#6. KAZUMA KIRYU (YAKUZA)
You wouldn’t expect the central protagonist in a series of crime dramas about organized underworld syndicates would be likeable, much less wholesome, but that’s exactly what Kazuma Kiryu of Yakuza fame is. A character who has shown up over the course of the entire Yakuza series in a single, continuous narrative arc, at some point you would think his whole shtick would begin to get old. After all, how much can you stretch the whole “nice guy in a ruthless world”/”fish out of water”/”trying to do the right thing in the face of difficult odds” thing before it starts to feel contrived? Arguably the Yakuza series’ greatest triumph is that, even when the actual games and their stories start to feel ridiculous, Kiryu never does. He always remains wholly grounded, wholly likeable, and wholly, well, wholesome. By the end of his story in Yakuza 6, he is every bit the incredible and well-meaning naive fool who found himself in too deep at the start of his long tale in Yakuza 0– and somehow, he is that without ever once stretching the bounds of plausibility.
