The iconic scene from Sega’s over-the-top series might look like the sort of thing only video game tough guys can do, but Mr. Sato shows how to do it in real life.

On January 26, Sega released Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, the latest installment in the Like a Dragon video game series (previously known as Yakuza in English-speaking markets). Our ace reporter Mr. Sato is happy for the opportunity to once again step into the shoes of yakuza-turned-vigilante protagonists Kiryu Kazuma and Ichiban Kasuga for another multi-course meal of dramatic main story content and wacky sidequests.

▼ Mr. Sato, SoraNews24 reporter

But first, there’s a question that’s been on his mind for some time: How do the Like a Dragon characters do this?

For those who haven’t played them, within the Like a Dragon games Kiryu and ichiban, plus a lot of their foes, spend a lot of time wearing suits. Eventually, though, the time will come for a mano-a-mano showdown with one of the major bad guys, at which point both hero and villain will throw out an arm to dramatically, and instantly, remove their jacket and shirt, so that their upper-body muscles and tattoos can be on full display as they fight.

It makes absolutely no sense, but it also looks absolutely awesome, making it Mr. Sato’s latest obsession, and something he’d like to recreate in real life, if only he could figure out how.

After much pondering of this dilemma, Mr. Sato finally had a plan. Obviously, it’d require a suit, so he ordered one off of Rakuten and had it shipped to SoraNews24 HQ.

As he opened up the box, he caught the attention of one of his coworkers.

▼ Ikuna Kamezawa, SoraNews24 reporter

▼ “Oh my God, what is THAT?!?”

Mr. Sato can explain. His idea for how to recreate Like a Dragon’s suit-tossing scene would involve making some alterations to the jacket, so he wanted a cheap one. Not surprisingly, there’s not such high demand for camouflage-pattern suits, so this one was available for just 2,000 yen (US$13.80) while still being of pretty decent quality in terms of the fabric and stitching.

Ikuna pointed out that this suit made Mr. Sato look more like a random encounter mob enemy than a Like a Dragon protagonist, and asked why he wasn’t using the gray suit he had back in 2022 for his Kiryu cosplay/investigative report series on the true level of danger in Kabukicho, the real-world inspiration for Like a Dragon’s Kamurocho.

Similar to Kiryu erasing his name in Like a Dragon Gaiden, though, Mr. Sato had thought his days of dressing up in that iconic outfit were over, and he tossed the gray suit out a while ago.

Getting to work, Mr. Sato realized that he was going to need a way to get the jacket off his body without pulling his arms out of the sleeves. To do that, he made incision to the jacket under both armpits and on the underside of the arms.

Once that was done, he slipped the jacket on, and…

It worked!

Mr. Sato was just getting started, though. See, the Like a Dragon characters don’t just throw off their jackets in one swift move, but their shirts too, and now another of Mr. Sato’s allies appeared with a suggestion.

▼ Yoshio, SoraNews24 big shot

After making similar cuts to a dress shirt, they then stapled the sleeves and collar of the shirt to those of the jacket…

…and once again, it looked pretty good in testing!

Still, there was room for improvement. Mr. Sato didn’t want to button up the shirt, since it would take too long to unbutton, but having his shirt just hang open was spoiling the sense of style, as were the long loose flaps where he’d made the incisions. To remedy this, he picked up some adhesive fastener tape from Daiso with which to close things up.

Unfortunately, it turned out that the Daiso tape worked a little too well…

…because now he couldn’t get the jacket off!

Eventually, he figured out that the problem was stemming from the sleeve of his right arm, the same-side hand that he was pulling with. Once you get that slit open, everything else will come apart pretty easily, so he switched from the special Daiso adhesive tape to regular old cellophane tape and left it relatively loose…

…which solved the problem nicely.

After a few more practice tosses, it was time to do it for real, and where better than the streets of Kabukicho?

Standing just inside the gate that marks the entrance to the neighborhood, Mr. Sato struck a dramatic pose…

…and let it rip!

What’s that on Mr. Sato’s back, you’re asking? Well, since the Like a Dragon characters always have elaborate tattoos covering their backs, Mr. Sato felt like he should get some ink too.

And when we say “ink,” we mean of the magic marker variety, as Ikuna volunteered to draw a majestic dragon on Mr. Sato’s back.

▼ We…we don’t have a normal office…

And with 2024 being the Year of the Dragon, Ikuna and Mr. Sato also decided to stick a “Happy New Year” message in kanji in as part of the design.

Plus it’s always nice to have a visual marker for when Mr. Sato’s crazy antics took place, since it really is hard to keep track of all of them.

Photos ©SoraNews24
● Want to hear about SoraNews24’s latest articles as soon as they’re published? Follow us on Facebook and Twitter!