Jewish-American reporter Jake Adelstein interviewed three real-life Yakuza members to get their take on the game Yakuza 3 (Ryu Ga Gotoku 3) that came out last year.

Here are their takes on the game's authenticity:

Environment
M: I've never been to Okinawa, but Kabukicho is dead on.
S: You mean the old Kabukicho. Governor Ishihara's totally ruined the place. It's like a ghost town.
K: It's like going back in time. Koma Theater is there, the pink salons, the Pronto Coffee shops, the Shinjuku Batting center, the love hotels.
S: You got your salaryman in there, the delinquent school girl and her sugar daddy, Chinese people, and even those Nigerian touts. What's with all the fucking gaijin (foreigners) in the area anyway? It used to be just Japanese, Koreans and Chinese.

Direction
M: The corporate yakuza guys get a thumbs up for realism. Nice suit. Smart. Financially savvy. Obsessed with money. Sneaky and conniving. Ruthless.
S: There are a lot of guys whom I feel like I know. The dialogue is right too. They sound like yakuza.
K: Braggarts, bullies, and sweet-talkers. I agree � it feels like I know the guys on the screen.
M: Kiryu is the way yakuza used to be. We kept the streets clean. People liked us. We didn't bother ordinary citizens. We respected our bosses. Now, guys like that only exist in video games.

Fashion
S: Except for Kiryu's crappy shirt, it's realistic. The top executive yakuza are all wearing good suits. They look like businessmen. The cabaret girls have incredible outfits.The hosts in the game are dressed like hosts. Somebody did his homework.
K: The lady cop, her outfit is perfect too. The boring black suit with the white blazer. That's what a woman yakuza cop dresses like.

Story
M: The whole plot about resort expansion in Okinawa and the CIA and the politicians involved and all that? Wow. That game came out last year, right. That's totally happening in Okinawa right now.
K: The politicians and the yakuza always have worked together. The game has got that right.
S: Yakuza and politicians, pretty much the same thing. We all have badges, we all have factions, we all have our oyabuns (father-figures).
M: Don't forget that there are some yakuza who became politicians.

In the end, the three�anonymous�Yakuza members liked the game, so it shows the world a peek inside the Yakuza world.

What I found funny was the end of it all. One of the Yakuza members likes the mahjong, the sexual massage parlor, and the hostess clubs that are found in the original Japanese version, but they were left out of the American version. He said, "I feel sorry for the people who bought the American version. SEGA USA sucks."

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source: boing boing