Yakuza Tattoos

It's usual within yakuza circuits to tattoo themselves, usually is it their clan's badges that they have all over their body. The origin of the yakuza tattoo comes from the Bakuto. They usually tattooed a black ring around the arm for each crime they committed. Finally it became a symbol of strength. It can take over 100 hours to do an entire back tattoo. The tattoo was to illustrate you were unwilling to accommodate yourself to societies rules and norms. Now is it to illustrate your clan affiliations.

Kodama – The Peace Maker

The man who brought peace between many of the yakuza factions was named Yoshio Kodama.

Kodama was in jail for the early part of the occupation, placed in the same section as cabinet officers, military, and ultranationalists. He himself was part of the ultranationalist group Kenkoku-kai (Association of the Founding of the Nation). In the late 1930's and early 1940's he worked as an espionage agent for the Japanese government, touring East Asia. He worked on a major operation to obtain strategic materiel needed for the Japanese war effort.

By the end of the war, he had obtained the rank of rear admiral (an impressive feat at the age of thirty-four), and was advisor to the prime minister. He was rounded up with other government officials in 1946 and placed in Sugamo Prison to await trial. The occupation forces saw Kodama as a high security risk, should he ever be released, due to his fanatacism with the ultranationalists.

Kodama had made a deal with the occupation forces G-2 section, and upon his release, was working for the intelligence branch of G-2. He was the principal go-between for G-2 and the yakuza by 1950. (Kaplan, p63-9)

In the early 60's, Kodama wanted the yakuza gangs, who were now fighting one another, to join together into one giant coalition. He deplored the warfare, seeing it as a threat to anticommunist unity. He used many of his connections to secure a truce between the gangs. He made a fast alliance between Kazuo Taoka, oyabun of the Yamaguchi-gumi faction, and Hisayuki Machii, a Korean crimeboss in charge of Tosei-kai.

The alliance broke the Kanto-kai faction for good. Kodama continued to use his influence to mediate the alliance between the Inagawa-kai and its Kanto allies and Yamaguchi-gumi. The truce that Kodama had envisioned was now at hand.
Yoshio Kodama was then referred to as the Japanese underworld's visionary godfather

Organizations like Yakuza

Italy has the La Cosa Nostra.
America has the Mafia.
The Irish and Jews have their own crime organizations in America.
Southeast Asia has the Triads.
China, Hong Kong and Taiwan have the Tong.

Members of yakuza organization

For the yakuza it doesn´t matter were you comes from, which country or from which class of society you belongs to, you can become a member anyway. Yakuza takes care of the misfits in the society. Yakuza members can be youth that been abandoned by their parents, youths that not managed the high pressure from the school, refugees from Korea, China etc.

Their nearest boss becomes like their father and their comrades as brothers. Yakuza offers not just companionship also money, status, authority. A part of a group were you feel useful and needed. Comparing with gangs in the USA suburbs.

There is no thresholds or requirements in order to become a member. But when you are inside there are obedience to the superiors.

Structure of Yakuza

It exists two types of yakuza, clan- yakuza and freelance yakuza.

Freelance yakuza

Freelancing yakuza is a yakuza that not commit any bigger crimes and belongs to a little group of hustlers.

They have however some difficulties to survive or not come into jail, because the clan- yakuza not allows anyone other to operate within their territories. Clan- xakuza can tip the police about crimes that the freelance yakuza haven´t commit.

If the freelance- yakuza earns to much money, the clan- yakuza kills the freelancing- yakuza or make him disappear without a trace.

Klan- yakuza can however have a certain use of a freelance yakuza. If the clan- yakuza shall do something that they not want the clan to be associate with, they can turn to a freelancing yakuza that, for a sum of money, does the job for them.

A freelance- yakuza can also be used as a scapegoat if it acquires a guilty to a crime.
If a freelancer is a truly genius he can manage to begin his own clan. Usual a freelance- yakuza becomes, if they not gets killed,a member in a clan.

Yakuza Klan

The clan have been compared to the Sicilian mafias "family". The clan is structured much like a common family in traditional Japan. The clan has a hierarchy structure. The clans head chief is called Oyabun, that means Father. Beneath him he has his children(Wakashu) and brothers(Kyodai). These are not his real children and brothers, only designations of rank and position they have within the clan. All the members in the clan obey the Oyabun and in return he protects them against all dangers.

Oyabun is almighty within the clan and his words is the law. All obey him without hesitation or concern for their own life. Beneath him, oyabun has an adviser that is called Saiko-komon and he has a staff of advocates, accountants, secretaries and advisers. The children's (Wakashu) boss called Waka gashira. He is number two in the clan after Oyabun, not in rank but in authority. He acts as a middleman to see that the oyabun's orders are being accomplished.

The children leaders over their own (sub) gangs and over time can move up in the structure. In that way the clan becomes a ramification with several sub families. The oyabun's "brothers" or Kyodai, boss is called Shatei gashira. Shatei gashira is of higher rank than Waka gashira but doesn't have more authority. "The Brothers" have their own "children" or "younger brothers"(Shatei). Shatei, has its own sub gangs etc. Everyone obeys its gangleader, but it's always the oyabun's word that counts.

Yakuza Rituals

Yubitsume, or finger-cutting, is a form of penance or apology. If a gambler couldn't pay back a debt or something like that the persons tip of the little finger got cut off, which damage the hand and the person could not hold his sword as well as before. Also that way other people could see if a person haven't paid a debt, which could bring certain problems, since gambling always been prohibited in Japan.

Its origin stems from the traditional way of holding a Japanese sword. The bottom three fingers of each hand are used to grip the sword tightly, with the thumb and index fingers slightly loose. The removal of digits starting with the little finger moving up the hand to the index finger progressively weakens a persons sword grip. The idea is that a person with a weak sword grip then has to rely more on the group for protection — reducing individual action. In recent years, prosthetic fingertips have been developed to disguise this distinctive appearance.

This is done as an apology for disobedience. It can be done to expiate a wrongdoing but can also be done to spare one of your "children".

When you have done something that your Kumicho dislikes you take a sharp item,cut of a fingertip,wrap it in paper and send it to the Kumicho and begs for his forgiveness.If it's the first time you cut of the little- fingertip there after it becomes the next little-finger and so on.Because of that you see yakuza- members that are without several of his fingers.


Another, more radical version of penance is seppuku (also known as hara-kiri ), ritual suicide by disembowelment. Popular among Japanese samurai and soldiers who would commit it as penance for their failures, Yakuza are sometimes known to commit seppuku as well.

Another prominent yakuza ritual is the sake-sharing ceremony. This is used to seal bonds of brotherhood between individual yakuza members, or between two yakuza groups. For example, in August 2005, the Godfathers Kenichi Shinoda and Kazuyoshi Kudo held a sake-sharing ceremony, sealing a new bond between their respective gangs, the Yamaguchi-gumi and the Kokusui-kai.

When yakuza members play Oicho-Kabu cards with each other, they often remove their shirts or open them up and drape them around their waists. This allows them to display their full-body tattoos to each other. This is one of the few times that yakuza members display their tattoos to others, as they normally keep them concealed in public with long-sleeved and high-necked shirts.

Post-War Yakuza: Gurentai

As Japan began to industrialise and urbanization got underway, a third group of yakuza called gurentai began to emerge (the name gurentai was not given until after World War II).

In short, a gurentai is a gang in a much more traditional sense, a group of young unruly thugs who peddle their violence for profit.

Yakuza American Influence

Yakuza became influenced by the American gangster- movies and began to dress in black suits with white shirts, black sunglasses and cropped hair

Yakuza became tougher and more violent, the swords was history, now was it firearms that counted. Now were it not just player and storekeepers that became exposed by violence, ordinary persons could be robbed and pressed on money.

Tekiya and Bakuto

More directly, the origin of most modern yakuza organizations can be traced to two groups which emerged in 18th century Japan: tekiya (peddlers) and bakuto (gamblers). Although the modern yakuza has diversified, some gangs still identify with one group or the other. For example, a gang whose primary source of income is illegal gambling may refer to themselves as bakuto.

Tekiya (peddlers)

As they began to form organisations of their own, they took over some administrative duties relating to commerce, such as stall allocation and protection of their commercial activities. For example, during Shinto festivals, these peddlers opened stalls and some members were hired to act as security. Each peddler paid rent in exchange for a stall assignment and protection during the fair.

Bakuto (gamblers)

Had a much lower social standing even than traders, as gambling was completely illegal. Many small gambling houses cropped up in abandoned temples or shrines at the edge of towns and villages all over Japan. Most of these gambling houses ran loan sharking businesses for clients, and they usually maintained their own security personnel. The places themselves, as well as the bakuto, were regarded with disdain by the society at large, and much of the undesirable image of the yakuza originates from bakuto. This includes the name "yakuza" itself.

Yakuza Origin and history

The term "Yakuza" comes from a Japanese card game, Oicho-Kabu (played with hanafuda or kabufuda cards), and means "good for nothing". It comes from Japan's counterpart to Black Jack, Oicho- Kabu. The generally difference between the both cardgames are that in Oicho- Kabu the cards rate shall be 19 instead of 21. The worst hand in the game is a set of eight, nine and three, which gives a sum of 20 and a score of 0. In traditional Japanese forms of counting, these numbers are called Ya (8), Ku(9) and Sa(3) respectively, thus the origin of the word "yakuza".

There is no single origin for all Japanese yakuza. Rather, yakuza organizations developed from different elements of traditional Japanese society.

Kabuki-Mono

Yakuzas origin can be followed far back as to the year 1612, when men known as kabuki-mono (the crazy ones). Their odd clothing style, the distinct haircuts and bad behavior, longswords quickly got everybody's attention. They were known as masterless samurais, ronin, and several of them began to wander around in Japan as a band of robbers, plundering villages and small cities. Kabuki-mono generally came from shoguns or samurais whom during long peaceful times were forced into unemployment. Almost all yakuza have the same type of background poor, criminals and misfits. The Yakuza became a family for them. They got help with problems, got attention and could feel a certain saftey

Machi-Yakko

Yakuza however not see kabuki-mono as their "ancestors" instead they feel that they are machi-yakko(City servant), Machi-yakko became the people's heroes, praised by the citizens for their help against kabuki-mono. The Machi-yakko were often weaker, far less trained and equipped than kabuki- mono. Therfore they were compared with England's Robin Hood. Kabuki-mono were known for their ruthless behavior and terrorizing all the surrounding areas. They were well known for stabbing people for pleasure. Kabukimono were gave their groups scary names and spoke in vulgar slang.