How Majima Gets His Eyepatch in Like a Dragon: Yakuza Breaks With Franchise Canon

Warning: The following article contains spoilers for Like a Dragon: Yakuza Season 1, Episode 3, “Brothers / Sisters.”

Like a Dragon: Yakuza Season 1 just served up its take on how Goro Majima gets his iconic eyepatch. So, does the Prime Video show’s version of events match up with the video game franchise’s existing canon?

How Majima Loses His Eye in Like a Dragon: Yakuza

Majima’s ocular odyssey kicks off in Like a Dragon: Yakuza Season 1, Episode 3, “Brothers / Sisters.” Here, he’s one of several underworld figures hunting for the hanko: the official seal Dojima Family patriarch Sohei Dojima needs before he can finalize his Millennium Tower project. This brings Majima into direct conflict with series protagonist Kazuma Kiryu and his buddy Akira Nishikiyama, who are themselves hot on the hanko’s trail. A beauty pageant shoot-out and brutal brawl later and neither party has the hanko – and the chaos they’ve caused has spooked Dojima’s sponsors.

Related: What Yakuza Game Is Prime Video’s Like a Dragon Season 1 Based On?

Predictably, this leaves the yakuza boss in a foul mood and looking for someone to lash out at. That person winds up being poor Majima, who gets hauled in by Dojima’s goons. Once they’re done berating the so-called “Mad Dog of Shimano,” Dojima enters the room. At first, he plays it cool, gently chiding Majima for ignoring his advice not to fire guns in the open. But things soon take a dramatic turn when Dojima snatches up a nearby knife and rams it into Majima’s left eye! A lecture punctuated with lots of stomping follows, before Dojima leaves the now cycloptic Goro to lick his wounds.

How Majima Loses His Eye in the Yakuza Games

None of the above section applies to Majima’s eyepatch origin story in the Yakuza games. This key aspect of the character’s backstory is covered via flashback in both Yakuza 4 and Yakuza 0, and it predates the fuss surrounding the Millennium Tower project. Nor is Sohei Dojima the one wielding the knife; that’s an invention of Like a Dragon: Yakuza‘s creative team. Oh, and Kiryu and Nishiki aren’t indirectly involved, either. At this point in the Yakuza timeline, Majima hasn’t even met Kiryu.

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So, how does Majima lose his eye in the games? True to form for the franchise, it’s a bit complicated. The top-level version is that Majima refuses to sit back and let his sworn brother Taiga Saejima take the fall for an assassination of a rival family’s patriarch after his superiors yank their support. A lopsided scuffle with a bunch of Shibata Family heavies ensues, after which he ends up chained to a pole. Even then, Majima still won’t back down, so an unnamed member of the Shibata squad stabs his eye out!

Like a Dragon: Yakuza Season 1 Episodes 1-3 are currently streaming on Prime Video. Episodes 4-6 premiere on Nov. 1, 2024.