Also Arase Dead Souls my beloved. You're so funny

Same!! Would have been nice to get some closure on that one, esp since we've had *2* separate Kiryu "ending" games AND Kashiwagi was brought back. Tho, I guess they just don't wanna make an entirely new model for a single substory. At least there's the little RGGO story w/ Arase meeting Ichiban ig

Arase lost purpose in his life w/o the yakuza and while far from the best purpose, he found a new one. Then he starts giving other lost souls a purpose, a place to belong, as well. SUPER fascinating to me. And, again, Kashiwagi was specifically looking for Arase all these years? FASCINATING

It was also interesting subtle character building for Arase. The Reapers are full of outcasts. While it's made out to be this big assassin org, not all the killers are very good at their job. Some can't even bring themselves to kill anymore. There's an extreme lack of judgement in who they pick up.

While it's not strictly canon, I've always viewed the HLA as being somewhat in response to not being able to help Nishiki. Regardless of the validity of that reading, the HLA and Crimson Shield helped show how big of an impact Kashiwagi really had despite his limited screentime.

When it ended I just had to see if someone had posted about it yet. I was not disappointed