CyricZ posted...
This is actually a tricky discussion. From moment to moment, going through the motivations of the protagonist, one would think it's pretty politically left. Personal freedoms, living true to oneself, helping the weak or minorities, not bowing to authority.
That said, the series as a whole does have a few right-wing elements. The most clear one is that Kiryu continues to believe in the yakuza as a system, which is very authoritarian. Furthermore, plenty of times in the series the police or government will be established as a good system in a modern society for maintaining order. Also some games have a scary amount of anti-foreigner themes baked into their plots.
Really it's a case of who's holding the pen at any given moment, but it does trend left.
I think it just trends in a moderate way. There are things that are left, and things that are right for the entire series, more like how reality is in general. I like it. It makes the world they've built far more believable.