Yamazaki

Story

Yamazaki was abandoned as a young child in Okinawa streets. Before he encountered a well-dressed yakuza boss named Sorimachi, his life was bleak and boring. Yamazaki left his hometown and joined the criminal organization to be like the man he saw. Eventually, he worked for Sorimachi, the guy he looked up to as a father figure, and for the first while in his life, he was content working as his guard.

Unfortunately, Yamazaki's unease during a crucial business trip to Osaka with his boss set off a rival gang's ambush, and as a result, Sorimachi was captured, tortured, and eventually killed. His unexpected death gave rise to Yamazaki's crazy alter ego. Yamazaki killed his boss's rival and fled from Japan to Hong Kong. However, he has little recollection of his past following this occurrence. He still operates out of Kowloon Walled City as an influential broker, gun dealer, and drug dealer. He frequently disagrees with Hon-Fu, who tries to catch him in the act and arrest him.

Personality

Yamazaki doesn't employ any specific martial art. He engages in efficient street fighting with little to no interest in techniques that employ a wide range of strikes while fighting, including unfair and dishonest methods like continuously trampling and savagely headbutting his opponent.

Yamazaki exhibits psychopathic traits and a desire for material possessions and money. He has two unique, equally evil personas: the majority of the time, he is a cool-headed gangster, but on occasion, he transforms into a frenzied crazy killer who enjoys bashing, smashing, cutting, and killing everything and everyone he meets. These ruthlessly cruel behaviors resulted from seeing his father figure die in the most horrific way imaginable.

 While not wholly unethical, he is not above playing around to underline his domineering manner with everybody he interacts with. It's interesting to note that Yamazaki puts his right hand instinctively in his pocket because his idol once lauded the strength of that specific fist and only utilizes it for special techniques.

Playstyle

Ryuji Yamazaki is a devastating mid-range character who excels at picking his opponents off before running them down with stance cancels, high/lows, command grabs, and frame traps. With many tools at his disposal, there's hardly a situation Yamazaki can't account for. However, a weak wakeup game and harsh, punishing execution can make Yamazaki trickier to pick up than most other characters. Regardless, if you master everything Yamazaki has to offer, your enemies are sure to cower in fear.

Appearance

An imposing fighter sporting an undercut with top blond hair, Yamazaki always appears in an overall coat with matching shoes, matching pants and a t-hirt.