Koichi Takasugi

Koichi Takasugi (, Takasugi Kōichi) is a major supporting character in Yakuza 5. He is a loanshark operating in Nagoya who claims to have connections with the city's ruling yakuza group, the mysterious Nagoya Family.
==Profile==
=== Appearance ===
Takasugi is of average height and build. His hair is dark brown and slicked back.
==== Attire ====
Takasugi is a well-dressed man, to a point where Kineicho locals believe that he is involved with the yakuza. He wears a dark gray pinstripe suit over a white dress shirt with a light pinstripe pattern, and a pair of modern-looking glasses. He also wears a gold chain necklace and a pair of shiny brown cap toe oxfords.
=== Personality ===
Takasugi is a jaded, sarcastic man who frequently makes deadpan jokes about harming his debtors if they fail to pay him back. Despite his frequent allusions of violence against his clients; these are empty threats, as he does not have the criminal connections he claims to have which would allow him to get away with harming his debtors.
Takasugi was once a passionate fan of Nagoya's local baseball team, the Nagoya Wyverns, and in particular their minor league rising star, Tatsuo Shinada. However, after the bet-fixing scandal centered around Shinada which broke in 1997, his passion for the sport declined. During the course of Yakuza 5, as he and Shinada discover the truth of what happened in 1997, Takasugi starts to regain his passion for the sport and his respect for his former favorite player. Eventually, he becomes a stalwart ally to Shinada. When Shinada leaves to the Japan Dome and defeats Baba, Takasugi calls Shinada and tells him how worried he was that he left and how everyone missed him.
== Background ==
On June 8, 1997, Takasugi was watching a baseball game between the Nagoya Wyverns and the Tokyo Gigants. That game, he witnessed a home run hit by Tatsuo Shinada and caught the ball. Later that day, Takasugi received Shinada's signature on the ball, which he would cherish from that point on.
In 2011, Takasugi moved to Kineicho and started a loan business. Soon after, he recognized one of his customers as Shinada. Seeing how low Shinada had fallen, Takasugi found it easy on his conscience to hound him on payments, and visited Shinada frequently in doing so. During this period he also learned that residents of Kineicho were scared of "the Nagoya Family," and would claim to have connections with them to scare others.
== Involvement ==
=== Yakuza 5: 2012 ===
Takasugi has become reacquainted with Shinada, who does not recognize him, though this time on a more professional capacity. Shinada, now a struggling adult entertainment writer, has borrowed money from Takasugi and has come to owe him over a million yen. The moneylender constantly hounds Shinada, taking whatever money he earns to cover the debt repayment. When Shinada starts to slow down on the repayments, Takasugi offers to get him a job at a metal working plant, where he would have to get a couple of his fingers cut off in order to claim worker's compensation and pay him off for good.
However, an alternative opportunity for repayment arises when a mysterious masked man shows up to Shinada's door and makes him an offer: He believes Shinada was set-up in 1997 and, if Shinada can discover who was responsible for the framing, he'll pay him 20 million yen. Shinada initially refuses to take the job, since he does not want to re-live his past, but Takasugi forces him to so he'll have enough money to pay him back.
Shinada, Takasugi, and Uno; an acquaintance of Shinada's from his days in the Wyverns, start digging into what happened in 1997 and they uncover that the Nagoya Family had framed Shinada for game-fixing in order to expose and disrupt the real game-fixing schemes run by the Tojo Clan and the Omi Alliance. After Shinada's scandal broke, it became too risky for those two yakuza groups to continue rigging games in Nagoya and they eventually stopped operating in town altogether, clearing the path for the Nagoya Family to take over. Shinada and Uno ask Takasugi go take them to his bosses in the Nagoya Family to confront them, prompting Takasugi to reveal that he isn't actually part of the Nagoya Family.
Soon after, Shinada is kidnapped by the Nagoya Family because he is coming too close to learning the truth. As it turns out, the Nagoya Family is a secret alliance between the small business owners of Nagoya (including many of whom Shinada knew and was friends with, like Fumiya Ushijima and Milky) who banded together to expel the yakuza from their city, since their criminal activity was damaging their businesses. They hesitate to kill Shinada, so Kubota comes in to kill him off, but just before he does so, Takasugi crashes into the warehouse in a forklift. Takasugi then aids Shinada in escaping, during which they fight off Kubota and several of his goons. Shinada feels betrayed as his own friends and people who gave him a home and meaning in life turned out to be manipulating him and wants to give up. Takasugi then encourages Shinada to continue the investigation and tells him that he was the fan who asked for his autograph on the baseball he hit 15 years ago. 
The next day when Takasugi goes to Shinada's house, he finds that Shinada has left town and has left the 20 million yen that Daigo Dojima gave him, along with his baseball and a note reading "Here's your ball and your money. Should be more than enough. Get your children something nice with whatever's left over." Takasugi mumbles that Shinada should have known that he isn't even married. 
Some time after, Takasugi realizes Shinada is in Kamurocho and gives him a call to tell him to come back to Nagoya as everyone misses him, and passes on a special massage offer from Milky to him. This prompts an emotionally moved Shinada to begin crying silently, which confuses Takasugi, who keeps calling out to him over the phone.
== Trivia ==
* Takasugi's family name sounds phonetically identical to a Japanese word meaning "too high" or "too expensive" (, takasugi), which may be a play on words referencing Shinada's debt being "too high" to pay off.
==Gallery==
=== Yakuza 5 ===
baseballfan.png|Young Takasugi receives a signed ball from his idol
Kōichi Takasugi 02.jpg
=== Ryu Ga Gotoku Online ===
RGGO - Card - SSR Koichi Takasugi.png|SSR Koichi Takasugi
RGGO - Card - KSR Koichi Takasugi (Fighting Spirit).png|KSR Koichi Takasugi (Fighting Spirit)
Category:Yakuza 5 Characters
Category:Yakuza 5 AI Partners
Category:Yakuza 5 Supporting Characters
Category:Ryu Ga Gotoku Online Characters