Billiken (ビリケン, Biriken) is a character featured in Yakuza 0. He is a detective for the Osaka Prefectural Police and is secretly a supporter of the patriarch of the Kijin Clan, Homare Nishitani.
Profile
Appearance
Billiken is an older man of average build. He is balding with gray hair.
Attire
Billiken wears a tan trench coat, white button up, and gray trousers.
Background
Billiken was a single father of a daughter, and the foster parent to Nishitani. According to Billiken, Nishitani had started pickpocketing in kindergarten, moved onto robbery during elementary school, and was breaking into cars by middle schools.
Billiken was distraught at the news that his daughter was murdered, and her killer was going to get off scot-free due to him being a minor. Sensing his foster father's pain, Nishitani, then in high school, killed the boy and threw him down the Sotenbori river. Later on, Nishitani would form the Kijin Clan of the Omi Alliance; Billiken would remain his contact and mole within the Osaka PD. This would allow Nishitani to be able to use a jail facility as effectively a high-security hideout. Billiken used Nishitani's bribes to run the Bed of Styx Coliseum, an underground bloodsport arena where convicts who cannot be prosecuted by the law fight one another.
Involvement
Yakuza 0: 1988
After Nishitani ends up arrested, Majima beats up some of his goons at their office, and one of them lets slip that Billiken is the man to talk to if Nishitani wants to be found. Majima found him at the Sotenbori river, and he offered to let Majima see Nishitani, but not for money; instead, Majima would face and defeat three opponents in his coliseum, in order to spice things up due to the audience's recent loss of interest due to the stale fighter lineup.
After successfully defeating his three opponents, Billiken took Majima to the jail cell that Nishitani was using as a base, thanks to the assistance of a bribed jailor who commented that Billiken had always taken care of him. However, both he and Nishitani were shot and killed by this jailor, who had also been bribed by Nishitani's employer of the Tojo Clan, to kill Nishitani and Billiken in retaliation for the former's failure to capture Makoto Makimura.
Gallery
