Tatsuo Shinada

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Don't need you telling me now. I'm going to get it all back myself. I'm getting that home run back!

— Shinada to Daigo, Yakuza 5

Tatsuo Shinada (品田 辰雄, Shinada Tatsuo) is one of the five main protagonists in Yakuza 5. He is a former player for the Nagoya Wyverns.

Personality

An unambitious and lazy person, Shinada's ban from playing baseball professionally had virtually killed all motivation for him to excel in life as he would often either procrastinate or make excuses to not do something important. While under most circumstances people will be taken aback by his freeloading. Shinada's easygoing attitude has allowed him to be a part of Kineicho's community. Despite his faults Shinada is a very optimistic man, he puts a lot of faith in his friends and is heartbroken over the reveal of the Nagoya family. Despite that there is also a comedic side of him, demonstrated when he steals Baba's camera and mocks Kurosawa with it.

Shinada also has a huge respect for the sport he was banned from to the point that he will never use a bat in combat. Seeing them solely to be used for sports and not as weapons of violence. However, as a professional baseball player he is woefully hopeless at best as his record in the league he had only one at bat and more losses than wins.

By the end of the story, Shinada begins to mature as a person after learning about the truth of his ban and when Takasugi comes in to pick up the money, he has made an effort to start cleaning up his act as his apartment was much tidier than when he first met Takasugi

Appearance

Shinada has long unkempt hair and a generally scruffy appearance. However, underneath his old, worn clothes he has extremely well toned muscles due to the fact that he spends several hours a day doing sit-ups, swings and push-ups.

Early life

SPOILER WARNING: Plot details for Yakuza 5 follow. (Skip)

Shinada had a promising career in the major leagues, but it was cut short when he received a lifetime ban for a baseball gambling/game fixing scandal. Now, Shinada earns a meager living as an adult entertainment writer in the Nagoya region of Kineicho. But his (mis)fortune is in for a turn when a mysterious masked man confronts Shinada and tells him to uncover the truth behind his ban.

Shinada is penniless and scrapping around for any spare cash. A mysterious stranger makes him an offer which pushes him to look into his past whereby he was unjustly accused of insider gambling which cut short his burgeoning career as a baseball star. He has a revelation and goes looking to right the wrongs.

Yakuza 5

Tatsuo's misadventure begins as what would be another routine day in his life in Kineicho, working a dead end job as an entertainment writer for the red light district. He is constantly hounded by his loan shark Takasugi who makes sure Shinada pays his debts and avoid end up on the streets at the same time. Shinada was tasked with helping Milky resolve a dilemma involving the Nagoya family, the resident group of Yakuza in control of Nagoya that is netiher Omi or Tojo aligned. After helping her out, Shinada arrives to meet Milky for the article and enjoys some time with her.  On his way to the office to get paid for his efforts, Shinada runs into Uno, who Shinada explains about his situation with Takasugi, he learns that for the last 15 years, Kineicho had no true Yakuza presence thanks to the help of the Nagoya family. In an attempt to get a free dinner at Ushijima's restaurant, he had learned both Omi and Tojo's delegates have been murdered and they are looking for the guilty party, but Shinada dismisses such concerns until he crosses paths with a stranger who knew about the baseball scandal that had ruined his career.

Promising to pay off his debts if he learns about the truth. The mysterious man entrusts Takasugi as the one responsible for the collateral who he accepts.  Tatsuo upon being forced to learn about the truth is struck by misfortune almost immediately as people from his past proceed to condemn him for his actions. During a chance meeting with Milky, he triess to skip town with her but she refuses as Takasugi snoops around Tatsuo's back. Returning home, he reveals the information he had known. During the match between the Gigants and Wyverns, Tatsuo was accused of stealing signs from the rival team as he was able to hit the one ball that helped the Wyverns win and as a result caused a scandal that caused him to be banned from playing professionally and Fujita's resignation. He suspects that someone had plotted Fujita's fall from grace and Takasugi suspects someone profited from his resignation. With few leads, Tatsuo investigates around Uno who reveal's Tatsuo's involvement in the scandal crippled the Tojo and Omi's rackets in Nagoya and they are forced out of town, more importantly he gives Tatsuo a link to the scandal through Manabe, the Wyvern's cleanup hitter.  Meeting Manabe to disclose if there was game fixing or not, he confirms that there was game fixing by Manabe through the Yakuza to make things profitable, Manabe and the other plays complied to avoid being shuffled out of the team and thus complied. But before they can seek more answers, they were asked to leave. Returning to Uno, he confirms the Nagoya family were responsible and Takasugi was a Nagoya Family member. However he denies his involvement and explains that they are an enigma to everyone in Nagoya. Before they can investigate further, they noticed a thug filling the building with gas to start a fire. Chasing him down, Shinada demands answers only for him to get crushed by construction debris by Sakai, a former teammate of Shinada. Forced to fight his former teammate, he reveals that Shinada was indeed the scapegoat for the sake of Nagoya before being killed along with the thug when he pushes him aside to save Shinada.

The following day, Shinada realizes that Sawada, a rival player was also involved in the scandal. With the help of Takasugi, they try and get answers from Ushijima who denies anything about his involvement with the Nagoya family when Milk calls Shinada saying her brother kidnapped and she ends up being captured as well. Rushing to her rescue, he was knocked out by Ushijima and learns the truth; it turns out the entire town is the Nagoya family and they have been desperate to keep the peace here. But Shinada knew that someone had ordered his death and demand anwsers only Ushijima to try and kill him half heartedly. Kubota, one of the actual Yakuza realizing Ushijima was hesistating decided to finish the job only for Takasugi to come to his rescue. Working together both them overcome the mysterious mobsters and survive the attack. However Shinada shocked by the betrayal, unable to accept that the very people who had been lenient with him, been so kind to him would ultimately be a criminal organization and wants to leave town for good. However Takasugi reveals that he knew about the whole thing and wanted to help Shinada get his homerun and pride back. Manabe then arrives, coming here to finish where Kubota failed as both Shinada and Manabe face off. However Shinada knew his intentions was to give him a reason to seek out the truth. Defeating Manabe, he hands Shinada the phone and learns of the true culprit: Fujita, the man who gave a chance to become part of the Nagoya Wyverns.

Piecing together the clues at last, he tells his benefactor the truth of the details about how Fujita was indeed working for somebody else and was rewarded the money. He then reveals himself as none other than Daigo Dojima, Shinada's former student. It turns out Daigo was expelled for getting into a fight with Kamuro Tech as he wanted to see the team make it to the Nationals despite ultimately losing. As he was willing to do him a favor to reinstate him back to the professional baseball league, Shinada is understandably upset as it was due to the Yakuza that led to the problems in Nagoya and having the people who he trusted get caught in criminal affairs. Settling his feelings with Daigo in a fight, he earns hs victory over the Chairman and agrees to see him in Tokyo. However, on the train to Tokyo, he learns that Sawada was to be traded to the Wyverns which meant Sawada would become the new head of the Nagoya family as Fujita leaves. Here he learns of the truth, the Omi Chairman uses his connects to clear the entire Nagoya family of all charges, in exchange Sawada will take control of the family and continue the rackets on the Omi's behalf once Fujita leaves. As Sawada is about to Shinada, he learns that Sawada had no interest in letting the Omi in Nagoya ever again and works with Shinada to defeat the thugs. Victorious at last, Shinada settles his affairs with Sawada as he hits the home run from Sawada at last.

Fighting Style

Although Shinada is a relatively inexperienced fighter and his unarmed technique is not all that good, his specialty is in the use of weapons. He swings all weapons more effectively (faster and with more reach). He also gains the ability early on the finish most combos with a throw, which helps build his heat gauge faster. In order to take advantage of this, Yakuza 5 added in some new weapons called "durable" weapons, which never break, although they don't have a particularly strong attack power. When Shinada places the bat down carefully, it grants him invincibility frames. His unarmed fighting style is primarily based around professional wrestling and makes heavy use of grapples. He's also able to parry melee attacks.

All of his Climax Heat actions are based on his proficiency with melee weapons with added improvisation.

Trivia

• Shinada will not use a baseball bat in a fight; if the player attempts to pick up a bat during a fight, Shinada will carefully place it back down before continuing the fight unarmed.
• His main outfit (a brown leather jacket over a white shirt and jeans) could be seen as a visual callback to the outfit worn by Ryo, protagonist of the Shenmue series, the spiritual predecessor to the Yakuza games. Ryo and Shinada's roles in their respective stories also share other similarities, chiefly that they are both civilians who get dragged into large criminal conspiracies due to the actions of their game's main antagonist.
• Shinada and Masayoshi Tanimura are the only two player characters in the main Yakuza series not to appear in a sequel.
• Shinada makes an appearance as a Super Rare attack soldier card in Ryū ga Gotoku Ishin!'s Battle Dungeon minigame under the name Shinada Tatsunosuke.