Kazuo Shibata

Kazuo Shibata (, Shibata Kazuo) is a supporting antagonist featured in Yakuza 4. He is the patriarch of the Shibata Family.
== Profile ==
=== Appearance ===
In 1985, Shibata has black hair in a slicked back hairstyle and no facial hair. He appears to have an average build. By 2010, his hair has become entirely gray.
==== Attire ====
In 1985, Shibata wears a double breasted peaked lapel navy blue suit with black pinstripes, a black dress shirt, a burgundy patterned necktie, black dress shoes, and silver frame gray lensed aviator sunglasses.
In 2010, Shibata wears the same double breasted peaked lapel navy blue suit, burgundy patterned necktie, and black dress shoes, but he now wears a white dress shirt and rectangular yellow lensed rimless sunglasses with gray frames.
=== Personality ===
Shibata is conniving and unscrupulous, placing his advancement within the yakuza above loyalty to his Clan. To this end, he is prepared to conspire with rival powers, manipulate his fellow officers, and manufacture chaos within the Tojo only to take credit for preventing it from getting worse. He is also personally cruel, gleefully overseeing the torture of subordinates who defy his orders. While capable of planning out complicated schemes, like Katsuragi, Shibata is short-sighted and vulnerable to missing the bigger picture.
Shibata is perverted, as indicated by his desire and attempt to assault Yasuko. 
== Background ==
As patriarch of a low-ranking family in the Tojo Clan, Shibata decided to take decisive action to rise through the ranks. Around 1985, Shibata began conspiring with Isao Katsuragi of the Ueno Seiwa Clan, cooperating to gain power within their respective organizations. With the goal of taking out his rival Hideki Sasai and Sasai Family, Shibata gave Sasai a tip about where the Ueno Seiwa Clan would be on the day their chairman is released from prison. With Sasai planning on assassinating the Ueno Seiwa Clan with the info given, Shibata began waiting for the day of the hit, letting Katsuragi calculate the assassination in their favor. 
On April 21st, 1985, the day of the hit would arrive. Shibata found out the hit would not be carried out by a lone gunman, but rather two. Shibata called one of the two gunmen, Goro Majima, to have a meeting in an abandoned warehouse. After his best efforts, Shibata is unable to convince Majima to abandon the hit, and has Majima attacked by the Shibata Family.
After the Ueno Seiwa Hit is carried out, the rival Sasai Family disbands, and Shibata rises to the top of the Tojo Clan by 2010.
==Involvement==
=== Yakuza 4: 2010 ===
Shibata once again conspired with Katsuragi. This time, he had one of his subordinates - Hiroaki Arai of Shibata Family subsidiary Kanemura Enterprises - kill an Ueno Seiwa member, Masaru Ihara. In concealing his conspiring, Shibata publicly presented a severed pinkie (that was secretly fake) to Katsuragi in a supposed act of apology. Katsuragi then demanded that the Tojo Clan either fork over the head of Ihara's killer, Arai, or forefit the highly lucrative Kamurocho Hills project. However, Shibata had been hiding Arai the whole time as he actually wanted to forfeit the project to the Ueino Seiwa. 
Shibata later appeared alongside Arai when Masayoshi Tanimura found them both. Shibata intended to rape and murder Saejima's sister, Yasuko Saejima, as retaliation for her killing Shibata's subordinates under Katsuragi's orders since they knew the truth about the hit. Arai then shot Shibata before escaping from Tanimura, stating that Shibata wasn't necessary to Katsuragi's plans unlike Yasuko. He also reveals and condemns Shibata's blackmailing of Katsuragi over the hit, as Shibata slowly dies from his wounds. 
== Gallery ==
Kazuo Shibata (Yakuza 4) 02.jpg
Shibata and Majima 01.png|Shibata with Majima in 1985
Arai shoots Shibata front of Yasuko.png
==Notes==
==References==
Category:Shibata Family
Category:Tojo Clan
Category:Yakuza 4 Characters
Category:Yakuza 4 Antagonists