Goro Majima

Goro Majima (Japanese: 真島 吾朗, Hepburn: Majima Gorō) is a main character in Sega's Like a Dragon video game franchise, previously known as Yakuza outside of Japan. He first started off as one of the secondary antagonists of Yakuza, before becoming one of the main playable protagonists of Yakuza 0 and Yakuza: Dead Souls, as well as the main protagonist of the Majima Saga of Yakuza Kiwami 2 and Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii.

Introduced as a member of the Tojo Clan and patriarch of its subsidiary group, the Majima Family as well as second-in-command of the Shimano Family, nicknamed "Mad Dog of Shimano", he develops a sadomasochistic obsession with the protagonist Kazuma Kiryu. He continually seeks to fight him, seeing him as the perfect rival, but eventually bonds with him across the franchise and becomes an important ally of his. He is also the sworn brother of Taiga Saejima who is one of the protagonists of Yakuza 4 and Yakuza 5.

Majima's character is explored in more detail during the prequel Yakuza 0, in which he is a 24-year-old former Yakuza and a playable protagonist along with Kiryu. In this game, Majima has a much more calm and serious demeanor that develops into his standard sadomasochistic one during a war between a number of families in a fight for a patch of land known as the Empty Lot, while protecting the owner of the lot, Makoto Makimura, who serves as Majima's love interest. Majima also appears in the spin-off Dead Souls as well as the crossover Project X Zone 2.

Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio created Majima as a "clown" character who would contrast his calmer characterization in Yakuza 0, where the localization shifted Majima's character arc so he would not come across as insane.

Ever since his appearance, Majima has been critically acclaimed by many critics and fans alike, with Majima becoming a breakout character in the franchise, due to his crazy antics that had made him popular with the fanbase and even having earned a CD with all the songs Ugaki plays in his karaoke mini-games while topping a popularity poll. His character, story arc, and fighting style in Yakuza 0 were highly praised by critics.

According to Scott Strichart, who handled localization and production on a number of Yakuza games, Majima is a bit of a "class clown"—someone with a "joker-esque personality"—which is opposite to his calm demeanor in the prequel. However, he noted that while fans felt that Majima went "insane", the Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio said that he "makes a conscious choice to... let loose". This was something the translators found challenging while localizing the game. Strichart pointed out that through Majima's interactions with Nishitani, he gains insight into how someone like that would live. The goal of the localization team was to make Majima and Kiryu more likeable with their changes, although Strichart believed Kiryu was more popular than Majima in Western countries. Strichart said that while fans might miss previous Yakuza characters like Kiryu and Majima, he hoped they would be receptive to Takayuki Yagami, the protagonist from the next game Judgment.

Series' producer Daisuke Sato said that ever since the release of Yakuza 0, Majima has become far more popular, to the point that many developers thought it was possible to create a new spin-off game focused around him.

Goro Majima first appears in the original Yakuza game as a secondary antagonist, being the patriarch of the Majima Family and a lieutenant of Futoshi Shimano. Nicknamed "The Mad Dog of Shimano" (嶋野の狂犬, Shimano no Kyōken), he takes an interest in the protagonist Kazuma Kiryu because Kiryu refuses to fight him when provoked. This results in Majima spending the rest of the game's plot trying to goad Kiryu into fighting him just for fun.