won't get paid for his services, but Haruka tells him that she has money. Kiryu becomes surprised when he notices the crest on the katana she is carrying. Kiryu's slave tries to punish her for carrying a weapon that she could use to hurt his master. However, Kiryu lies and tells him she could be his illegitimate child from a courtesan and takes her back to his house.

At the House of the Dragon, Haruka tells Kiryu that she will pay him to kill the man who murdered her entire family and tells him the murderer went by the name Musashi Miyamoto. The only thing she can tell Kiryu about the man who told her to seek him out was that he had a huge wound on his chest.

She learned that the man who killed her family went by Miyamoto because she went to a small village in the Omi Province where someone told her that the katana belonged to Musashi Miyamoto. Kiryu refuses her request and tells her that he doesn't know Miyamoto and that he doesn't kill people indiscriminately. She asks him again if he will do it if she can pay him, and when Kiryu confirms that, Haruka tells the mama-san of Tsuruya to buy her as a courtesan.