My Failed Attempt At Learning Japanese Just To Play A Video Game

I love the Yakuza series of games so much so I once contemplated learning Japanese because of it. More specifically, I wanted to learn Japanese so I can play the Japanese-only titles set in the edo period Ishin! and Kenzan! since it didn’t look like RGG wanted to localize it outside Japan.

The inspiration came from a Twitter discussion with the SEGA’s localization producer (who is less involved with the Yakuza games now) on whether it would be faster to learn Japanese than to wait for the localizations. This was in 2017 mind you and I started the challenge was in 2021.

I forgot about it in 3 days.

Yeah, I didn’t really focus on it. Funny enough, SEGA announced the localization of Ishin in late 2022 so I would have failed the challenge anyway. All I have to show for my efforts are a list of resources on how to learn Japanese that I wont share unless you want me to.