Goro Takemura

Goro Takemura spent years as the personal bodyguard of Saburo Arasaka, the aging head of the Arasaka corporation. Born in the slums of Chiba-11 in Japan, he was picked out by Arasaka as a boy, served in its special forces and finished top of his class at the company academy before Saburo chose him from among the hundred soldiers judged most skilled and loyal. He also trained Sandayu Oda, the cyberninja who guards Saburo’s daughter, Hanako.

In 2077 Takemura escorts Saburo to Konpeki Plaza and nearly finds V and Jackie hiding in the suite before Saburo sends him out of the room. Saburo dies that night and Takemura is blamed for failing to protect him, which turns Arasaka’s most devoted servant into an outcast hunted by his own company. Determined to prove what really happened, he tracks down Dexter DeShawn, pulls V out of a landfill and gets V, barely alive, to Viktor Vektor’s clinic.

From then on Takemura is V’s uneasy ally. He sees V as the only living witness and insists that Arasaka can fix V’s condition, and his plan hinges on reaching Hanako during the Aratama-matsuri parade in Japantown so she can hear the truth. His rigid sense of honor leaves him badly out of step with Night City, while his clumsiness with technology and his contempt for take-out food make him far more likable than his résumé suggests.