Wow, I got hooked on this Business Management minigame early on (Chapter 5) in Yakuza: Like a Dragon. One moment you’re there collecting coins off the street, searching for cash items in the trash, and picking up cans, and suddenly you have the opportunity to make an easy 3 million yen—well, easy after you get the hang of it and make Ichiban Confectionery a success….
This Business Management minigame is basically a whole separate game. If Yakuza: Like a Dragon were a series, this minigame would definitely be a spin-off. Heck, I can even see this minigame as a simple mobile game (man, it would have been nice to level up Ichiban Confectionery that way…).
When you’re starting your business management journey, Nick Ogata will give you a little help to boost Ichiban Confectionery, but don’t get used to it because he won’t do it forever.
With this help, you can improve Ichiban, but let’s take it slow. First, you’ll only get Nick’s help if you meet the target he agreed on with you. So, here are some tips to meet the goals.
GET HANAYAMA
Hanayama will probably be the only employee you need to level up to the max at the beginning. As a Senior Director, Hanayama will have 750 charisma, which will basically carry the Shareholder Meetings on his back. He can also single-handedly manage Ichiban Confectionery or Muto Laundry, for example.
Getting Hanayama is easy
Getting Hanayama is quite easy, just complete Substory 18: Home Run Heroism.
I made two mistakes that you obviously don’t have to make
In the beginning, I got obsessed with this charisma issue for the shareholder meetings, so I invested a lot in employees trying to max out their charisma. And that’s definitely not necessary at the start. Later on, when you’re a billionaire, it’s a piece of cake, but it’s not the best move early on. Have Hanayama maxed out because he will make a difference.
When you promote an employee, you increase their bonus. So if you max out all your employees to Senior Director at the start of the game, the most basic bonus will be 800,000 yen (for each employee).
And skimping on employee bonuses isn’t smart; it snowballs, they get angry, and you have to give them the bonus anyway, and then they want to quit too. Just think of the chaos.
The other mistake I made was not selling and buying new properties. At the beginning, I just bought properties for each available slot, 5 in total, and thought I would conquer the world with just them and Ichiban Confectionery, but no. For example, Muto Laundry does very well at the start of the game, but by the end, when you’re competing for the top 10, it’s no longer useful. So, remember to swap a property that’s yielding low results, despite being maxed out, for another one. And then repeat the process. Of course, this doesn’t need to be done every round; have the necessary funds to make the property switch, and remember you’ll have to max out the new property.
BONUSES FOR EMPLOYEES
Bonuses for employees are crucial; always keep your employees happy, especially before runs that have commercials on the air. So, every one or two rounds, you need to give them bonuses.
You can give 4 types of bonuses to your employees:
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- Personal Concierge: 800,000
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- Celebrity Paradise: 1,600,000
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- Party with Celebrities: 2,800,000
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- Space Tour: 4,000,000
The bonus amount varies depending on the job title. So, for a Senior Director, whether they are Normal, SR, SSR, or UR, the most basic bonus is 800,000 yen.
After getting rich, I started applying the bonus automatically, but before that, I was doing it one by one ^-^.
Choosing the Property
When choosing a property, also keep in mind that in addition to the fixed maintenance cost of the property, you have to cover labor costs (employee salaries). And on top of that, also factor in the bonuses for your employees. If the property you buy gives you a 4 million profit, but the maintenance cost is 1 million, and you still have 3 Senior Director employees in it, you won’t be very successful, as you’ll spend another 2,400,000 on bonuses every one or two rounds.
In your properties’ business report, we have the maintenance cost and labor cost. But obviously, we don’t have the cost of the bonuses you choose to give or not.
Maximize the property whenever possible; this improves notability, service, and product. With these maximizations, it’s sometimes cheaper not to have all 3 employees right at the beginning of management. And when possible, maximize the sales quantity and see if it’s necessary to upgrade the employees’ level to avoid having anything in the red. Always keep everything in the blue.
So, in summary, look at your profit after deducting property maintenance, salaries, and bonuses.
The properties that worked for me: Muto Laundry, Twilight Bar (yes, my thing for vampires spoke louder), Hortensia, Tokuda Store, Takiyama Photos, Mahjong Club Ling, Mr. Brillio, Yokodo Bookstore, Hydrangea, Cat’s Maid, PDCA Trading Company, Dianthus, Jinnai Stadium, Mirai Tower.
Nick’s Help
Remember that Nick Ogata won’t help you forever, and he will only give you the millions if you meet the agreed-upon goals. In my case, I didn’t meet the last goal, I think it was to be in the top 10 or top 15, and then I got a fine of 1 million yen!!! And it was a fine from Kasuga’s money, not the company’s! T_T
Salary Raise
Whether your business is doing well or not, and even with your employees happy, some of them will ask for a raise. If you refuse, they will leave. In the beginning, I only gave Hanayama a raise and let even SR employees go. Later, fired employees or those whose raises you didn’t accept reappear in the employee recruitment list at the same level and happiness they had when they left Ichiban.
investments
Honestly? Stay away from investments. I made several at the beginning, won some, and then when things were going downhill, I thought they would be the solution. But they weren’t.
In general, you will have more losses than profits with investments. If Kasuga says he thinks it’s a scam or that there’s a 50% chance, it will go wrong.
As you explore the map, you will find NPCs offering you some investments. That’s fine, because when you talk to them, you don’t accept the investment right away. Eri presents these investments to you, and you choose whether to accept them or not.
commercials
Always have 10 million in cash to pay for commercials. The commercials are worth it, very much worth it.
When we are still Ichiban Confectionery, that is, before becoming the biggest company in the universe (or at least in Yokohama), the advertising period cost 5,000,000 yen, but don’t get used to it because later it will be 10,000,000.
Commercial 01 – Ichiban Confectionery
Commercial 02 – Ichiban Holdings
Eri Kamataki
With the company in 1st place, you get Eri Kamataki as a UR employee for the company and also complete her bond with Ichiban.
With Eri at the highest level, you have 1,000 persuasion, so you’re basically unbeatable in the shareholder meetings.
Essence of Orbital Laser
Think of a deal that’s worth it and you can get it early in the game, just by putting Ichiban Holdings in first place. This superpower of Kasuga’s is for attacking multiple enemies and is very strong. The MP cost is high (200), but it’s worth it.
Shareholder Meetings
This must be why you’re here reading this post ^-^. It’s after the shareholder meeting that you get Ichiban’s bonus, and while you’re still growing, that’s when your company climbs the pyramid.
Hitting the same point again: you don’t need to have one maxed-out employee of each color to have the highest charisma. Have Hanayama maxed out. Don’t worry, he can handle the job.
Always have one employee of each color at the shareholder meetings; one color will be repeated, and that’s okay.
Each color is used to break the shield of one of the shareholders. Red beats blue, blue beats green, and green beats red, which is why you need one of each color. You can use a red to hit a green, for example, but it generally does less damage to the shield.
After breaking the shareholder’s shield, switch to Hanayama (750 persuasion), regardless of the shareholder’s color, as his persuasion is one of the highest in the game. And after you get an employee with higher persuasion like Eri Kamataki (1000 persuasion) or Gonzaemon (800 persuasion), use them.
In short: break the shareholder’s shield with the correct color and then switch to the employee with the highest persuasion and go for the win.
My winning team for a long time:
I used Grandma at level 10 for a long time and Omelette, who doesn’t have much persuasion but has a low command cost.
Command cost is how much you spend from the bar below your team’s photos to counter the shareholder.
Next to each employee accompanying you in the shareholder meeting, there’s a number; that’s the command cost. So, when I use Hanayama, whether to break the shield or for persuasion, I spend 11 points from this bar that goes up to 88.
Your command cost bar starts full. So, at the beginning, I quickly select the first shareholder on the left and go for it. I follow this order from left to right. For the second shareholder, I wait until one of them has fire around the shareholder’s color; when the fire completes the circle, the shareholder is automatically activated.
I don’t want it to be activated automatically because I want to do it from left to right. When it’s close to being automatically activated, I select the shareholder I want and go for it. I do this to give the bar time to recover a bit because if it runs out and I haven’t convinced the shareholder on the first try, I’ll have to spend more command points breaking their shield again, to use more persuasion on them and finish off their “doubt” bar for good, so they only have hearts for me.
Don’t worry, later with Eri, everything gets much easier!:)
Another tip is: start from the shareholder on the left. Go from left to right; it’s usually easier that way.
You can also apologize. If you can wait for two turns, apology level 2 has more impact than level 1. I only reached apology level 3 once, but I used the others several times before Eri:
Omelette the Chicken and Grandma
Both the chicken and grandma are employees you can’t fire. Eri, when you get her, can be fired (I don’t know why you would do that, but okay).
And the chicken is a blessing for your finances; she always does commercials and earns you 5 million yen.
NPCs for recruitment around the map
As you explore the map, you may find some NPCs available for hire. The game will ask if you want to recruit them or not. You can recruit without fear, as this won’t lead to immediate hiring. The candidate goes to the recruitment section in the company management, and only there do you choose to hire them or not. And some depend on Ichiban’s personality stats (Passion, Style, and so on) to even get the option to recruit them on the map. The character will tell you that, for example, Passion is lacking, and the recruitment fails, but later, with more passion points, you can go back and recruit the NPC.
Other employees will become available for recruitment after you finish certain substories, for example, Ikari (the enthusiastic young man with the certificates).
PRODUCT, SERVICE, AND NOTABILITY BONUSES
Always try to place employees compatible with your business. Each employee card has an icon next to their happiness status. This icon matches those of your properties. So, always place employees with the same icon as the property to earn bonuses. In the image above, you can see a lighter bonus in the blue bar under each employee who has a “specialization” matching that of the company.
Hanayama has a green basket as his “specialization,” and the type of Ichiban Confectionery is also the green basket, so Hanayama receives this lighter bonus in the product, service, and notability bars.
TRAINING
To promote employees, I always took advantage of having a hired instructor. Since Eri hires a seminar every 4 periods, it was worth it. A red exclamation mark appears when we have a hired speaker. Remember that to raise employee levels, you’ll have to promote them, and each promotion increases the bonus.
So, did you play Yakuza: Like a Dragon? Did you turn Ichiban Confectionery into a success?
