The Empty Lot (カラの一坪, Kara no Hitotsubo) is a tiny block of vacant land in Kamurocho. It is a central location in Yakuza 0, as it is responsible for driving the conflict in both Kazuma Kiryu and Goro Majima's storylines. The lot is a piece of land essential to the completion of the Kamurocho Revitalization Project, which promises massive profits to whoever completes it.
After the events of Yakuza 0, the Empty Lot becomes part of the Millennium Tower, which would go on to appear in every other mainline Yakuza game.
Yakuza 0[]
The beginning of the game opens with Kazuma Kiryu collecting a debt owed by Taichi Kurihara, beating him senseless and taking his money. He is later killed, and the lot becomes the scene of a murder investigation.
Throughout the events of Yakuza 0, multiple parties are vying for control of the Empty Lot in pursuit of its owner, later revealed to be a psychologically-induced blind woman named Makoto Makimura, who unknowingly inherited the land from her late grandfather. Her grandfather initially built the Empty Lot so that Makoto's mother could find him easily in Japan. Parties known to be vying for the lot during the game include:
- The Tojo Clan's Dojima Family. Its patriarch has his three lieutenants race to acquire the lot, with the one who acquires it promised to become the family's next Captain (replacing the incarcerated Shintaro Kazama). The most successful of his lieutenants in pursuit of the lot is Keiji Shibusawa, patriarch of the Shibusawa Family, who is able to kidnap Makoto and almost kill her, but Shibusawa is defeated and his plans are foiled by Kiryu.
- The Tojo Clan's Shimano Family. Its patriarch uses Goro Majima, installed in the care of Shimano's oath brother in the Omi Alliance, to try to earn the lot. He tasks Majima with killing Makimura, unaware of Shimano's true intent for Majima to spare Makoto so that she could willingly give Shimano the Empty Lot, seeing that people were desperate to do anything when their lives were endangered. He also does this because he doesn't think that Majima could bring himself to kill, which he mocks him for. Shimano was secretly plotting to betray the Tojo Clan by selling the lot to the Omi Alliance once he acquired the land, but he fails to acquire it in the end.
- The Tojo Clan's Nikkyo Consortium, led by Masaru Sera, which seeks to keep the Dojima Family from acquiring it, due to Sera's alliance with Kazama. To this end, Sera collaborates with both Kiryu and Tetsu Tachibana, Makoto's lost brother and the president of Tachibana Real Estate.
In the end, Sera is ultimately the one who secures ownership of the lot, enabling him to become the clan's Third Chairman later on. Tachibana is killed at the hands of the Dojima Family during the conflict, and he is buried in the lot afterwards.
Rest of the series[]
During the seventeen years separating Yakuza 0 from the second chapter of the first game (set in 2005), all of the Kamuro Shopping Area, including the Empty Lot, is demolished. The Millennium Tower is built upon the land, raking in lots of profit for Sera. It features in every main series game set after Yakuza 0 and is often a battleground during yakuza conflicts.
