Quote Originally Posted by MetroAlien View Post
Yakuza go 'screw da law' and 'f the poh-leece' so I wrote it off as anti-lawful.
Seeing that Asian stereotypes as a whole (and Japanese especially so) already resemble 'lawful' alignment, I feel that it should be seen through a prism of sorts...
Anti-law =/= anti-Lawful. The quickest example to give is that many Paladins could be considered anti-law, if the laws are considered unjust. Are Paladins Chaotic? No.

The Yakuza, more than any other organized crime syndicate in human history was built on a rigid set of laws, and in many cases WERE the law for many settlements not long after the Meiji era began, acting as basically a suped up community watch and "get **** done" committee. They brought order to lawless regions and helped devastated communities get back on their feet...coincidentally (of course) allowing them to really get their claws in these communities and form cores of people who are very loyal to the idea of the Yakuza as the people who could help them when the government was too aloof or incompetent to do so.

This honor code and ruleset is actually the core of every conflict in the series: the protagonist, Kazuma Kiryu, an "old school Yakuza" (already considered a throwback to an earlier era in the late 80s, when he got started) who believes in honor, serving the community, and all that jazz clashes with more "Chaotic", self-serving, and profit-driven Yakuza. Shenanigans ensue.

Kazama, being his mentor and surrogate father, is the one who instilled these values in Kiryu. The man lives and dies by those values; working as a hitman for the Yakuza, but abiding by his personal code to never kill "civilians" if he can help it, and particularly not children...to the point he takes it upon himself to found an orphanage to care for all the children whose parents he murdered.

That is...like the actual, textbook definition of Lawful Evil. The Code above all. Honor above all.