Project Judge stars Takuya Kimura as a tough lawyer named Takayuki Yagami. In the game, he beats up baddies with punches, kicks and a variety of weapons including a vibrator.
Kimura is a pop star, actor and celebrity. He’s been called the Brad Pitt of Japan. Yet, even that comparison doesn’t seem fitting, because he’s been on hugely successful albums, starred in smash hit movies and iconic TV dramas, done long-running TV shows, lent his voice to Howl’s Moving Castle and has sold Levis jeans in Japan. He has launched numerous fashion trends, and like James Dean, caused a generation of young men to copy the way he talked and carried himself.
Sega’s Yakuza team is developing Project Judge and bringing grittiness and silliness players have come to expect.
People are having a good time watching Kimura, whose simply known as “Kimutaku” in Japan, go bananas in-game. For fans, that’s part of the game’s appeal.
Kimura’s character can also dress up in an array of goofy outfits. Even though Kimura’s image is that of a “cool guy,” he’s worn silly costumes on Japanese TV, so this won’t seem out of character.
The vibrator seems new, however. I don’t recall ever see him with that.
Kimura belongs to a strict talent agency, which has traditionally frowned upon its members publicly dating or even getting married. (Kimura has already broken these rules when he married singer Shizuka Kudo and had two daughters.) So the idea that a member of this talent agency would be wielding a vibrator is inconceivable!
In the game, one of the weapons Kimura can use looks like a Magic Wand. The Japanese slang for the device is denma (電マ), short for dendou massaajiki (電動マッサージ器) or “electric massage device.” However, in Project Judge, it’s simply referred to as a massaajiki (マッサージ器) or “massage device.”
One Twitter user wrote, “If I had been told me ten years ago that game would come out with Takuya Kimura hitting enemies with a denma, I don’t think I would have believed it.”