Saburo Arasaka

Saburo Arasaka, known as the Emperor, is the head of the Arasaka Corporation and the man who made it a world power. Once a fighter pilot for the Imperial Japanese Navy, he inherited the company his father had founded and spent decades expanding it, adding banking and security divisions to its industrial base. By 2077 Arasaka is the world’s largest arms manufacturer, and Saburo has never truly given up control of it, kept alive far beyond a normal lifespan by regenerative medicine and cyberware.

Proud and deeply attached to tradition, he grew obsessed in his final decades with escaping death. He funded Arasaka’s research into preserving the human mind, including the Relic, an experimental biochip built to hold an engram, a digital copy of a person’s consciousness. That technology sits at the heart of the game’s plot.

In 2077 Saburo travels to Night City to confront his son Yorinobu, who has taken a Relic prototype from one of his labs. He reaches Yorinobu’s suite at Konpeki Plaza on the very night V and Jackie Welles break in to steal the chip, and dies there while the two mercs watch from hiding. The fallout from that night drives the main story, in which his bodyguard Goro Takemura and his daughter Hanako both play major roles.