How Hanako Arasaka Became A Perpetuator of Evil | Cyberpunk 2077 | Character Analysis & Explained



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Hanako Arasaka is, indeed, one of the most evil characters in all of Cyberpunk. But like any evil character written well, there’s a tragic sprinkling of humanity throughout their backstory. In this video, we get into the how and the why of Hanako Arasaka’s decisions — and also acknowledging the role of her father as her lifelong jailer.

Let me know what you think of Hanako, and how you see her evil. And ALSO. How you feel about her brother. Because gah. Poor Yorinobu, man. The Devil ending is heartbreaking for him. Like omg imagine.

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47 thoughts on “How Hanako Arasaka Became A Perpetuator of Evil | Cyberpunk 2077 | Character Analysis & Explained”

  1. Unfortunately this was my First Game Ending and seriously made me question myself "Why am I such an Idiot". IDK but i had hoped that i could trust her but Unfortunately Nop.
    After Credits I just realized How right Jhonny was (Even though he has his own Intensions), But he tried to Warn, Caution us at every moment that trusting her might not end well.

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  2. Hi! Some extra things about color and symbolism from a Japan culture perspective: White is considered a sacred color of gods, because it is a symbol of spiritual and physical purity. Red can symbolizes justice (in theatres red/white stripes on actors faces symbolize just that), while temples in Japan are often dyed in red to fend away evil spirits and demons.
    So the red during that mission may represent a bit more !

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  3. I first played this game was when I was 14 and I was holding onto hope that I could have a good outcome with the corpo ending. Maybe playing this game at such a young age wasn’t a good thing but it made me discover the nuance in “bad” people from that. A lot of people in cyberpunk purely help you for their gain because your want is something that gets them closer to their own goal. Hanako wants to use you in order to restore the Arasaka name same as someone like Judy was willing to help you because it would let her find out about Evelyn. Arasaka isn’t fully bad because it’s this great superpower of a military, it’s bad because the people enabling it believe that their means justify the ending. You get duped in the devil ending, plane and simple. Not because of blind evil but because Hanako helped you until you weren’t useful. That experience is why this game is still my number 1, it’s amazing.

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  4. That's the ending I got the first time around, I got stuck on the decision and the deciding factor was Takumura's endorsement because I found him to be one of the most honest and decent people in the whole game.

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  5. I could easily see saburo through yorinobu's body using IVF to have impregnate hanako and using that compounded dna to generate stem cells from the fetuses to repair his new body and ease the transition

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  6. Hanako is successfully mysterious, and I do enjoy that her offer is tempting. However, accepting an Arasaka's easy way out would be V betraying just about everyone and herself in the process. V is concerned for her legacy, for proving that she ever existed. If she folded to Arasaka, she would be betraying her most important trait, the belief that makes her V. The role-player in me could never bring myself to take Hanako's offer as anything but foolish and self-destructive.

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  7. Well, seeing Hanako's character from the big picture perspective like this really killed off any modicum of sympathy I might have had for her in any other ending where she meets her untimely demise. Normally I'd try to contribute any lore tidbit the video might have missed or post my most interesting theories, but this video covered Hanako Arasaka so well, that I have nothing else to offer. I'm really looking forward to the lore video on Yorinobu Arasaka, the hidden hero of the cyberpunk world, and what speculations you might make if V ever met Yorinobu under different circumstances. Imagine Johnny's face if he realizes that the heir of the Arasaka corporation has more in common with him than he thinks!

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  8. Power corrupts and Cyberpunk 2077 is no exception. Hanako was not only raised by a self-centered, evil tyrant but was also molded by the corporate values where everyone outside those values is a worthless sack of meat at worst, slave at best. The only Arasaka individual i respect is Yorinobu because he went against it all, and with all V's path choices…except the Devil ending, he actually succeeds in bringing ruin to Arasaka and taking the reins for himself, hopefully towards a slightly better future.
    If you play a streetkid V…you're actually in a pretty unique position because you understand the hatred towards corporations, what it means to live in their ''sewage'', their trash, so to speak, more than anyone.
    When you talk to Hanako with Takemura after her kidnapping…as a streetkid you can tell her straight up she's welcome to join them at the bottom, and if it's not ''enticing'' she can – ill rephrase in my own words – go f**k herself.

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  9. When it comes to Arasaka you must always read between the lines. The game's perspective is put in such a way that villainizes Yorinobu for all the bad stuff happening but in reality, all that are consequences of the internal struggle within the family. A lot of the relevant information is not shared with the player but can be acquired through other ways from lore and makes everything clear. Yorinobu snapped at Saburo because he is not his son, he is Saburo's clone and his coming-of-age gift was knowing (besides the truth) he would "very graciously" give his existence so Saburo could live again(as we see in the devils ending). As a creation of Arasaka(His body was manufactured by Biotechnica for Arasaka if I'm not mistaken) he has a deep hate for everything it stands for, that is the reason he chose Johnny as his inspiration to "become the bomb" and destroy it from the inside and for this he needed Alt to fry Mikoshi along with the spirit of dear old dad. depending on the ending he reached various degrees of success based on the influence V has on the outcome. Ultimately in most endings excluding the Devil he accomplishes his mission because Saburo's shard is never concluded so he can never get slotted and survives long enough to "downsize/ruin" the company.

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  10. Hanako is death, but a specific kind of death. Hanako is the death of a snow covered mountain, frozen but beautiful. She is the icy cold of freezing to death. The kind of death that comes quietly and seductively, convincing you that you're overheated so you take off your coat and lay down in the snow peacefully. The death you acquiesce to thinking you're just falling asleep, not realizing you will never wake again.

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  11. On top of all that was disscused in this vid's good analysis; CDPR knew they were teasing the crap out of guys like myself. Her visuals and graceful body language just dripped with "I know what you want, but you wouldn't dare".

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  12. She is a sad story to my knowledge because in the original work she's actually very helpful 😂 but for some reason she's evil in this. I wish she was more morally gray or well-meaning like her brother,

    Because at least her brother is genuinely trying to take down the company because he's like "this is bullshit let's burn it all down" but she in this game is a snake wearing the guise of a pure saint.

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  13. I was only briefly thrown off my mistrust in Hansel after the rescue when she seemed genuinely afraid. It helped solidify my mistrust with Johnny screaming in my ear. In meeting her at the restaurant I was completely paranoid and ready for an ambush. My instinct was on too high of an alert to go along with anything she suggested.

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  14. I love imagining how the sequel could start in any ending.

    In the Devil Ending, id imagine V being brought back and donning a new nickname in a new body (either Vince or Val, for instance). Then, Hanako would remove the emotional memories from a copy of V's engram and create a special forces group. This group would be made up of willing and loyal elite soldiers of arasaka submitting thier bodies to the engram. The engram would then replace specifically the skills and fighting experience of thiers with V's while maintaining their memories and loyalties.

    Thus creating a V Army, essentially.

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  15. My take is that she was never trustworthy enough to help her. When you first meet her she sees you as a thug, then a useful idiot when she realizes what was going on with V. When you meet her on her own terms at the bar, it cements that she is planning on stabbing you in the back. She is more like her father than she will ever admit, even more than her brother.

    She may be identified as the High Priestess, she is more like the Moon. The Moon symbolizes deception and illusion. She embodies this to a T.

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