Masataka Ebina (海老名 正孝, Ebina Masataka), born Masataka Hikawa (氷川 正孝, Hikawa Masataka), is the main antagonist of Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth. He is the captain and acting chairman of the Seiryu Clan.
Profile[]
Appearance[]
Ebina is a tall, middle-aged man with an oval face, a light goatee and mustache, and black hair that parts on the right. He possesses a lean build with well-defined muscles.
Tattoo[]
Ebina's tattoo design
Ebina's tattoo provides major symbolism. It depicts an Oni, a demonic yokai in Japanese mythology. An Oni is a bloodthirsty demon known for their superhuman strength and power. The oni was syncretized with Hindu-Buddhist creatures such as the man-devouring yaksha and the rakshasa, and became the oni who tormented sinners as wardens of Hell (Jigoku), administering sentences passed down by Hell's magistrate, King Yama (Enma Daiō). The hungry ghosts called gaki (餓鬼) have also been sometimes considered a type of oni (the Kanji for "ki" 鬼 is also read "oni").
A snake is also depicted on the tattoo, and snakes in Japanese mythology are often associated with intelligence, transformation, cunning-ability, but also rebirth and regeneration. With the snake breathing out fire, it can be inferred that it symbolizes eternal suffering, which fits Ebina as a bloodthristy man who seeks to kill and take revenge against the Yakuza by condemning and isolating the Yakuza on the Palekana Island, much like how Oni would torment sinners in Hell. The three pronged flame also resembles the Palekana's flame, which provides his connection to the Palekana.
Attire[]
Ebina wears a dark grey, pinstripe three-piece suit, with a Seiryu Clan pin on his left lapel. He also wears a black dress shirt with a purple tie, a black leather belt. black oxfords dress shoes, and a silver analogue watch.
Background[]
Ebina was born on June 11, 1977 as Masataka Hikawa, the son of Yuriko Hikawa and Masumi Arakawa. Arakawa, unaware of his son's birth, left Yuriko to raise Ebina on her own. A frail single mother, Yuriko struggled to raise Ebina, and the former Hikawa Family members paid her no attention. Growing up, Ebina resented Arakawa for abandoning Yuriko, and Hikawa and the Hikawa Family for "[spouting] the nonsense that yakuza bonds were thicker than blood," while ignoring him and his mother. As a middle school student, Ebina's mother passed away, and her last words were telling him not to hate the Hikawa Family. Ebina did not understand why he shouldn't, and sought revenge. As an adult, he joined and later became an elite bureaucrat of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police, wishing to eradicate the yakuza.
In 2019, Ebina caught news of the Great Dissolution and later Arakawa's death. He was devastated that the yakuza suddenly became civilians, theoretically being treated as one now, and the fact that he would never be able to kill Arakawa with his own hands. Believing he may never achieve vengeance against the yakuza, he began theorizing ways to exact his revenge. He came up with the idea of rallying up large groups of yakuza members at his disposal, with the aim of destroying all of them at once.
But with the disbandment of the Tojo Clan and the Omi Alliance, the two largest yakuza organization in Japan, Ebina instead joined the Seiryu Clan in Yokohama. Despite only joining the organization recently, Ebina was quickly promoted to captain by Mamoru Takabe purely based off of his earnings. Takabe was already making plans to recruit yakuza left destitute by the Great Dissolution and the Japanese government's Five-Year Ex-Yakuza Clause, creating job opportunities that would allow the yakuza to gradually reintegrate into Japanese society, before officially disbanding them in what was planned to be the "Second Great Dissolution". Ebina sought to appropriate Takabe's plans for his own agenda.
At some point in 2020, Ebina became acquainted with Eiji Mitamura, a former member of Bleach Japan who shared Ebina's hatred for the yakuza for ruining his journalism career years ago. With Ebina's former connections to the police and Eiji's journalism skills, the two became backers of Chitose Fujinomiya on the Tatara Channel. The channel initially presented itself as a source of investigative journalism, but evolved into a propaganda outlet run by Ebina and Eiji, using selective and dishonestly edited scripts to blacklist many former yakuza attempting to reintegrate into society. Without any source of employment or income, many of these former yakuza ended up joining the Seiryu Clan. Eventually, the Seiryu Clan became the largest yakuza group in Japan, with plans to reach out to other groups across the nation, including the Yomei Alliance, the Kitakata Family, and the Ryudo Family.
Around 2021, Takabe was arrested after taking the fall for one of his subordinates, leaving Ebina to become the acting chairman. But with Takabe's arrest, Ebina needed veteran yakuza to lend some credibility to Ebina's campaign. Initially, he sought to recruit former Tojo Clan chairman Daigo Dojima, and his advisors, Goro Majima and Taiga Saejima, but the three Tojo veterans went off the radar following the Tatara Channel's smear campaign that led to the collapse of their security firm. Instead, Ebina would learn from Eiji that former Arakawa Family Captain, Jo Sawashiro, was actually innocent of Ryu Hoshino's murder. With this knowledge, Ebina was able to arrange for Sawashiro's release and got him to join the Seiryu Clan under the pretense of carrying out the late Arakawa's dream.
It was through Sawashiro that Ebina became aware of Bryce Fairchild, the Sage of a Hawaiian religious organization called Palekana, who assisted in smuggling Arakawa's lover Akane out of Japan. Ebina reached out to Bryce and learned of Palekana's attempts use Nele Island as a dumping ground for radioactive waste on behalf of the world's governments, but lacked the manpower to attempt such an undertaking. Although he knew Bryce's plan was doomed to fail due to the island's hazardous facilities, Ebina saw the island as the perfect death trap. He negotiated with Bryce where the Seiryu Clan would transport and dump the waste to Nele Island, where they would die a slow death from radiation poisoning.
Involvement[]
Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth: 2023[]
Ebina was in the middle of an online business meeting when Ichiban Kasuga, Koichi Adachi, and Yu Nanba break into Seiryu Clan headquarters to enquire about the fate of Shinya Sasaki, a former yakuza who lost his job at Adachi's security firm due to the Tatara Channel's smear campaign and joined the Seiryu Clan. Ebina allays their concerns by showing them the Seiryu Clan's front operation: storing sensitive evidence and unwanted but nevertheless important materials, which he characterises as "waste", from other areas and countries. Sasaki would be allowed to stay a civilian by working at the warehouse.
With the matter settled, Ebina reintroduced Sawashiro to Ichiban, who hopes to arrange a reunion between Ichiban and his mother Akane in Hawaii. In reality, Ebina planned to use Ichiban to lure Akane out of hiding, as she is currently on the run with Lani Mililani, a surviving true heir to the previous Palekana sage that could undermine Bryce and Ebina's nuclear waste plan. While Sawashiro convinced Ichiban to travel to Hawaii, Ebina ordered his co-conspirator Eiji to keep tabs on Ichiban. To prey on Ichiban's sympathies and memory of Masato Arakawa, Ebina advised Eiji to fake a disability using anaesthetics (for Ichiban's experience in taking care of Masato Arakawa in his youth would allow him to tell if Eiji was faking his disability or not).
With the Seiryu Clan rapidly expanding its influence over Japan, Ebina relocated the organization's headquarters to the former Tojo Clan Headquarters and refurbished it. He was soon confronted by Kazuma Kiryu, the supposedly dead Fourth Chairman of the Tojo, who had recently returned from Hawaii to recover from his recent bout with cancer. Kiryu and his allies came seeking answers from Ebina and Sawashiro, accusing them of having sent Ichiban to Hawaii with knowledge of the manhunt for Akane. Although Ebina comes clean about the Seiryu Clan's partnership with Palekana regarding the nuclear waste deal, he and Sawashiro feign ignorance over Bryce's search for Akane and deny any ulterior motives behind sending Ichiban to Hawaii. Unbeknownst to Kiryu, Ebina secretly recorded their conversation with a hidden camera and proceeded to leak it onto the Tatara Channel, thus exposing Kiryu's survival to the world. Not only that, but the Tatara Channel accuses Kiryu of wanting to revive the Tojo Clan and is using Ichiban as an accomplice.
At the same time this occured, Eiji succeeded in extracting Lani with aid from Bryce's underling, Barracuda kingpin Dwight Mendez. With Bryce's position secured, Ebina proceeded with the negotiations with several Japanese government officials and businessmen over the nuclear waste deal, with Bryce and Dwight present.
With the negotiations with the Japanese government finalized, Ebina orchestrated Chairman Takabe's stabbing in prison to prevent his return to the Seiryu Clan, thereby consolidating his control over the organization. Ebina then hosted another livestream with the Tatara Channel, this time to announce the nuclear waste deal with Palekana and the Japanese government, the dissolution of the Seiryu Clan, and its subsequent rebranding as the non-profit organization Bleach Japan. However, the livestream was actually pre-recorded, as Ebina had anticipated that Kiryu and his allies would attempt to confront him at the old Tojo Headquarters during the supposed livestream. Upon discovering Ebina's ruse, Kiryu and his allies were soon swarmed by the media and fans of the Tatara Channel. The collateral damage caused by Kiryu's storming of the old Tojo Headquarters only reinforces the narrative of Kiryu being a dissenter opposing Ebina's plans to disband the yakuza.
At some point after Ebina's public announcement, he captures and brutally beats Sawashiro, having forseen the latter's efforts to undermine Ebina's schemes from the start. Ebina is later present for the Seiryu Clan's last meeting before they head off for Nele Island. After the officers leave, Ebina tells his lieutenant Narasaki to stay behind to discuss some personnel changes, only to murder him in cold blood before burning his body and the rest of the Tojo headquarters down.
Ebina holds Sawashiro captive in the Millennium Tower where he plans on setting up Bleach Japan's new HQ. He uses Sawashiro as a hostage, goading Ichiban and Kiryu over the phone to come to the Millennium Tower the following night or Sawashiro dies.
After Bryce's arrest and Palekana's unsafe facilities are exposed by Chitose, Kiryu and his party arrive at the Millennium Tower to confront Ebina, fighting through the Seiryu Clan members who remained behind in Japan. They confront Ebina in his office, as well as an unconscious Sawashiro. Ebina is undeterred by Bryce's arrest, admitting that the nuclear waste deal had been doomed to fail from the beginning, but saw it as a convenient way to eliminate the yakuza. It is then he confirms Kiryu's deduction that everything he was working for was to see to the destruction of the yakuza as revenge for ruining his mother's life, and how he had been robbed of his vengeance by both the Great Dissolution and Masumi Arakawa's death, which was why he joined the Seiryu Clan and allied with Bryce. Ebina also professes his disdain for Ichiban as "a sick mockery of [Ebina's] life" and another victim of Arakawa's "manipulations", no different from how Palekana indoctrinated its members. He notes with irony that though they are half-brothers, Ichiban sought to carry on Arakawa's dream to save the yakuza while Ebina sought to destroy them as a final insult to their father. However, Saeko rebuts that the real difference between them is how they responded to the seemingly impossible goal of redeeming the yakuza. Ebina saw the yakuza beyond redemption and pursued an efficient but monstrous approach by condemning them to death, whereas Ichiban, always seeing the best in people, wasn't afraid to try and help them one man at the time.
Kiryu tells Ebina that he understands his anger and accepts his part in abandoning the yakuza to their own devices by resigning as the fourth chairman, but states that he is done running away from his responsibility by shouldering their past sins. Ebina sarcastically applauds Kiryu's sacrifice, noting with bemusement how fitting it is that the Dragon of Dojima's final battle would be in the Millennium Tower, a symbol of the Tojo Clan's former power and how it had been the centerpiece of past yakuza conflicts. Kiryu and Ebina briefly traded blows, but the former's ailing health meant that he could not best his younger opponent on his own, forcing his party to come to his assistance.
After a difficult and hard-fought battle, with both parties on their last legs, Kiryu and Ebina make one last charge. The Dragon of Dojima emerges triumphant just as Daigo, Majima, and Saejima arrive, having defeated Ebina's remaining men. Defeated but undeterred, Ebina spitefully denounces the four Tojo veterans and that the yakuza will never change for the better. He proclaims that as long as he is alive, he will never abandon his quest for vengeance, and that Kiryu would have to kill him if the yakuza were to be free. However, realizing that Ebina's obsession with revenge was poisoning him to the point that he isn't afraid of throwing his own life away in pursuit of that goal, Kiryu instead begs Ebina to give the yakuza a chance to atone for their past sins and for Ebina to let go of that self-destructive mindset, to "live" and "keep moving" as Kiryu himself had come to learn from his past journeys. As Kiryu's words seemingly reach out to a visibly distraught Ebina, he succumbs to his cancer and falls unconscious.
Ebina's fate following his defeat is unknown, though it is likely that he had been arrested for his complicity in the scandal surrounding Nele Island.
Fighting Style[]
Ebina is a highly capable opponent, being able to hold his ground against Kiryu and his whole party by himself. He proves to be very impressive in terms of agility and acrobatics, while also being a remarkably skilled swordsman. His boss fight is split into two phases: one where he fights unarmed, and a second where he wields a katana.
Unarmed[]
Ebina's unarmed style centers around tricking techniques, borrowed from the likes of Capoeira and Taekwondo. Most of his attacks take the form of flashy, powerful kicks that involve jumping, spinning, and flipping. His moveset includes:
- Eternal Torment (黄泉風車, Yomi Kazaguruma) — a Rush Combo made up of a right downward tornado kick, a jumping left spinning heel kick, and an inverted version of Kan Ogita's handstanding roundhouse kick-cheat gainer. Each individual attack can target different party members.
- Pierce the Muladhara (経絡突き, Keiraku Tsuki) — a crouching right vertical lunge punch aimed at the crotch before taking a knifehand back stance. This attack inflicts 'Sleep'.
- Wheel of Samsara (車輪蹴り, Sharin Keri) — a jumping right double spinning heel kick. Hits party members 360° around himself.
- Guilty Conscience (修羅の笑み, Shura no Emi) — Yoshitaka Mine's taunt, which cancels party member's stat buffs and has a chance to inflict 'Rage'.
If one of Eternal Torment's attacks is interrupted by Kiryu's Komaki Knockback, it will cancel the rest of the Rush Combo.
Katana[]
Ebina picks up a katana midway through the fight, during the QTE animation sequence. His swordfighting style retains the same focus on jumps and spinning as his first phase. His moveset is as follows:
- Maelstrom of Hate (五月雨斬り, Samidaregiri) — a Rush Combo made up of a side flip downward slash, an upward diagonal right-downward diagonal right slash, a butterfly flip into a crouching rightward slash, an upward diagonal left slash, and a flying sword thrust. Each individual attack can target a different party members, as well as inflict 'Bleed'.
- Cripple the Manipura (臓腑突き, Zōfu Tsuki) — a lunging underarm sword thrust and an upward diagonal left slash across the solar plexus. This attack inflicts 'Paralyze'.
- Fall from Grace (宵桜, Yoi Sakura) — a downward diagonal left slash before switching to a reverse-grip hold, a 180° turning rightward slash, a upward diagonal left-180° turning leftward slash, a reverse-grip underarm thrust, and a 360° leftward slash. This attack projects shockwaves.
- Vengeance Served (忌み討ち, Imi Uchi) — a hopping right punt kick, performed after knocking a party member down.
- Sanguine High (血煙舞い, Chikemuri Mai) — twirling his sword twice, regenerating 1000 health points and cancels his stat buffs and debuffs.
Like in the first phase, the Maelstrom of Hate Rush Combo can be cancelled if it is interrupted by Kiryu's Komaki Knockback.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Three of Ebina's attacks are named after Chakra points and terms used in Hinduism and Tantric Buddhism:
- "Pierce the Muladhara" is a punch aimed towards the crotch. The Muladhara is a Chakra point located at the base of the spine.
- "Cripple the Manipura" is an under-armed sword thrust and an upward diagonal up-slash across the solar plexus. The Manipura Chakra point is located in the solar plexus.
- "Wheel of Samsara" is a jumping double spinning heel kick. Samsara is the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth in Hinduism.
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 “Like a Dragon: Dragon Calendar,” Ryu Ga Gotoku, SEGA, accessed September 17, 2025, https://calendar.ryu-ga-gotoku.com/en/.
In other languages[]
| Language | Title |
|---|---|
| Traditional Chinese | 海老名正孝 (Hǎilǎomíng Zhèngxiào) |
| Simplified Chinese | 海老名正孝 (Hǎilǎomíng Zhèngxiào) |