Miscellaneous Discoveries, Research, & Archival Work

The majority of Yakuza/Like a Dragon games feature karaoke minigames. Each playable song begins with its own "title card" akin to actual karaoke machine displays. These title cards show the title of the song, lyricist, and composer, with stock image photographs used as the background. Most of these images are sourced from the much-used Datacraft Sozaijiten (素材辞典) series of royalty-free media asset discs, which have also been utilized in many Japanese videogames (other SEGA titles among them) and Pokémon Trading Card Game artwork. A cursory search online reveals that the use of these photos in the Yakuza/Like a Dragon series has not been documented. I have been able to match a handful of these karaoke title card backgrounds to their original source from Sozaijiten. These are presented below. I haven't found matches for every title card but will update this section when I find more! I also hope to share this information more widely soon.

Side note: I have listed these games in chronological order, not release order. The karaoke minigame first appeared in Yakuza 3, but was retroactively added to the first two games of the series in the remakes Yakuza Kiwami and Yakuza Kiwami 2.

Game	Song Name	Title Card	Background Image	Volume || Image ID
Yakuza 0	x3 SHINE			Sozaijiten Vol. 169: Sky & Clouds - Faraway Blue GZ040
Yakuza 0	24-hour Cinderella			Sozaijiten Vol. 203: Flowers Blooming in the Field - Pure & Sweet Edition JK003
Yakuza 0	Heartbreak Mermaid			Sozaijiten Vol. 154: Okinawa - Churaumi GJ087
Yakuza 0	Judgement -Shinpan-			Sozaijiten Vol. 26: Forests & Groves AA189
Yakuza Kiwami	Tonight -restart from this night-			Sozaijiten Vol. 45: Tokyo AV111
Yakuza Kiwami	Iji Sakura (Fighting Sakura) 2000			Sozaijiten Vol. 146: Four Seasons - Japanese Flowers & Trees GA050
Yakuza Kiwami	As Long As You're Happy			Sozaijiten Vol. 22: Food & Cooking Image Edition SW188
Yakuza Kiwami 2	Pride From Despair			Sozaijiten Vol. 168: Business City - Urban Space Edition GY159
Yakuza 3	I Wanna Change Myself			Sozaijiten Vol. 20: Flowers in Clusters & Cherry Blossoms SU042
Yakuza 3	Saturday Night☆Lover			Sozaijiten Vol. 75: New York DB043
Yakuza 3	Summer Memories			Sozaijiten Vol. 100: Sky & Iridescent Clouds EC071
Yakuza 3	Where Has Your Touch Gone?			Sozaijiten Vol. 119: Water Image Edition EX197
Yakuza 4	Get to the Top!			Sozaijiten Vol. 100: Sky & Iridescent Clouds EC076
Yakuza 4	I Wanna Change Myself			Sozaijiten Vol. 20: Flowers in Clusters & Cherry Blossoms SU141
Yakuza 4	Machine Gun Kiss			Sozaijiten Vol. 75: New York DB040
Yakuza 4	Raindrops			Sozaijiten Vol. 119: Water Image Edition EX077; possibly an amalgamation of multiple images
Yakuza 4	Shooting Star			Sozaijiten Vol. 70: Starry Skies & Space CW014
Yakuza 4	Summer Memories			Sozaijiten Vol. 40: Sea & Southern Islands AQ147; boat in image maybe taken from AQ018
Yakuza 4	Where Has Your Touch Gone?			Sozaijiten Vol. 119: Water Image Edition EX023 & EX195
Yakuza 5	Baka Mitai (I've Been a Fool)			Sozaijiten Vol. 214: Drinks & Alcohol JW056
Yakuza 5	Because I Have You			Sozaijiten Vol. 127: Fresh Greenery & Young Leaves FF048
Yakuza 5	Loneliness Loop			Sozaijiten Vol. 164: Water - Clear & Pure GU158
Yakuza 5	So Much More!			Sozaijiten Vol. 227: Girls Portrait Edition KK067
Yakuza 5	Ring			Sozaijiten Vol. 179: Background - Sparkle & Romantic HK041
Yakuza 5	Rouge of Love			Sozaijiten Vol. 10: Flower Edition SJ197
Yakuza 6: The Song of Life	BRAND NEW STAGE			Sozaijiten Vol. 182: Beach & Girls HN152
Yakuza 6: The Song of Life	Fork In The Road			Sozaijiten Vol. 83: Road Scenery DK156
Yakuza 6: The Song of Life	Today is a Diamond			Sozaijiten Vol. 40: Sea & Southern Islands AQ018
Yakuza: Like a Dragon	Spring Breeze			Sozaijiten Vol. 146: Four Seasons - Japanese Flowers & Trees GA057
Yakuza: Like a Dragon	The Future I Dreamed Of			Sozaijiten Vol. 83: Road Scenery DK108
Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name	Sayonara, Silent Night			Sozaijiten Vol. 48: Christmas & New Year AY188 & AY199
Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth	Honolulu City Lights			Sozaijiten Vol. 154: Okinawa - Churaumi GJ081
Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth	If I Could Love the One I Love			Sozaijiten Vol. 155: Living Space & Interior Accesories GK097

After finding some of the above source image matches for the Yakuza/Like a Dragon karaoke title cards, I decided to look further to see if any other images from Datacraft Sozaijiten are used in the games. I have only ever seen the fact that Sozaijiten images are used in these games mentioned online by two other individuals:

Second, on a Japanese user's personal site called "好奇タンヤオのゲームメモ帳公開ブログ," which can be loosely translated to "Curious Tanyao's Game Memos Public Blog," I found an extensive list of videogames and other media which utilize Sozaijiten material (albeit without images). It was here that I found six mentions of Yakuza games which Tanyao has noted in various odd places, including in a trailer for Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth. Tanyao is quite meticulous! They have found many, many Sozaijiten matches in sometimes quite obscure media that I'm not certain has been fully cataloged by those on the English-speaking side of the community, so please check their Twitter out for more of this sort of thing

From the first mention, I did not see documented where the image of this elusive white man appeared in the game, or which volume of Sozaijiten his photo came from. I booted up my own copy of Yakuza 0 to do a little investigating, and found a conspicuous image of a white fellow with relative ease (within a couple minutes of roaming around the Premium Adventure mode). His mug was plastered all over posters in Theater Square. I will detail this first match and any others I find below. This will likely be a slowgoing project as I will probably have to gather my own screenshots to properly document the matches. It will also be difficult to determine which game a source image first appeared in, as the Yakuza games reuse many assets for subsequent installments. I suspect a great deal would naturally first appear in Yakuza 3, the first HD game of the series, but Yakuza 0 also presents a helpful starting point due to its time period. Since there is also a lot of asset reuse from game to game, there will likely be overlap with many of the images listed below. I will list the earliest game in which I happen to come across the specified image or texture.

I am also certain that many of the actual textures in the game likely also come from Sozaijiten. Documenting this could be several magnitudes more laborious! Maybe I'll get to it someday.

Game || Context	Photo from Game	Photo Source	Volume || Image ID
Yakuza 0 On a poster for "Space Alliance 2" in Theater Square	Photo from Game		Sozaijiten Volume 30: People - Men AE034
Yakuza 0 On a poster for "Space Alliance 2" in Theater Square	Photo from Game		Sozaijiten Volume 30: People - Men AE055
Yakuza 0 On a poster for "Twilight ni Yoroshiku" in Theater Square	Photo from Game		Sozaijiten Volume 31: People - Women AF024
Yakuza 0 On a poster for a "Ocean Adventure 2" in Theater Square	Photo from Game		Sozaijiten Volume 30: People - Men AE194
Yakuza 0 On a poster for "Memories of Marie" in Theater Square	Photo from Game		Sozaijiten Volume 50: Dogs & Cats CA093
Yakuza 0 On a poster for "Miracle Trouble Story 3" on Taihei Boulevard			Sozaijiten Volume 62: Impressive Small Animals CA093 & CN154
Yakuza 0 On an Akaushimaru restauarant poster		[2 not yet found]	Sozaijiten Volume 22: Food & Cooking Images & others to be added
Yakuza 0 On a Smile Burger standee; it's blurry and low quality			Sozaijiten Volume 22: Food & Cooking Image Edition SW027
Yakuza 0 On cigarette machines; the "JCC" has been added to the image			Sozaijiten Volume 79: Sports & Dynamics CX089
Yakuza 3 Image shown during news segment for proposed resort; same dock that's used in the "Today is a Diamond" karaoke photo			Sozaijiten Volume 79: Sports & Dynamics CX089
Yakuza 5 On an electronic billboard in Fukuoka; might be my favorite... so cutie!!!			Sozaijiten Volume 50: Dogs & Cats CN154
Yakuza: Like a Dragon A poster in Hello Work; also in Infinite Wealth	Photo from Game		Sozaijiten Volume 30: People - Men AE094
Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth On the "Dog Food" item; Dog Rich: Beauty & Power			Sozaijiten Volume 159: Dog - Lovely Dog GP176
Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth On the "Bird Food" item; Bird Rich: Juicy & Healthy			Sozaijiten Volume 62: Impressive Small Animals CN006
Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth On the No Surf No Life building on Hula Ave.			Sozaijiten Volume 111: Seaside & Tropical Holidays EP049

This is another incredibly minor discovery, but it is about a videogame event that I have a great deal of affection for. Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver Versions feature an area known as the Sinjoh Ruins, conceptualized as a site where the two ancient cultures of the Sinnoh and Johto regions meet. This area is only accessible by satisfying the following conditions:

Following a cutscene, the player will be warped to the snowy Sinjoh Ruins

From here, the player will then encounter Cynthia in a cabin, who guides the player to a ruined temple. Inside is the Mystri Stage, which bares a glyph of a triangle, encompassed by concentric cirlces, and surrounded by smaller circles at the corners.. Cynthia explains that three of the smaller circles represent the legendary Pokémon Dialga, Palkia, and Giratina. The player is instructed to select one of them before bringing Arceus to the center of the stage. Once Arceus takes its place on the stage, Unown surround it, and an infamous video begins to play which shows Arceus and its glyph overlaid on top of stock photographs of the real world. These have all been identified as coming from Datacraft Sozaijiten. However, there exist eight additional stock photos in the files of final versions of the games that went unused; owing to recent developments, it has also been discovered that in earlier builds of the games, there are even more additional photographs that were removed in later builds. All of these photos are thus unused content.

As indicated on The Cutting Room Floor, these extra images do not come from Sozaijiten, and are as-of-yet unsourced. I have managed to track down what I thought were possible origins for some of these; some of them are currently being sold on the stock photo website Bigstock (formerly BigStockPhoto and currently owned by Shutterstock). I was able to confirm, however, that these were not uploaded to the site until well into the 2010s. Though, the site has been around since 2004, this discrepancy makes Bigstock an impossible source unless they were taken down at one point and reuploaded. I will catalog their current availability here, and will update if I find the true origin of these images. It is possible that the developers just pulled them from Google Images at the time for testing purposes, before swapping them out with royalty-free photos. Or maybe they came from a royalty-free media collection that hasn't been searched yet. It's hard to say. Details are below.

In-game File Name	Version of Game Present	Photo from Game	Current Source	Full Photo Name	Sourced Image ID Link
culture01	VER20090602		[Not yet found]	[Not yet found]	[Not yet found] Link
culture02	VER20090602		[Not yet found]	[Not yet found]	[Not yet found] Link
culture03	VER20090602			"Car engine part - Close up image of an internal combustion engine."	1452703 Link
culture04	VER20090602		[Not yet found]	[Not yet found]	[Not yet found] Link
culture05	VER20090602		[Not yet found]	[Not yet found]	[Not yet found] Link
culture06	VER20090602		[Not yet found]	[Not yet found]	[Not yet found] Link
culture07	VER20090602			"Close-up of a computer microchip from a HDD"	1874381 Link
culture08	VER20090602			"A photo inside a library"	13576631 Link
disaster01	VER20090602		[Not yet found]	[Not yet found]	[Not yet found] Link
disaster02	VER20090602		[Not yet found]	[Not yet found]	[Not yet found] Link
disaster03	VER20090602 & Final			"A Bolt Out of the Blue" or "shot of lightning bolt surrounded by brilliant blue glow"	533219 Link
disaster04	VER20090602		[Not yet found]	[Not yet found]	[Not yet found] Link
disaster05	VER20090602		[Not yet found]	[Not yet found]	[Not yet found] Link
micro01	VER20090602		[Not yet found]	[Not yet found]	[Not yet found] Link
micro02	VER20090602			"Blood Cells" or "3d rendering of blood cells"	662385 Link
nature01	VER20090602		[Not yet found]	[Not yet found]	[Not yet found] Link
nature02	VER20090602		[Not yet found]	[Not yet found]	[Not yet found] Link
nature03	VER20090602 & Final		[Not yet found]	[Not yet found]	[Not yet found] Link
nature04	VER20090602 & Final			"Misty Forest" or "through the trees - hazy forest morning"	229301 Link
nature05	VER20090602 & Final		[Not yet found]	[Not yet found]	[Not yet found] Link
nature06	VER20090602 & Final		[Not yet found]	[Not yet found]	[Not yet found] Link
nature07	VER20090602 & Final		[Not yet found]	[Not yet found]	[Not yet found] Link
nature08	VER20090602 & Final		[Not yet found]	[Not yet found]	[Not yet found] Link

The official Twitter account for the cellphone game Pikmin Bloom regularly shares promotional images for upcoming events. These feature models of the Pikmin transposed onto real-world photos. I suspected these were also stock photos rather than bespoke images. So far, I've found matches for them on Shutterstock and Alarmy, and I believe this to be where they originated. Details below.

Context	Promotional Image	Image Source	Original Photo Description	Sourced Image ID Link
Debut of Fairy Lights Decor Pikmin on 12.3.2023			glowing boho led jars in the garden	2295571823 Link
Debut of Snow Decor Pikmin on 12.23.2023			A small melting snowman in a clearing with melting snow and sun spots. The coming of spring. Warming.	2259994909 Link
Debut of Bunny Egg Decor Pikmin on 3.24.2024			Happy Easter. Congratulatory easter background. Easter eggs and flowers. Background with copy space. Selective focus.	1661009776 Link (Original) 326043503 Link (Variation)
3 Billion Flowers Planted during Earth Day Event on 4.23.2024			Many acorns on green moss in forest, space for text	2217651631 Link
6 Billion Flowers Planted during Earth Day Event on 4.25.2024			Two large white seashells on the beach on a sunny day. Selective focus on the near seashell, the background is blurred.	2078681092 Link
Night of the Harvest Full Moon (Jugoya) 9.16.2024			viewing the moon	308354621 Link

Random image matches. I'll add to this section as I find them. If I find multiple matches in one piece of media I'll make it its own category!

Context	In-media Image	Image Source	Volume || Image ID
Pokémon Generations Episode 9: The Scoop Seen about 28 seconds into the video. The moon is flipped 180 degrees. This is an awesome Pokémon short by the way...			Sozaijiten Vol. 21: Space & Planets SV116

Making a note of this here because I'm not sure where else to do so. Might find a better spot on the site at some point. This is also such an obscure thing I don't even know how/where to share it. The Japanese PlayStation demo disc series "Play-Play" sometimes featured original games (as seen in Vols. 5 & 6, possibly later installments as well). A whimsical song accompanied these games which featured various interjections and screeches. The song can be listened to below. The "achoo" sound heard right at the start and at 57 seconds is a sample taken from the first disc set of the Gu-Mantan series, which were Japanese CD-ROM sets featuring royalty-free samplings of various media, including clip art, photo, fonts, and sounds. The sample in question is labeled as "SND024," and "アチョー" within the program menus (meaning "achoo," so it's basically meant to be a sneeze sound). I stumbled across this completely randomly but thought I'd document it. I've shared it with the "VGM & Other Instrument Sources" community, which is trying to catalog one billion different musical sound fonts at a time and is also engaged in a similar number of ongoing conversations. The majority of their information is kept in a Discord server and innumerable private spreadsheets. I did learn that the sound was possibly made with the Roland SC-55 sound module. Regardless, there's no real place to properly make note of this as of yet because it's pretty insignificant. It's of course also possible this has been discovered already, but I have found almost zero information about the "Play-Play Original Game" online to begin with, including the Japanese side of things. I am guessing the other samples contained within the song are on alternate Gu-Mantan discs.

Some day when I figure out how to embed audio files I will include the sample in question!!!

Of course I had to check out this CD containing "approximately 100 images in .jpg format" documenting the groundbreaking ceremony for the Village of McFarland, Wisconsin's public library! This is actually an occasion commemorating the E.D. Locke Public Library's new location, which was established in 1997. The momentous ocassion took place on March 31, 2005, which was seemingly a positively jovial afternoon in the village. Just sort of checked this one out "on a lark" because I love hyper-local mementos like this. It was brought all the way from the eponymous McFarland Public Library to my own local library after I placed an enthusiastic hold on the item. Naturally, I don't think the photos are really hosted elsewhere, so if you see your meemaw or pep-pep in one of the images, feel free to save! Photo collection can also be viewed here.

Why ANOTHER entry on the Village of McFarland? Well, it just seems like they have been particularly good at documenting their events (and making them available through the library system). I have zero connection to McFarland, but I still find this sort of local history fascinating. This is a photo collection of the village's sesquicentennial (150 year) celebrations from July 2, 2006. Now, at the end of 2024, they're nearing their demisemiseptcentennial! Madness!!! The photo collection can also be viewed and downloaded here. You can also find included in the files a cute slideshow version of all the photos that had been put together.

An interactive multimedia CD-ROM designed for new employees of the Schering-Plough Corporation, which acquired Key Pharmaceuticals in 1986. The software appears to be from 2001. Features orientation modules laid out amongst a digital campus setting. Key points of interest include: the information center, auditorium, dining hall, library, student union, and stadium. In the auditorium, you can view a 50-slide presentation on the thoroughly fascinating topic of Seasonal Allergic Rhinitis; the host also promises a reward of a code that can be redeemed for a free Omaha Steaks dinner, shipped directly to your doorstep courtesy of Schering/Key. My unique code for the dining hall was "ANTIHISTAMINE," but I unfortunately lacked the necessary order form to fill out and fax over to Schering/Key/Omaha Steaks to redeem my yummy meal. (However, further review has revealed that you can print an order form from within the software itself... Happy day!). You can choose from Top Sirloins, Lemon Terragon Chicken Breast, Salmon Steaks, or Gourmet Burgers. In the library, you can read about different types of Claritin. A wonderful gentleman greets you at the gates of the school, and grants you access to the wonders within. The student union has various notices to review about meetings and other information pertinent to Schering/Key faithful. Lastly, the stadium includes a track runner quiz game; the quicker you answer the questions the faster your runner goes. I've uploaded all the files on the disc to the Internet Archive here.