Yamamoto Yae

Yamamoto Yae (, Yamamoto Yae), also known as Miss Tatsu (, Tatsu-nee), is character featured in Like a Dragon: Ishin!. She is loosely based on the historical figure of .
== Profile ==
=== Appearance ===
Yae is a young woman with long black hair, which she lets hang down, without wearing any of the traditional updo's that women in Edo period Japan tended to wear.
She wears an aquamarine green kimono with a decorated green sash and, on top of that, a light blue haori with an orange dragon motif stitched onto its back and arms.
=== Personality ===
Yae is a very tomboyish woman who is unafraid of getting into fights. She wears her hair down and wears a haori on top of her kimono, which in Edo Japan was a very male-gendered way of dressing, further reinforcing her tomboyish way of being.
In spite of being very combative and headstrong, Yae is a good-natured person who cares for her customers and goes out of her way to give them good deals on her moneylending, even if it means her profits suffer. She's also willing to put herself at personal risk to protect her customers from other, more unscrupulous moneylenders who, in her view, are a plague on Kyo.
== Background ==
Yamamoto Yae is a moneylender in the capital city of Kyo during the late Edo period. She gives her clients low interest rates and goes out of her way to help them so they can pay her back and get out of their financial dire straits. She also frequently defends her clients from other, far less altruistic moneylenders
== Involvement ==
=== Like a Dragon: Ishin!: 1867 ===
Yae runs into one of her clients, Okiku, while she was being pressured by her boyfriend, Bunkichi, to take out a loan from a moneylender called Shinohara. Yae intervenes, telling Okiku that her boyfriend is trying to trick her so that she'll be indebted to the sketchy loanshark. Shinohara takes exception to this and attacks Yae, who fights back with her rifle and assistance from Sakamoto Ryoma, who happened to be passing by. Sakamoto and Yae easily defeat the moneylender and his thugs, who retreat in terror. Once Bunkichi is by himself, Yae threatens to shoot him dead if he doesn't leave Okiku alone, which the cowardly man agrees to before also fleeing in terror. Impressed by Sakamoto's fighting skills and his willingness to help a stranger, Yae gives him a reward and asks him to meet her later to deal with another problem.
Sakamoto meets with Yae at the instructed place and then both go to a nearby gambling hall to help out Zenji, another one of Yae's clients. Zenji has also become embroiled with Shinohara, who is trying to pressure him into betting at the gambling hall to pay off his debts. Unbeknownst to Zenji, the hall is owned by Shinohara's boss, Kurata, who intends to cheat him so that he'll lose money at the gambling hall and still be in debt to his lackey loanshark. Yae intervenes once more and agrees to take pay off Zenji's debt by gambling in his place. Much to Shinohara's horror, Yae successfully makes enough money at the gambling hall by winning at cho-han. After Kurata berates him for losing an easy mark, Shinohara attacks Yae and Sakamoto again to skimp out on having to pay her winnings, but he and his goons are once again defeated. After leaving the gambling hall, Yae tells Zenji to be more careful with his money from now on and then thanks Sakamoto for helping her once again.
Yae asks Sakamoto for help dealing with another problem: Kurata, the gang boss who'd tried to swindle Zenji, has kidnapped three of her clients who are in debt with him and he intends to make them into indentured servants. 
Yae and Sakamoto travel to Kurata's mansion to rescue the prisoners. At the gate, they encounter Shinohara, who's been demoted to guard because of his two prior failures. The pair beat him up a third time and force their way into the mansion, where Kurata unleashes his personal guard on them. Yae and Sakamoto defeat Kurata's men, but the brawl attracts the attention of the police, who come rushing to investigate. Kurata claims Yae and Sakamoto are burglars and orders them arrested, but Yae insists that they're there to rescue people Kurata has kidnapped. The warrior woman heads into Kurata's home and releases the prisoners. While Kurata is busy making excuses for why those people are there, Yae finds his secret business records, which prove he'd been scamming people into illegal debt conditions and then force them to work for him in slave-like conditions to pay him off. With that evidence in hand, the Kyo police arrest Kurata.
A while later, Yae thanks Sakamoto for his help. She also tells him that she intends to travel to Edo to open a school to teach commoners the various skills that would normally only be taught to samurai and noblemen, since she wants to help people better their lives in the rapidly changing Japan. Sakamoto approves of this and jokingly says that Yae still owes him for the last job. In response, Yae, who had previously insisted that she does not like leaving debts unpaid, jokingly tells Sakamoto that he can "bet his ass" that she'll pay him back soon enough.
== Gallery ==
Yamamoto-Yae.png
Category: Like a Dragon: Ishin! Characters
Category: Like a Dragon: Ishin! Substory Characters
Category: Historical Figures