Ryuhei Hoshino

Yokohama's underworld in Yakuza: Like a Dragon runs through one man, and that man is Ryuhei Hoshino. As the chairman of the Seiryu Clan and the eldest pillar of the Ijin Three, he has kept Isezaki Ijincho in check for decades, shielding the district from outside forces while quietly carrying the weight of decisions made long before Ichiban Kasuga ever set foot there.

Ryuhei Hoshino’s Story Role

Short in stature, immovable in principle, Hoshino embodies a fading vision of what yakuza life was supposed to mean. He operates by a personal code etched onto a counterfeit 10,000-yen bill: “Neither justice nor mercy should tip the scale.” That philosophy is not just a motto; it shapes every judgment he makes, from punishing insubordination within his own ranks to sparing enemies who face their consequences head-on. His complicated history with Masumi Arakawa runs deep, rooted in a killing he carried out decades earlier and a debt he spent his entire life trying to repay. When Kasuga enters his world carrying that same misprinted bill, Hoshino reads the message instantly and steps into an unlikely alliance, becoming a mentor figure who sees in Kasuga the loyalty and tenacity he wishes his own men possessed. His death at the Seiryu Clan headquarters is one of the game’s sharpest gut punches, arriving just as the alliance he helped forge was beginning to matter most.

Who Voices Ryuhei Hoshino in Yakuza: Like a Dragon?

French-born British voice actor JB Blanc brings Hoshino to life in the English dub, lending the chairman the kind of weathered authority the role demands. Blanc is widely recognized for voicing Bane across multiple DC animated projects and for his work as Ryotaro Dojima in the Persona 4 titles, a role that also called for exactly that mix of stern command and reluctant warmth. The Japanese voice performance comes from Tetsuo Kanao, whose portrayal grounds the character in the measured cadences of old-school yakuza cinema.