The intro borders on Downer Beginning. Kiryu has left the orphanage and hidden his identity for reasons not known yet, and he looks longingly at Haruka when her broadcast plays on TV. A discussion by other customers on parents throwing their children to the wolves in hopes of dreams they couldn't achieve has Kiryu angrily put down his soba and leave, prompting many questions on what happened between this game and Yakuza 4. Kiryu himself has never looked so sad and alone before.
Kiryu’s building frustration in Part 1 as he desperately tries to avoid getting pulled back into another Yakuza war is hard to watch. All he wants to do is live in peace with Haruka and the other orphans. Failing that, he does his best to support them from another city away, while trying his best to integrate into his new life as well. Yet, the Tojo clan’s scandals and his own heroic nature keep dragging him into danger. By the end of the part, Kiryu’s left slamming on the horn of his car because with Majima supposedly dead, he knows he doesn’t have any choice but to return to Tokyo once more.
Mirei Park's entire life story she tells to Haruka. As a child she was abused by her birth parents, and was then raised strictly by foster parents. She was then an up-and-coming idol who was set to have a huge concert fifty-thousand strong. However, she became pregnant which also revealed she'd been secretly married at eighteen. To avoid a scandal she had an abortion without telling her husband, who left her as he believed he was holding her back. Unfortunately with the fear of the secret leaking to the press (as well as racism due to her Korean ancestry), her agency distanced themselves from her and all she was left with was a failed marriage and she couldn't even bear children anymore. It's clear the entire reason she's so cold and hellbent on making Haruka a success is because she couldn't be.
Her ex-husband was none other than Goro Majima. Their marriage was happy until the abortion where he struck her for the only time and left her. Joining the Tojo Clan only made it more difficult for them to reconcile. Despite all that, he remembered her and entrusted her with a letter detailing how to contact him. She was clearly looking forward to going to Tokyo, nervously asking Haruka to meet him because she wanted to look good. And she never got to see him again.
Worse, when Akiyama reveals the link between Park, Katsuya and Majima, he believes that Park and Katsuya leaked information about Goro's letter as a trap to draw out their enemies, and once Park received his letter, she knew her life was in danger, which was why she entrusted Haruka with the key to her safe. In spite of everything and putting her life at risk, he concludes that she never intended to see her ex-husband again, as they had been away from each other far too long and lived in entirely different worlds at this point.
The rooftop scene with Shinada and Milky. For a brief moment, these two people trapped in their dead-end jobs allow themselves to dream of starting over and being happy. Then, a phone call for Milky snaps them back to reality and she tells him it's too late to run away. Takasugi is seen listening in silence, seemingly out of pity.
Shinada learning that everyone he cared for was secretly part of the Nagoya Family and conspired against him. He takes this revelation poorly, and considers running as far away as possible, but thankfully Takasugi snaps him out of his Heroic BSoD.
After the first battle on top of Kamurocho Hills, Kurosawa is revealed to be the Big Bad and comes to finish off Kiryu, Saejima, Watase, and Katsuya. He first shoots Watase, but Katsuya takes the bullet for him. Then Daigo shows up and disarms Kurosawa before giving him the choice to die with dignity. However, Kurosawa still had an ace up his sleeve, and Daigo gets severely wounded by Kanai. Kiryu was livid and attempts to jump to the other building to beat the hell out of them, but gets restrained by Saejima to keep him from getting himself killed. Kurosawa then taunts that Kiryu has other things to worry about, particularly Haruka, before leaving. Kiryu breaks down lamenting that no matter what he does, people he cares about get hurt.
The ending of Shinada and Baba's fight. Baba attempts to kill himself again by shooting himself with his rifle, but as it goes off, it was shot off his hands by Himura. He, alongside Oshima and Kosaka, manage to talk some sense into Baba and convince him to turn himself in. Shinada seems envious of the fact that Baba has friends and a place to call home, until he receives a call from Takasugi telling him that there are people in Kineicho waiting for him. As shown in the page image, this leads to Shinada breaking down in tears.
Other
After winning what appears to be the last racing mission, Onisaka shows himself and demands a race against his old rival Nakajima, who founded the Devil Killers but no longer races. Nakajima later explains that he left the racing scene because of an accident he and his wife were involved in, which was caused entirely by another street racer just like him. While he came out fine, his wife was left in a coma, and despite his efforts and hopes, she didn't make it in the end, which is why he promotes safe driving. And he considers himself a coward for not wearing his wedding ring any longer.
"The Letters" substory, where Haruka has an interview with an Okinawan magazine responding to letters by fans using pen names, which she realizes are the other kids back at Sunshine Orphanage. "Professor Cosmos" (Shiro) is still being picked on for his lack of athletic abilities, and "I Heart Riona" (Mitsuo) asks for advice on how to impress his crush. The real kicker, accompanied by a sad piano piece, is the letter by "Dragon Mask Man" (Taichi). He's the oldest one left since the two people who watched over them went away, is struggling to be responsible and dependable like they were, and asks the popular idol how he can be more like them. Haruka will give him a heartfelt response regardless, but can either tell him to keep doing what he's doing and things will get better, ensure him that the two people who left them will eventually return, or express her disappointment in his parental figures for leaving them (which doubles as Self-Deprecation and taking a pot shot at her Uncle Kaz).
The music video for Saejima's rendition of "Bakamitai" when singing karaoke features him alone in a bar, drinking away his sorrows while looking over an old photo of himself with Sodachi, the martial arts instructor he helped and befriended in the previous game. The subtext with some information given by Yasuko, Saejima's sister, in the previous game makes it even worse: Saejima had originally wanted to be a teacher before he needed to earn money to save Yasuko's life, which lead him to being inducted into the Tojo and him giving up on his dream. So when Taiga helped Sodachi train new students for the dojo, it was his one and only chance to live out his boyhood dream.
Same for Kiryu and Akiyama's renditions. Kiryu's even has a picture of the Orphanage's beloved shiba inu dog (standing in for his overall longing for his home and his children), while Akiyama's is a picture of himself during his homeless days. The song returns in 0 for Kiryu, and the picture is now of the orphanage where he grew up.
The lyrics for Bakamitai are about a man cursing himself for a failed relationship, yet still having feelings for his ex-lover. The lyrics actually do fit Kiryu somewhat well, since the love of his life, Yumi, has been dead for a long time, and Kiryu does still long for her.
As if the song wasn't enough of this already, Kiwami introduced an acoustic remix called "Bakamitai -Sorrow-", and it is exactly as melancholy as it sounds.
