Yakuza
Tokyo's Underworld has a long and complicated history, with several notable figures and groups influencing it's growth, downfall, and rebirth over the last 40 years. The central organization is, of course, the Yakuza, but even their presence has waxed and waned over the last half a century.
Contents
Brief History
The Yakuza have been called the Japanese Mafia by westerners for a long time, but their organization is slightly more modern than it's Cosa Nostra counterpart. They rose to public prominence post WW2, where they made several deals with the Japanese government of the time.
Since then, the government and the Yakuza have been basically inseparable. One does not attain power in Japan without the right favors and contacts, and almost every political campaign in Japan is supported by Yakuza members, if not being run by them.
Since their first dealings, the Yakuza have worked to keep hard drugs out of Japan and have been largely successful, mostly due to their control of the Amphetamine black market, as well as several other deals, such as protection rackets and bodyguard or intimidation work. Several social stigmas about tattoos exist in Japan solely due to the Yakuza, and one does not say 'crime' without immediately thinking of the Yakuza. [1]
Early 2000's
In the early millennium, the Yakuza were dealt several powerful blows, which seriously loosened their grip on the Japanese crime scene. Hotel Moscow broke all the Yakuza rules by staging a direct attack in their territory, and crippling several of their activities by destroying whole chapters with automatic weapons. Following this affair came KIRA. ALL the known Yakuza heads were killed by this supernatural serial killer, and crime the world over hit it's lowest point.
After KIRA's confirmed death, the Yakuza sought to re-establish their hold in the Japanese criminal underworld, but by then quite a few extra-normal individuals had already appeared and were making a name for themselves, which left the organization on the rise, but much slower than before, and by the time they re-established themselves as a major player, their grip was already loosened.
Influence of Extra-normal Beings
Late in the 90s, more and more special individuals made their mark in the Tokyo communities. The Get Backers, Schwarz, and various notable martial artists started making the scene, spurred on by the King of Fighters tournament and their own motivation. This changed the playing field dramatically. In a country where guns are outlawed, people who can do more damage with their fists than bullets made a very big splash in the underworld.
There was an unwritten rule for the Yakuza and their allies to not deal with these people if they could at all avoid it. Since they seemed to mostly agree to this idea, the two barely ever met and both 'communities' stuck mostly to themselves, but any time someone took a piece of the pie, the whole got a bit smaller, so it was just a matter of time before SOMETHING happened..
KIRA
What DID happen took everyone by surprise. Suddenly, criminals of all types, rank, power and protection started dying. Suspected or guilty, low lifer, runner or powerful head, no one was safe. And this was not just the Yakuza. Dictators, terrorist leaders, extra-normal beings, everyone was a target and no one was able to survive KIRA. Those who went after him died. Those who tried to copy him were likewise eliminated. This was a blow crime as a whole could barely even survive.
Obviously, those who were operators in the shadows stayed alive, but any public figure associated with crime was killed, relentlessly, for almost ten years. No one was safe from KIRA, and every career criminal in the world was terrified that they would be next. Several tried to atone, some with success, many were eventually gotten to.
In the year 2010, KIRA was confirmed dead, and the underworld collectively sighed in relief. Their long nightmare was finally over, but crime as a whole was a fraction of what it once was. Surgical and indiscriminate killings among their ranks made a lot of people afraid to return to crime, and those who had survived the whole way through were afraid to act overtly. Though he was the world's most prolific mass-murderer, KIRA had dropped crime rates the world over by over 70%, and the masses were generally relieved.
Purpose
Yakuza are regarded as semi-legitimate organizations. For example, immediately after the Kobe earthquake, the Yamaguchi-gumi, whose headquarters are in Kobe, mobilized itself to provide disaster relief services (including the use of a helicopter), and this was widely reported by the media as a contrast to the much slower response by the Japanese government. The yakuza repeated their aid after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, with groups opening their offices to refugees and sending dozens of trucks with supplies to affected areas. For this reason, many yakuza regard their income and hustle as a collection of a feudal tax.
Many yakuza syndicates, notably the Yamaguchi-gumi, officially forbid their members from engaging in drug trafficking, while some yakuza syndicates, notably the Dojin-kai, are heavily involved in drug trafficking. Some yakuza groups are heavily involved in sex-related industries. Some yakuza groups are known to deal extensively in human trafficking.[16] The Philippines, for instance, is a source of young women. Yakuza trick girls from impoverished villages into coming to Japan, where they are promised respectable jobs with good wages. Instead, they are forced into becoming prostitutes and strippers. The alleys and streets of Shinjuku are a popular modern Tokyo yakuza hangout.
Yakuza frequently engage in a uniquely Japanese form of extortion, known as sōkaiya. In essence, this is a specialized form of protection racket. Instead of harassing small businesses, the yakuza harasses a stockholders' meeting of a larger corporation. They simply scare the ordinary stockholder with the presence of yakuza operatives, who obtain the right to attend the meeting by a small purchase of stock. Yakuza also have ties to the Japanese realty market and banking, through jiageya. Jiageya specialize in inducing holders of small real estate to sell their property so that estate companies can carry out much larger development plans. Japan's bubble economy of the 1980s is often blamed on real estate speculation by banking subsidiaries. After the collapse of the Japanese property bubble, a manager of a major bank in Nagoya was assassinated, and much speculation ensued about the banking industry's indirect connection to the Japanese underworld.
As a matter of principle, theft is not recognised as a legitimate activity of yakuza. This is in line with the idea that their activities are semi-open; theft by definition would be a covert activity. More importantly, such an act would be considered a trespass by the community. Also, yakuza usually do not conduct the actual business operation by themselves. Core business activities such as merchandising, loan sharking or management of gambling houses are typically managed by non-yakuza members who pay protection fees for their activities.
Because of their history as a legitimate feudal organization and their connection to the Japanese political system through the uyoku (extreme right-wing political groups), yakuza are somewhat a part of the Japanese establishment, with six fan magazines reporting on their activities. One study found that nine in ten adults under the age of 40 believed that the yakuza should not be allowed to exist[15]. In the 1980s in Fukuoka, a yakuza war spiraled out of control and civilians were hurt. It was a large conflict between the Yamaguchi-gumi and Dojin-kai, called the Yama-Michi War. The police stepped in and forced the yakuza bosses on both sides to declare a truce in public.
Notable People
City Hunter: During the 80s and 90s, the code 'XYZ' was used in the Shinjuku message board to reach the help of the Sweeper, City Hunter, known in the business of killers as the best of the pros.. and self-styled Stud of Shinjuku. One of City Hunter's notable efforts was preventing the Teope Union from establishing a foothold in Japan, and he has been linked to the death of several professional killers over his career. He apparently retired in the mid-90s, but rumours that he and a new partner have worked into the new millennium have been heard since.
Weiss: The Third incarnation of Weiß operated mostly in Tokyo's underworld, targeting criminals whose crimes were unknown, off-limits due to political or monetary-based corruption, operating under Kritiker, another group whose purview was investigation of unreported crimes. Weiss stopped working as a unit roughly around the mid-point of KIRA's career.
Get Backers: The third group of Get Backers, Ginji Amano and Ban Midou, became active in the early 2000s, operating in the Shinjuku area, to retrieve people's missing or stolen property from their unrightful holders. Obviously, the GB were often dealing with criminals of both the extra-natural or more mundane origins, much as they tried to avoid it.
The Takatori Family: A very powerful political and economic concern in Japan, the Takatori Family had allies and enemies everywhere. Most corporate and political crime in Japan was in some way linked to the Takatori family, and the excesses of Reiji Takatori and his two sons were very widespread. Many people were offered protection from criminal pursuits by the Takatori family, and many more still were basically indebted to them for life. Reiji Takatori's reign as the 'top man' of crime in Japan was cemented by Schwarz acting as his personal bodyguards for a good, long time.. until they abandoned him in the middle of an attack by Weiß. That was the last breath of Reiji Takatori, killed by the people who'd killed his sons and betrayed by his last ace in the hole.
KIRA: Light Yagami, who was on the Special Police Force for KIRA and had everyone fooled, was revealed to be the mass murderer known as KIRA in January of 2010, where he was killed on the spot by detective Matsuda. Besides the many, many criminals he killed, he also killed the legendary detective known as 'L', and the head of the SPK, Inspector Souichiro Yagami.
The Miroku Seven: The Miroku Seven were a family of brothers and a 'sister' who all share the same location in space and time. They trade places with each other, bicker and seem to have their own interrelations which make no sense to casual observers but is completely normal for them. They mostly operated in Ura-Shinjuku, and were undefeated until they met with the Get Backers.
VOLTS: The group led by Raitei (Ginji) who ruled Limitless Fortress after Takeru Teshimine disappeared. It consists of regular squads of fighters, led by the 4 Kings: Kazuki Fuuchouin, Masaki Kurusu, MakubeX and Shido Fuyuki. After Raitei was defeated by Ban, Ginji left the Infinity Fortress and VOLTS disbanded.
