Andre Richardson (アンドレ・リチャードソン, Andore Richādoson) is the secondary antagonist of Yakuza 3. He is the leader of Black Monday, acting as a double agent within the CIA. He reappears as a supporting character and the bartender of Revolve Bar in Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth.
Profile[]
Appearance[]
Richardson is a tall man with slicked back, dirty blond hair.
Attire[]
Richardson wears dark aviator sunglasses and a gray suit over a gray dress shirt with a red tie underneath a black leather overcoat. He also wears a pair of black leather gloves.
Personality[]
In Yakuza 3, Richardson is a cold, merciless man who is willing to do anything to get what he wants. He seems to enjoy mocking his opponents, as seen in his second fight against Kiryu, where he shows that he clearly understands Japanese, but still speaks in English to confuse Kiryu.
By Infinite Wealth, Richardson has seemingly given up his previously merciless attitude and has settled down to live a simple life as a bartender in Hawaii. He is much more relaxed and friendly with the regulars in his bar and has even befriended Kiryu, who once foiled his schemes over a decade prior.
Background[]
Richardson became an Agent for the American Central Intelligence Agency's Far East Office, partnered with Japanese-born Agent Joji Kazama. At some point, likely during the 1980's and at least before 1987, Richardson took advantage of his position to form an international criminal syndicate along with several other corrupt CIA Agents, specializing in arms trafficking. This syndicate would allegedly engineer the 1987 American stock market crash as part of a stock shorting scheme and afterwards would name themselves after this incident they caused: Black Monday.
Involvement[]
Yakuza 3: 2009[]
As part of his work for the CIA, Richardson learns that the American military intended to open a new base in Okinawa that would serve as a site for the development of a new, experimental ballistic missile defense system. As leader of Black Monday, Richardson wished to see this base's approval through, since it would give him an opportunity to steal this new, highly-valuable technology. However, the project was stalled by the political machinations of Minister Yoshinobu Suzuki, who complicated the base's approval in the Diet by tying it to one of his own bills approving the government purchase of land for a new tourist resort, which required significantly more land.
Fortunately for Richardson, he and Kazama were assigned by the CIA to intervene and ensure the passage of the law approving both the base and the tourist resort. The two agents investigated and discovered that efforts to secure all the land needed were being obstructed by the Tojo Clan's Chairman Daigo Dojima, since part of the land needed belonged to his mentor and predecessor Kazuma Kiryu's Morning Glory Orphanage, and he did not wish to disturb his retirement. Acting on this information, Richardson and Kazama break into the offices of the Ryudo Family, the owners of the land that Morning Glory Orphanage is on, to steal the deeds. The pair are caught in the act by Patriarch Shigeru Nakahara, so Richardson shoots him to prevent him from interfering.
After acquiring the deeds, the agents leave and take a high-speed jet to arrive in Tokyo within a couple of hours. There, they go to the Tojo Clan Headquarters to meet with Chairman Dojima. Since Kazama looks identical to his deceased older brother, Shintaro Kazama, the Tojo guards stationed at the headquarters allow him into the building, as they believe he is Shintaro, who somehow survived his seeming murder. When Daigo arrives, he is shocked to see Kazama, also believing him to be his late brother. Kazama gives Daigo the deed and tells him that the Tojo Clan must proceed with securing the land for the Okinawa resort deal, but Daigo refuses. Kazama insists and reaches into his coat pocket to pull out something. Daigo mistakes this as Kazama reaching for his gun, so he pulls out his own, which prompts Richardson to shoot him with his own hidden gun.
The shooting leaves Daigo hospitalized and comatose, so Richardson begins to search for someone else in the Tojo Clan who could push the land project through in Daigo's absence. He eventually decides to approach Yoshitaka Mine, Daigo's most loyal lieutenant, offering the project to him as a means of ensuring the Tojo Clan's stability like Daigo wanted. Since Mine is far less scrupulous than Daigo and has no love for Kiryu, he agrees to help him push the project forward.
Kiryu learns of Daigo and Nakahara's shootings and also learns that both were seemingly committed by a man who looked exactly like his deceased foster father, Shintaro Kazama, so he travels to Tokyo to investigate. Richardson learns of Kiryu's return to the capital almost immediately upon his arrival and sets out to ambush him and kill him, since he could jeopardize the plans to push the land deal through. Richardson and a group of his agents follow Kiryu until he's in a secluded alley on Nakamichi Street, whereupon they surround him and attack him. In spite of their numerical superiority, Kiryu still manages to defeat the CIA agents, prompting Richardson to pull a gun on him and try to shoot him. However, the American is interrupted by the sound of approaching police officers, who heard the commotion of the fight, so he's forced to put his gun away and retreat.
Despite this initial failure to kill Kiryu, Richardson does not give up and arranges another assassination attempt a couple hours later. While Kiryu is in the Millennium Tower office of the Kazama Family speaking with Osamu Kashiwagi, Richardson has a helicopter with a mounted minigun strafe the building with gunfire, inflicting seemingly fatal wounds on Kashiwagi but failing to hit Kiryu at all.
Kiryu eventually learns about Black Monday and the conspiracy behind the passing of the land deal from Minister Ryuzo Tamiya. After traveling to Okinawa to save Tamiya's secretary-turned-informant Shoyo Toma from an assassination attempt by Joji Kazama and then rescuing a recovering Nakahara from Mine's lackey Tetsuo Tamashiro, Kiryu travels back to Tokyo to rescue Daigo from a possible attempt on his life by Mine and Richardson.
Kiryu goes to Touto University Hospital, where Daigo is being treated, and fights his way through multiple Hakuho Clan soldiers to reach Daigo's room. Once he gets there, however, he is instead met by Richardson, who mockingly informs him that Mine already left with Daigo and took him on a stretcher up to the roof. The agent and the yakuza get into another fight, which the latter wins. Kiryu leaves Daigo's room, only to be ambushed by a platoon of armored CIA Agents, who delay him long enough for Richardson to recover and attack Kiryu once more, except this time he does so while wielding multiple firearms. Despite the firepower advantage, Kiryu beats Richardson a third time and then takes an elevator to the roof.
After Kiryu has defeated Mine and convinced him to abandon his conspiracy with Richardson, the corrupt CIA Agent climbs to the hospital roof with several of his cronies. A sneering Richardson says that Mine is no longer useful to him, so he'll kill both of them. However, before he can, he is interrupted by Daigo, who awakens and grabs Mine's discarded gun to shoot at the Black Monday men. Daigo kills the goons and disarms and wounds Richardson, but the Black Monday leader produces a hidden gun and now takes aim at Daigo. With his attention diverted from him, Mine charges at Richardson and puts him in an armlock. As he apologizes to Daigo for his actions, Mine drags a screaming Richardson to the edge of the roof and ultimately throws himself off, dragging Richardson with him to their apparent deaths.
Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth: 2023[]
Years after surviving the fall, Richardson opens up a bar in Hawaii known as Revolve Bar. In spite all of this, his identity is presumably never revealed to the group, only being referred to as "The Bartender". It is unknown if he is still leading Black Monday. However, Kiryu is known to frequent the bar.
Fighting Style[]
Yakuza 3[]
Richardson is fought three times throughout Yakuza 3: first with four other operatives backing him up, and two separate times during the long battle in Touto University Hospital. He fights hand-to-hand during his first two encounters, and alternates between a pair of pistols and a shotgun in the third.
Richardson displays high levels of aptitude in acrobatics and combat, particularly in the use of firearms. He also has great skills in unarmed fighting, making use of his sheer speed and a variety of attacks. His Heat Mode aura is neon yellow.
Unarmed[]
Richardson's is a swift mixed martial artist, using a wide variety of moves from the likes of kickboxing and Muay Thai. His unarmed style consists mostly of animations taken from Virtua Fighter's Vanessa Lewis moveset.
He has five different combos in this style, including:
- a Rush Combo comprised of a left jab, an overhand right, a left body hook, and a left roundhouse kick;
- a second combo consisting of a left front kick, a right low roundhouse kick, a low left Thai roundhouse kick, and a spinning right axe kick;
- a third combo made up of an overhand right, a left hook, and a low left Thai roundhouse kick;
- a left shovel hook-spinning axe kick combo, and
- a combo made up of charged hopping right side kick, and a left body hook command grab, followed by a guillotine choke if it connects.
The rest of his attacks include the following:
- a jumping right Thai roundhouse kick,
- a left somersault kick, taken from Virtua Fighter's Jacky and Sarah Bryant;
- a flying 360° right axe kick as a running attack, which can stun Kiryu;
- a spinning right backfist as a guard reversal, followed by a left Thai roundhouse kick;
- a jumping left high front kick after quickstepping forward (unused), and
- a low right roundhouse kick as a downed attack.
Dual Pistols[]
Richardson's dual-wields a pair of Drow-Z 55 pistols in his third fight. His attacks just as fast as when he fights unarmed, and he incorporates a large number of kicks, twirls and flips into his moveset. Some of his attacks, as well as his fighting stance, are taken from Kazuto Arase from Yakuza.
His combos are four in number:
- his four-kick combo from his unarmed moveset,
- an unbroken 2-hit combo, consisting of a right Thai roundhouse kick and a left-pistol shot;
- another unbroken 2-hit combo, consisting of a left side kick and a right-pistol shot; and
- a third unbroken combo, made up of a flourishing right-pistol shot, an outward guns-akimbo barrage, a cross-armed left and right-side shot, and a left-pistol shot.
The rest of his moveset is comprised of:
- a somersault kick while firing both pistols,
- Arase's ten-shot akimbo attack,
- a spinning right heel kick as a guard reversal, followed by a left-pistol shot;
- Arase's right/left spinning shot attacks,
- Arase's back handspring dodge,
- three get-up attacks, including:
- Arase's kip-up when Kiryu is in front of him,
- a right and left-pistol shot followed by a kip-up when Kiryu is in front of him, and
- rolling onto his front followed by a right and left-pistol shot and a kip-up when Kiryu is behind him; and
- a taunt where he twirls his pistols (unused).
Richardson's dual-pistol moveset is reused by Arase and Jo Amon in the same game.
Shotgun[]
Richardson alternates between his pistols and a pump-action shotgun during his third fight. He is not quite as agile in this style however, and mostly stands in place or walks around slowly while blasting at Kiryu. His attacks are listed as follows:
- pumping his shotgun and firing a shell, while standing still;
- firing a shell while slowly stepping forward/backward,
- pumping his shotgun before firing it one-handed,
- crouching down and firing a shell,
- a somersault kick as a guard reversal, followed by a crouching one-handed shot; and
- a crouching one-handed shot after side rolling right/left.
Gallery[]
Yakuza 3[]
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Ryu Ga Gotoku Online[]
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Notes[]
- ↑ The given birth year of 1958 is an estimate based on Richardson's age and is not intended as a substitute for an official date.