I'm playing Yakuza Like a Dragon, and for the bros like me

1 yeah Zhao tianyou bi as all hell. Beyond. He's <3 <3 <3 (also his family didn't let him play more than an hour of video games per day and he's a big softie who pretends he'd kill people but so far hasn't and ichiban certainly thinks he's too much of a sweetie to do such things, he also cooks great)

2 that being Said. I'm not actually seeing any particular major Ship potential between him and ichiban as of chapter 11. That doesn't mean one can't ship them, just I don't see a lot of Canon scenes particularly leaning that way. I pretty much only see Canon scenes joking lightly about Eri/Iciban, though ichiban seems to have no interest in her that way. (Then Nanba/Ichiban is likely the most thoroughly written relationship so far in the game period, which makes sense as he's one of the first core party members). By all this I mean. While I love Zhao Tianyou.

As a ship with intense chemistry moments galore, Majima Goro and Kiryu Kazuma definitely fit that mold better (including often paralleling each other) with majima also being Hella bi but having also a very distinct lock on Kiryu and special intense fondness for him (which the kiwami majima everywhere mechanics only cranks up since it basically puts you on dates and bonding scenes before each fight). So far I'm not really seeing any particular Yakuza Like a Dragon ship really give the intensity of that enough to go 'well dang wowza how else would I even interpret this.' Like, I'll give it this, Zhao Tianyou definitely has a fondness for ichiban, and for this party giving him a way to escape the boss job he didn't want and make a difference and connect. But that's pretty true of Eri too (while also hinting at her crush), Saeko too (who seems very sibling like attached to ichiban), Han Joon-gi (who seems to not have many friends prior to this) too. So overall the relationship of zhao/ichiban comes off more similar to the other party members with ichiban, rather than anything noticeably more intensely specific as a pair dynamic (like kiryu/majima who pretty heavily do lol... though also, in their games they're loners so when they do make connections those connections always become easier to ship in comparison).

Idk just me noting stuff. This could change. I'll see lol. After all I didn't expect the Nanba friendship to be SO important and heart twisting and critical to the main plot but here we are. I also didn't expect Ichiban and the Young Master's bond to come back as Aoki (which those two definitely got a kiryu and nishiki ish intense connection in light of Aoki being what may be the main Antagonist, very Yakuza 2 vibes in a few ways with the brotherly betrayal the political involvement and corruption).