Timesuck with Dan Cummins - 421 - The Yakuza: Japan's Notorious & Inked Up Gangsters

Episode Date: September 23, 2024

Who are the Yakuza? How similar are they to the Mafia? What's up with all the tattoos they have? And why are so many of them missing one of their pinkie fingers? Digging into Japanese organized crime today. I learned a lot and hope you do, too! Merch and more: www.badmagicproductions.com Timesuck Discord! https://discord.gg/tqzH89vWant to join the Cult of the Curious PrivateFacebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" to locate whatever happens to be our most current page :)For all merch-related questions/problems: [e-mail] (copy and paste)Please rate and subscribe on Apple Podcasts and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcastWanna become a Space Lizard? Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcast.Sign up through Patreon, and for $5 a month, you get access to the entire Secret Suck catalog (295 episodes) PLUS the entire catalog of Timesuck, AD FREE. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch. And you get the download link for my secret standup album, Feel the Heat.

Robin Hood heroes, killer gangsters, bit of both? The Japanese government calls them Boryokudan, meaning violence groups. They call themselves Ninkyo Dantai, meaning chivalrous organizations. And the rest of the world knows them as the Yakuza, the Japanese mafia. A quick glance, when you see them in public, you could easily mistake most of them for some successful businessmen. Serious looking dudes, wearing designer shoes, tailored suits, stepping out of luxury vehicles. At a closer glance, you might see some scars from innumerable fights on their faces or knuckles.

Traditional Japanese tattoos just barely poking out from beneath their sleeves and collar and a left pinky finger that's a knuckle or two shorter than it's supposed to be. These men are generally successful businessmen, but also they're some of the world's most ruthless and well-organized gangsters. The Yakuza. These organized criminals have been terrorizing Japan for centuries. They're the bane of Japan's national police agency, but also, over their long and storied history, many Japanese have regarded them as champions of common everyday people. People traditionally ignored by Japan's law enforcement, people marginalized in Japan's highly stratified social hierarchy.

Working class folks whose businesses would have been harassed, their livelihoods destroyed were it not for the Yakuza's protection. Influenced by the ancient honor code of the samurai, the early Yakuza committed crimes against rivals and government enemies, but never the common people. For most of their history, joining the Yakuza meant joining an organization that requires loyalty until death, where punishments are swift and severe and rivalries frequently turn deadly. Unlike the Italian mafia, the Yakuza operate out in the open. They're even historically registered with the Japanese government as members of what everyone knows is a criminal enterprise.

While membership is not outlawed, a lot of what the Yakuza do to make money definitely is. The Yakuza engage in extortion, blackmail, smuggling, sex work, drug trafficking, gambling, loan sharking, arms dealing and more, and often take that money and launder it through owning legal businesses such as restaurants and bars, trucking and construction companies, talent agencies, taxis, factories, etc. Japanese gang experts have estimated that at its peak in the 1960s, Yakuza membership was around

184,000 people. With stricter laws and increased police crackdowns in recent decades, as well as a shifting perception amongst the younger generation regarding exactly how cool being a member really is, the Yakuza's numbers have declined by more than 50% from their peak, but they're still a very powerful underworld force in Japan and elsewhere. Members are divided up into hundreds of individual gangs, most of which belong to a large crime syndicator family. The largest family is the Yamaguchi Gumi family founded in the city, seaport city, excuse me, of Kobe in 1915. The organization's methods have evolved and adapted over the times and they will most likely

continue to adapt and exist in some capacity for the foreseeable future. This week we discussed the obscure origins of the Yakuza during Japan's feudal period, how they developed into the gangsters that would eventually infiltrate the highest ranks of Japanese government, we'll also cover their hierarchical structure, initiation, rituals, how they came to be associated with a lot of sweet sweet tattoos and more, and another organized true crime historical Empire of the Sun edition of Time Suck. This is Michael McDonald and you're listening to Time Suck. Happy Monday and welcome to The Cult of the Curious.

I'm Dan Cummins, the Suck Wizard, Devil's Lettuce Lover, spiritual existentialist, and you are listening to Time Suck. Hail Nimrod, hail Lucifina, praise be to good boy Bojangles, and glory be to Kenny Loggins Wingman and the Yacht Rock Captain himself, Triple M. No announcements today. Let us just learn about some Japanese gangsters. So how are we gonna lay out today's information? No idea. After last week's existential episode, I just don't think it matters. Narrative structure? So subjective and arbitrary, just a social construct.

I'm not even sure what language I'll share today's info in. I mean, what even is language really? Just this collection of sounds we've assigned meaning to, meaning that changes with time, fucking words, right? What value do they have intrinsically? None. Less true meaning than a fart. At least the sound of a fart is accompanied by a smell. A smell that is not subjective. It's gonna hit your olfactory senses whether you want to or not. Unless you've lost your sense of smell.

Smell affects regardless of what culture we're a member of. Regardless of what language we speak. But is the smell actually objectively bad now that I think about it? Little kids fart. They don't start gagging. No, they're conditioned to believe that farts are bad. If I fart in my dog's face but talk to it in a sweet voice while I do so, it doesn't seem to care. Wags its tail. The fart's positive or negative qualities are merely assigned to it. In this crazy reality we construct ourselves.

What the fuck am I talking about right now? No, why am I talking at all? Not just smoking weed. Let's just all sit in silence. While I smoke weed, each of us can tell ourselves what we want to know about the Yakuza. Just make it up. Just nothing matters. Kidding, of course. Last week's existential suck did not quite break my mind.

I did review some of the footage and I thought I was talking so much more slowly than I was. Cracks me up that I felt so high. I was useless the rest of the night but I sounded pretty normal. That's my friends you just say about me when I'm on something. I had Chris from Bit Elixir over at the house a while back. He was sober. He was a DD for his lady and me and some other people had quite a bit of hallucinogens in our systems. Almost everyone else was acting so weird and Chris just kept saying to me, How are you still just Dan? He was just disappointed. I don't know. So sorry if the 420 suck was not as different and wild as I thought it would come across as.

I hope you loved it though. I certainly had fun. And we're gonna have fun today and of course words do matter as does the narrative structure if I want to share what I've learned about the Yakuza with you which I do Entire reason I'm here and that you're here. So let's not get too existential this week It's fucking focus on Japan's cool-looking ruthless underworld Kings I'll start today with an overview of Japan's feudal period the setting in which the Yakuza first developed Followed by a detailed look at the Yakuza's hierarchical structure.

That word always kills me. Hierarchical structure. Initiation rituals and other ceremonies. And we'll talk about pinky fingers. Oh boy. The Yakuza are real hard on pinkies. This episode has really made me appreciate still having both my pinky fingers. All the knuckles on them.

It's nice. Nice not to have to worry about slicing a part of my pinkie off if I fuck up at work. After going over all that, we'll head down a timeline of notable events and people in the Yakuza's long storied history, and let's get started, shall we? The legendary samurai once stood alone as the baddest motherfuckers in all of feudal Japan. With the coolest looking armor, I might add. I think samurai armor looks a lot cooler than the earlier armor of Europe's knights. Almost makes a part of me wish I could go back in time and be a samurai, but I'm not so sure I would be a great samurai. I'm pretty sure I would not be one. If you know if you weren't one of the best samurai well you ended up as a dead samurai, missing

your head with a great big gash in your gut. That part doesn't sound cool at all. The samurai started off as provincial warriors rising to power way back in the 12th century during the beginning of the country's first military dictatorship which was called a shogunate and began in 1192 CE, some sources say 1185 CE, and would last all the way until 1867 or 1868 CE. Sources vary a little bit with those years as well. Samurai means those who served. The samurai supported the authority of the shogun, Japan's military ruler, and they enabled the shogun to hold power over even the emperor. In this way, the samurai

dominated Japanese government and society all the way until the Meiji restoration of 1868, which ended the country's feudal system. The samurai's honor code called Bushido, meaning he who smelt it dealt it. Still the basic code of conduct for modern Japanese society. I wish. I wish Japanese society was based in flatulence ownership, just entirely. But it's not. No, it's based in the way of the warrior. That is Bushido. During Japan's Heian Period, which lasted from 794 to 1185 CE, the samurai were armed supporters of wealthy landowners. Many of them left the imperial court

in search of better financial prospects after they were prevented from obtaining positions of power by the Fujiwara clan, the Fujiwara. They dominated the political scene of the Heian period with many members of this family acting as regents in place of the emperor. During this time, various wealthy landowners exchanged use of their land for military service and loyalty. In the mid 12th century, political power had shifted from the emperor and nobility in Kyoto to the heads of clans on their

country estates. The Genpei War, a national civil war which lasted from 1180 to 1185, was fought between the Taira and Minamoto clans and the war ended with the famous samurai warrior Minamoto no Yoshitsune leading his clan to victory against the Taira. And then Minamoto Yoritomo, the half-brother of Minamoto no... Oh my god. Minamoto no Yoshitsune, a couple of these guys have some long ass names,

drove his brother into exile, established a government at Kamukara, a coastal city just south of Tokyo. I feel very confident about Tokyo. This marked the beginning of the Kamakura Shogunate. This transition shifted all the political power to the samurai because Yoritomo's authority depended entirely on their strength. Yoritomo elevated warriors devoted to serving him and made the samurai a privileged class in Japan.

No one in Japan could call themselves a samurai without his permission. It was an honor he had to bestow, and it was a very great honor. During this new period of the Shogunate, military dictators now distributed land to their loyal followers. Estates were supervised by officials called stewards and constables. According to worldhistory.org,

unlike in European feudalism, these often hereditary officials, at least initially, did not own land themselves. However, over time, the stewards and constables operating far from the central government gained more and more powers, with many of them becoming large landowners. Daimyo. In their own right and with their own private armies, they challenged the authority of the shogunate governments. Feudalism as a nationwide system thus broke down, even if the Lord Vassal relationship did continue after the medieval period in the form of

samurai offering their services to estate owners. Samurai were influenced by Buddhism, which had been introduced to Japan way back in the 6th century CE. Buddhism appealed to the warriors because of the simple rituals and the belief that salvation comes from within. This was the philosophical background for the Bushido. Bushido emphasizes military skills and fearlessness, as well as frugality, kindness, honesty, and care for family and elders. The samurai also placed great significance on their swords and believed that a man's honor was within his sword.

Japan's first shogunate was later weakened by two Mongol invasions at the end of the 13th century. Fucking Mongols disrupting the balance of power all over Asia and much of Europe for centuries. Truly one of history's greatest disruptive forces. Oshigaka Takaoji, a warrior and statesman, used the chaos these days to launch a massive rebellion. used the chaos these days to launch a massive rebellion. And the Ashikaga Shogunate was thus born based in Kyoto in 1336 CE. For the next two centuries, various feudal clans battled for power, sending the country into a state of chaos. After the Onin War of 1467 to 1477, the Ashikaga Shogunate was no longer effective and there was no strong central authority in Japan.

That allowed feudal lords and their various samurai warriors to gain more and more power for a long, long time. This period was called the Muromachi period, as the shogunate was based in Kyoto's Muromachi district. Although there was a lot of political chaos, also a golden age for Japanese art. The period of the country at war ended in 1615 then with the unification of Japan under Takogawa Ieyasu. This marked the beginning of the Takogawa Shogunate, a 250 year period of relative peace

and prosperity. The samurai now governed primarily through civil means rather than military force. Takogawa passed the ordinances for the military houses that required the samurai to train now in both the art of war and Confucian learning. Confucianism was the state's dominant religion during this period. And the principles of Bushido now became the code of conduct, not just for the samurai, but for all of Japanese society. During this time, many samurai laid down their swords,

at least more often than they had before, and became bureaucrats or tradesmen instead of paid warriors. But they didn't get rid of their swords entirely. These weapons were still an important symbol of power and honor. Love traditions like that, by the way. A very cool way to fill your life with a lot of meaning. In fact, in 1588, the Japanese government passed laws restricting

sword carrying to only the samurai. The samurai had adapted with the times but were still seen primarily as Japan's finest warriors. And they were now, in a way, honored more than ever before. Their swords and what those swords represented given even more cultural value. But then after a few more centuries, the time of the shogunates collapsed entirely in the mid 19th century for several reasons. One of the main factors in the fall of the shogunate was widespread civil unrest in the peasant class due to famine and poverty. Yep, history has shown us time and time again that when large numbers of the poorest members of society can no longer even afford to eat, the chance for a massive society-shifting revolution is very high because too many people now have too little to lose. Also in the 19th century the West is starting to truly and powerfully exert its influence

on the once isolated island nation of Japan for the first time. The United States in particular wanted Japan to open up to international trade and thus Japan signed a treaty with the US in 1858 and soon signed additional treaties with Russia, Britain, France, and Holland as well. And this did not set well with many in the traditionally reclusive and isolated nation. It increased dissension towards the Shogunate and now even more, even many, excuse me, loyal samurai called for power to be restored to the Emperor. In 1868 the Shoshu and Satsuma clans allied together

to overthrow the Shogunate and they announced the restoration of Emperor Meiji, marking the start of the Meiji Restoration. The feudal system was abolished entirely in 1871 and the new army quashed Samurai rebellions in the 1870s. And the age of the samurai is now over. During the Meiji Restoration Shintoism is established as the state religion and Bushiro adopted as the ruling moral code. Shinto is the indigenous religion of Japan or Shintoism. The name means the Way of Kami. Kami meaning sacred or divine power. It was born in Japan at least as long as a thousand BCE ago. That's a long time ago. My. He was born in Japan at least as long as a thousand BCE ago. That's a long time ago.

My God. Still practiced today by at least five million people. The followers of Shintoism believe that spiritual powers exist all throughout the natural world. Shinto is a polytheistic, animistic religion that revolves around supernatural entities called Kami. Followers believe that the Kami inhabit all things including forces of nature, prominent landscapes, each river, each tree, each rock has a spirit. Kami are worshipped in household shrines and public shrines. Another belief of Shinto is the veneration of ancestors. While

there are two holy books written in the 8th century CE, books containing myths previously passed down orally. There is no founder, no Bible or Quran or Tanaka equivalent, no strict dogmas. So all of that is the cultural backdrop of Japan. The rise, the fall, the samurai, the establishment of Bushido is the nation's moral code. And out of all that turmoil, out of the turmoil of the age of the samurai ending, but there's still many still wanting to live somewhat like a samurai, well now the yakuza will be born from that. So let's take a look at the structure and activities of the yakuza now.

And a lot of times pronounced yakuza. I like to say yakuza. Sounds cooler to me. So sorry if it's not quite correct. But as I mentioned up top the official name for the yakuza used by the police and media is Boryokudan meaning violence groups and they're not wrong they're certainly violent. And as I also mentioned up top the Yakuza call themselves Ninkyo Dantai meaning chivalrous organizations. The actual term Yakuza translates to more or less good for nothing. Yakuza can refer to individual people or to an entire group of gangsters.

And traditionally the Yakuza engage in operations like gambling, extortion, blackmail. Modern Yakuza also involved in human trafficking, arms smuggling, drug trafficking, loan sharking, sex work. They additionally run a variety of legitimate businesses again, like restaurants, trucking companies, factories, et cetera. Generally these days the Yakuza have shifted towards white collar crime and

utilize bribes over violence whenever possible. But fuck them over and you'll very likely see some old-school violence up close and personal. I watched a ton of videos of the Yakuza members where the interviewers will ask them straight up if they've ever killed someone and when they say they have like the way they say it I 100% believe them. One even said that killing someone you've been ordered to kill is how you move from being an associate of the Yakuza to being uh you know getting an invite to become a full member. Can you kill for them? That's the test of loyalty. The Yakuza consider themselves chivalrous because

they have performed innumerable charitable acts throughout their history like donating and delivering supplies to victims of the 1995 Kobe earthquake, also the Great East Japan earthquake and subsequent tsunami of 2011. But to many this is like if the mafia, after shaking down small business owners and selling coke to their sons and pimping out their daughters for years and years, then handed out some free bottles of water following a natural disaster. Very much a thank you for the help but also still go fuck yourself. It's commonly thought that the Yakuza are descended from gangs of Ronin, masterless samurai who became bandits or rogue swords for hire.

This is at least partially true. They're also descended from lower level criminals, from grifters and gamblers from the feudal period. As I mentioned earlier, experts have estimated that at its peak in the 1960s, Yakuza membership was around 184,000. That's so many. But by the early 21st century, the numbers decreased to around 80,000, split evenly between full members and associates. Yakuza members are divided up into hundreds of gangs, most of which belong to one of 22 conglomerate groups also called families. I might refer to these families as clans sometimes as well from time to time.

The largest family in the Yakuza is the Yamaguchi Gumi, which was founded in 1915. Other large prominent families include the Inaga Wakai, the Matsubakai, Matsubaka, yeah, and the Sumiyoshi-kai. And these families, widely known to Japanese law enforcement, is technically not illegal to be a member of the Yakuza, and members do not often try and hide the fact that they are members from authorities. Yakuza are very open about membership, and until recent years, it was actually normal for their businesses and gang headquarters to have distinct markings or

signage letting everyone know, including the police the police yeah this is a Yakuza enterprise also of course I would let random citizens know many citizens would not mind at all they view the Yakuza still view them oftentimes as a necessary evil a better alternative than what would rise up what could rise up in their absence violent criminals yes but at least for the most part criminals with a sense of honor as hypocritical as that might sound. So how are these gangs structured? Well, according to Britannica, similar to that of the Italian Mafia, the Yakuza hierarchy is reminiscent of a family. The

leader of any gang or conglomerate of Yakuza is known as the Oyuban, boss, literally parent status or father, and the followers are known as koban, proteges or apprentices, literally child status. So there's the dad, there's the kids. The rigid hierarchy and discipline are usually matched by a right-wing ultra-nationalistic ideology. The oyuban is the godfather of the gang, again the leader. The oyuban gives advice, protection, and help and in return receives loyalty and service of the

Koban and of course the Koban do whatever he asked him to do to make all of them money. And if you fuck up he also of course can dish out a lot of punishment or even have you killed. This relationship minus the murder part based on Japanese tradition. Back in feudal Japan this oyuban-koban system was the basis for relationships between teachers and apprentices or lords and vassals. The oyuban-koban relationship also similar to relationships amongst family members in Japan's Uzu patriarchal traditional culture where the father holds nearly all the authority and has the power to choose both spouses and

jobs for his kids. This type of authoritarian father-son dynamic created strong cohesion and devotion in the early days to the Yakuza. A sociologist named Hiroaki Iwai, an expert on criminal groups in Japan wrote, New Koban will be expected to act as bullets in fights with other gangs. Standing in the front line, facing the guns and swords of the other side, risking his life. On occasion he will take the blame and go to prison for a crime committed by his oyuban. Also, before I even say anything else, how fucking crazy if you were still in like a sword fight today? Because it still occasionally will happen over in Japan. These guys will fucking take a sword out.

Like not often, but like swords will sometimes be used in fights. That's fucking wild to me. And so yeah, very much you know like how things go down in the Mafia or really in any other violent organized criminal syndicate with these relationships. The following, some of the rankings within the Yakuza. President, Supreme Counselor, Chief Secretary, Rodeo Clown, Chairman of Executive Committee, Chairman secretary, rodeo clown, chairman of executive committee, chairman of public morals committee, head of the liaison section, lead vocalist of an ACDC cover band, head of public relations section, magician's assistant, and chairman of discipline committee.

These titles mimic, of course, the Japanese government, where there's also the lead vocalist of an ACDC cover band, a magician's assistant, and a rodeo clown. I wish. Obviously I added those three titles, but the rest legit. Yakuza members typically call each other younger brother or elder brother, equal brother, elder sister. That kind of thing. Elder and younger refers to the order of entering the gang. You know the members rank. Each equal brothers have the same same rank an elder sister is the title given to the Ouban's wife Under bosses are called Waka Goshira One way to move up in rank is the practice of chigiri, which means killing an individual on the orders of a superior

The killer will then go to prison usually for 15 to 20 years sometimes as high as 30 years and is then granted a high rank When they're released. And that is a hell of a way to get a promotion. According to Kyoto Journal in Structure Ideology Ranking, Oyubon-Kobun relationship and other aspects, the Yakuza society resembles conventional Japanese society. Indeed, it seems to be a crystallized form of a system practiced in a milder way in numerous Japanese organizations and schools of art. The paternalistic structure, the surrogate family, the badges bearing the gang logo, the system of ranking the business cards, and numerous other signs of belonging are shared by both straight and Yakuza societies. It's a very much, you know, typical Japanese organization structure.

Some Yakuza groups even publish a quarterly magazine that includes a foreword from the Oyuban. Funny. This could be something about the organization's philosophy or an essay about a particular topic like honor or perseverance. The magazine can also include photographs of rituals and parties, symposium about the group's legitimate businesses, reports on relations with other organizations, nomination certificates, and other articles. Hearing about that for the first time, I immediately imagined some new magazine editor not understanding that this magazine should make the Yakuza look legitimate instead of an honest portrayal. And then he publishes a magazine full of pictures of like dead bodies, gang rivals, and various enemies, nude photos of women recently kidnapped, forced into prostitution,

stacks of cash, cocaine on a table from recently taking over a rival's drug turf, etc. And then there's, oh shit, sorry about that guys, I forgot that our magazine is actually not supposed to portray things accurately. It's funny to me that they would just publish any kind of magazine. Very different from most organized criminal operations. The Yakuza's openness is part of what makes them distinct from say like the Italian mafia. I mean can you imagine an Italian mafia family putting out a quarterly magazine about just what they've been up to just on any level? Hey everybody it's Polly Breakfast Sausage Spinoli here bringing you another dish

and forget about it the quarterly quality publication of Vincenzo crime family this summer Tito Birdclaws Albino just got his master's degree in fine arts while waiting to make parole in the Alwin correctional facility in Pennsylvania where to go Tito! Attaboy! Another good news four members of the piece-of-shit rival Esposito crime family just completely fucking disappeared. Weird. From the Union Dry dockyard in Hoboken, New Jersey. Ha! I wonder what happened to those fucking scumbags.

I don't know. But I do know when you start moving in on Louvincenzo's business opportunities, funny things happen. Yards of disappearing increase dramatically. Also heard those guys real scared about whatever happened to them. Maybe ended up in, I don't know, multiple pieces. up and shit stuffed into fucking barrels dropped into the upper base and was How did I hit that? Forget about it. Don't even worry about it Now I really want that publication to exist back to the Yakuza

The groups would have sign boards called Kanban that would bear their name location affiliation The practice of putting up sign boards on Yakuza-owned businesses was widely accepted until the late 20th century. When the police began crackdowns on Yakuza activity, when the cops there finally got tired of the gangs blatantly flaunting business assets it often bought with money made from vice. And that also just ridiculous to me. Like if you just just walking downtown in just any American city and then there was just a big sign that basically said like, this is the Vincenzo's you know fucking accounting you know like forget about an accounting services yeah it's a fucking mob business what the fuck you're gonna do just like blatantly advertising this is a this is a criminal enterprise

individual Yakuza members also would carry a business cards may still do until at least ten years ago they were doing this that would announce their umbrella organization direct branch rank and office address and phone number. Love that they have offices. Very funny for me to picture some dude who's just, I don't know, beat the fuck out of some bar owner for not paying their protection money the day before, taking a sword to some dude who just killed some guy for roughing up a sex worker who worked at an underground Yakuza brothel, and then he's just going in on like Monday morning to some stereotypical office,

standing under drop-down fucking ceiling panels with fluorescent lights, filling up his hydroflask at the water cooler, reminding his administrative assistant, would you please stop heating up fish in the microwave for fuck's sake? It stinks up the entire office. Just dealing with the regular mundane shit

most of the rest of us deal with. Now let's get some inside direct info on the Yakuza. Last year in 2023, Insider.com interviewed Yuyama Shina, a former Yakuza gang boss. This dude looked like a badass. I watched his old video. He just a very, very, all the, all, actually all of the Yakuza guys I saw interviewed just so poised. Very disciplined, very calm energy, which I found odd. Uh, Shina, but I guess, you know, maybe shouldn't be odd. They just, they've seen so much shit, why would they even be slightly nervous about a fucking interview?

Like they've literally killed people. Uh, Shina was arrested 11 times, all his arrests seem to be gang related. He served 8 years in prison before leaving his Yakuza family. He joined the Yakuza when he was just 18 years old. Left in 2012, current age not given in the interview. He shed some light on Yakuza ceremonies and practices in a video viewed almost 7 million times on YouTube in less than a year and a half. He said, at some point in time the Y Yakuza virtues have changed from violence, duty, and status.

And today, the condition for getting promoted is only defined by how much money you're making. Yeah, he definitely seemed to feel throughout this interview that like the sense of honor is declining in the Yakuza. He said, the Yakuza organization is already in a state of decline. The number of criminals never decreases, but the people who were in the Yakuza up until now quit the organization to then commit other crimes. Thus having rules is futile. I think it is inevitable that the current young generation has no interest in the Yakuza.

In the past there was a time when the Yakuza was at its peak, had a very cool image. I believe there are people who are doing their best to keep living as a Yakuza, but there are more people who aren't living like a Yakuza. It's interesting the same amount of people per capita committing crime you know as ever, but not as many wanted to join up with the gang full of you know a lot of rigid tradition and rules. Shinya said he joined the Yakuza because he was working as a carpenter, developed heart and back problems and he wanted to start a career in finance and so he became a loan shark. I mean I guess technically that is a career in finance. Robbing banks, you know, could also I guess qualify as a financial career. I work in finance. So could money laundering, printing counterfeit money, a lot of ways

to work in finance. After starting his finance career, Shinya met his boss, was initiated into a Yakuza gang. In order to be initiated you must participate in a ceremony very special old ceremony called Sakazuki. You do this with the boss where you're given a cup filled with sake. The boss is given a cup filled with a lot more sake. Each drink three ceremonial sips which signifies that you are an official subordinate of that particular boss. You will be loyal to him and only him for life. Or until you are allowed to leave the ways of the Yakuza behind forever if you're allowed to leave. After your initiation, you must register your name with the organization. This means that the police will know your name and

you are marked as an affiliate in their files. So funny to me that at least as recently as you know a decade ago when this guy was still in the group, they didn't hide the fact at all that they were in a gang literally would register with the authorities yep I'm a gangster not gonna tell you exactly what type of criminal shit I'm gonna get into other than I work in finance wink wink best of luck to you in regards to catching me probably not gonna happen have a nice day authors David Kaplan Alec Durbo Dubro excuse me elaborate on this ritual further in their book Yakuza, Japan's criminal underworld, one of the sources for this week's research.

David Kaplan is an investigative journalist from Washington DC, the former director of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. He's a big deal. He's also the chief investigative correspondent for US News and World Report. Alec Dubrow, on the other hand, is a fucking idiot who can't spell his own name, but he's pretty good at drawing stick figures with crayons, and he is most importantly David's wife's little brother. And he was unemployed and needed something to do. No, I don't know. No, Alec wrote for Rolling Stone, another music publication to the 60s. He's also established. He's written hundreds of newspaper, magazine articles, since also script speeches, reports, campaign materials, even comic books. These guys said that the ceremonial exchange of sake cups symbolizes a blood connection between gang members. Ceremonies often performed in front of a Shinto shrine. The amount of sake poured into

the cup has significance. If participants are brother and brother, if they're equals, equal amounts are poured into each cup. You know, maybe there's a ceremony where multiple people are being inducted at the same time. If the participants are younger brothers and older brothers, the older brother's cup is filled six tenths full, younger brother's cup four tenths full. If you're the fucking boss, you get a completely full cup to the brim. According to sociologists, Hiroaki Iwai Brought him up earlier all members of the organization attend the initiation rice whole fish piles of salt are placed into the Shinto shrine and the Oyuban and Koban sit in front of the shrine facing each other

Other gang members arrange the fish and fill the drinking cups adding fish scales and salt to the sake. Oh, yum Oh, you can't enjoy some sake without some tasty-ass fish scales. I thought I'm always complaining about at home like with Lindsay's cooking. I'm like why can't you just throw some more fish scales in this? Yeah, no it's a fine steak. You could use some fish scales though. The Koban is told, having drunk from the oyuban's cup and heat from yours, you now owe loyalty to the Ika, the family, and devotion to your Oyuban. Even should your wife and children starve, even at the cost of your life, your duty is now to the Ika and Oyuban. Right? Like first and foremost. Another variation of the pledge

is from now on you have no other occupation until the day you die. The Oyuban is your only parent. Follow him through fire and flood. That's intense. Yeah traditionally devotion most important within the Yakuza. Former member Uyama Shinya made the observation of how funny it is that an organization made up of bunch of criminals people who you know traditionally struggle with structure obedience and following rules end up joining this massive organization built on structure obedience and following rules. Jacob Ross wrote in a piece for the Kyoto Journal about joining the Yakuza, Sakazuki, the cup exchange, is the most important ritual in the Yakuza world. Although declining

in frequency in recent years, it still most fully expresses the spirit of the Yakuza, the will and determination of the members to strengthen the bonds of the organization, and the complexity of the rank and function of relationship. The ritual is highly theatrical, elaborate, and in a symbolic event somewhat resembling a Shinto wedding ceremony. A great deal of meticulous preparation goes into sakuzuki. It is performed most solemnly emphasizing religious elements such as purification. All participants use highly stylized language, otherwise unheard in these circles.

The ritual was followed with a boisterous, licentious feast. In between there was a visit to the local hot spring, where elaborate full-body tattoos are exposed to both fellow members and the occasional straight customers to the great anxiety of the latter. Because there are now police restrictions on this ritual, the time and location are often kept secret until the very last moment. All right, before moving forward, let's talk about tattoos and the Yakuza since the image of the Yakuza gangster is so closely associated with someone being tattooed everywhere, essentially except for their hands and face. And not just tattooed, but tattooed in the traditional Japanese style.

And also, time for today's first of two mid-show sponsor breaks. Thanks for listening to those ads. If you don't want to hear more, get the entire catalog ad free and more by signing up to be a spacer on Patreon for five bucks a month. And now let's learn a bit about traditional Japanese tattooing, which ended up being so closely identified with the Yakuza. Irazumi is a Japanese word for tattoo meaning inserting ink and in the West it's used to refer to the traditional Japanese style of tattooing. Irazumi has been around for a long time.

Tattooing for spiritual and decorative purposes in Japan is thought by some historians by many actually to extend back to at least around 10,000 BCE on the Japanese archipelago. I don't know what I was trying to say there for a second. The Japanese archipelago! In the Yayoi period between 300 BCE and 300 CE tattoo designs were observed and remarked upon by Chinese visitors to the Japanese island of Kyosho. Such designs were thought to have spiritual significance as well as functioning as a status symbol. In the 3rd century CE, one Chinese observer wrote about Japanese tattoos,

Men both great and small tattoo their faces and work designs upon their bodies. Sometime between 300 CE and 600 CE, outside of the indigenous Ainu people's culture, an aboriginal population of northernmost Japan, tattoos began to take on a largely negative connotation. Instead of being used for ritual or status purposes, tattoos began to be placed on criminals as a punishment to mark them. You know, like a scarlet letter. So you'd know that if you saw someone with tattoos, Oh, buddy, they were a naughty boy or girl who refuses to go peevee on the potty or something like that, you know, mostly. Mostly you'd know

they were naughty. Next time you see somebody with a lot of tattoos, if you worried about them, you know, you're not sure where they stand morally, I think you should ask them, hey are you a good boy or girl who goes peevee on a potty? You know, are you naughty? They'll love it. Oh, they'll love it. You definitely won't have just made things unnecessarily super weird and awkward. Until the Edo period from 1603 to 1867 CE, the role of tattoos in Japanese society did fluctuate quite a bit. While tattooed marks were still frequently used as punishments, minor fads for decorative tattoos, some featuring designs

that would be completed only when lovers hands were joined. That's pretty badass. Also came and went out of style During this period there was a something literally called the Irozumi K the tattoo punishment as well It was a criminal penalty with a location of the tattoo you would be forced to get was determined by your crime For example thieves were tattooed on the arm murderers on the head The shape of the tattoo based on where the crime occurred. But it was also during the Edo period when Japanese decorative tattooing began to develop

into the advanced and gorgeous art form it is known as today. The impetus for the development of Irazumi into a true art form in Japan was the development of the art of woodblock printing alongside the release of the popular Chinese novel Suikoden in 1757 in Japan. Though the novel dates back several centuries before this, 1757 marked the release of the first Japanese edition. Suikoden, a tale of rebel courage and manly bravery was illustrated with lavish woodblock prints showing men in heroic scenes, their bodies decorated with dragons and other mythical beasts and flowers,

ferocious tigers, religious images. The novel was an immediate and massive success, creating a huge demand for the type of tattoo seen in the woodblock illustrations. Thanks largely initially to this novel, there was a rise in the number of woodblock artists in Japan. These artists began to also practice tattooing, since tattooing used many of the same tools used for woodblock printing such as chisels gouges most importantly a unique type of ink known as Nara ink or Nara black Which turns blue green under the skin? There are some academic debate over who wore these new elaborate tattoos initially Some scholars say it was just the lower classes who wore who flaunted these tattoos Others claim that wealthy merchants barred by law actually from flaunting their wealth,

would wear expensive irizumi under their clothes. It is known for certain that irizumi became associated with firemen who would wear them as a form of spiritual protection. That's pretty cool. Then during the early years of the Meiji period, which began in 1868, when Japan had now opened its borders to the west, the Japanese government may be a little overly worried about its image and desperate to make a good first impression in the face of its new international status, outlawed tattooing in 1872, with Irazumi now becoming more associated with criminality than ever. Nevertheless, many foreigners fascinated with the unique skills of

Japanese tattoo artists, traveled to Japan with the express intention of being tattooed there, and traditional tattooing continued. Just went underground, which honestly made it a lot fucking cooler. Gave the artists dishing these out and the clients getting them more street cred. I'm sure people had to pay more for them now. Artists who could get away with it made more. Tattooing wouldn't again become legal in Japan until 1948 when the practice was legalized by Japan's occupational government. By this time by Japan's occupational government. By this time in Japan's mainstream culture, tattoos firmly are associated with not just

criminals but with the Yakuza primarily. And a variety of businesses such as a lot of bath houses would not let customers with tattoos in. Did not want to deal with gangsters. Backing up now to firmly connect all this with the Yakuza, the Yakuza again known for tattooing their entire bodies, excluding their hands and faces. By the late 17th century it was common for various gangsters and gamblers and other criminals to tattoo their entire bodies as tradition begins. Or again he'd have

tattoos forced on them as a punishment as I mentioned. Laborers who worked with most of their bodies exposed would also often voluntarily tattoo themselves. Sex workers would often get tattoos to look a little more exotic, a little sexier, a little bit naughty. Hail, Lucifina! Sexy woman plus tattoos? Yes, please. My wife, Lindsay, has several tattoos, but she worries about getting too many. Worries that it might make her look trashy or something. I always tell her, I am not going to be upset about it.

I wouldn't care if she had literally 90% of her whole body tattooed. It's all about the kinds of tattoos for me mixed in with the person. Some people can pull off being covered, some can't. Some people can pull off face tattoos, some can't. And I'm not sure why, but there's something especially sexy about a woman getting Irazumi tattoos. Tattoos of dragons, koi fish, samurais with swords drawn, geisha girls, that kind of shit. Love it! And why are big back and thigh pieces so fucking hot? Now I'm getting distracted. Get out of here, Lusifina! In the early days of the Yakuza, tattooing was considered a test of strength because traditional tattooing involves a tool

tipped with small needles that is punched into the skin over and over. A full back tattoo using this process could take up to 100 hours. That is fucking torture. I've been having a full back piece worked on for the past two years or so. Very detailed. I'm also covering up several other old back tattoos so I need a lot of ink. I'm about 20 to 25 hours in with probably 10 to 15 hours to go and it fucking sucks. Every time I get a 5 to 6 hour session takes a good two weeks to fully heal. It's a bit harder to sleep. I get little flakes of dried ink all over the sheets. Feel like I have a cold.

I have to wear black shirts for a few days, you know, in case it bleeds. Can't wear second skin for more than a day or two because my back moves too much. It won't stay on. And while I'm getting it done, the last hour or so of the session, holy shit, does my back feel tender. And getting hammered with old school traditional needles from what I understand hurts a lot more than a modern tattoo gun. And those gangsters often times would have long sessions, 8 to 10 hours at a time. And they didn't get like lidocaine numbing cream and sprays, no second skin to help with healing. And all of that actually made tattoos more appealing to these gangsters.

It was a sign of fucking strength. Toughness. Japanese gamblers, gangsters had massive tattoos, show their courage, masculinity, to distinguish themselves from the rest of the world. Not only would they get a lot of ink, they would make a point to act like it didn't hurt a bit while they're getting it. Real machismo, testosterone, samurai, warrior culture shit. Also, while they do get a lot of ink, they typically would not get their face and hands done. Most Yakuza members keep their tattoos private so they can't be seen above the collars or cuffs of their nice suits. They still want to be able to blend in to respectable society when they wear a nice suit.

Which reminds me of Batman randomly, but kind of in reverse. Like if you saw Bruce Wayne during the day, you'd never think he was one of the baddest motherfuckers in Gotham City. Like a real ass-kicker. You'd just think he was a wealthy businessman, you know, which he also was. But then he puts on the bat suit, starts laying down the pain on some fools. He's a whole new dude. You know, living with these dual personas. Similarly, if you saw a member of the Yakuza out and about, especially a high-ranking member, you would just think they were a successful and wealthy businessman. Pulling up in a Bentley or whatever, wearing a tailored Armani suit. But they take off that suit, they got a different kind of suit on underneath that's all gangster. When it reminds you they're not only

good with money, they're good with violence. These gangsters do occasionally show their ink off at public baths or beaches, which signifies their membership to everyone around them. That makes a lot of fucking people nervous. 2017 Vice spoke with Yoshiro Nakano aka Horiyoshi the third a Yokohama based full body tattoo artist and legend in the Japanese tattoo world and a dude who's done a lot of work on a lot of high ranking members of the Yakuza and Horiyoshi said well actually a lot of shit that somewhat contradicts what most articles will say on the history of and meaning of traditional Japanese tattoos and their association with the underworld. He said in Japan these symbols hold deep connotations. Criminality doesn't interest us. Neither does plastic imitation or excuse me neither does plastic intimidation.

Not sure what he means by that. We don't get tattoos to show off masculinity. A lot of our designs contain a scene from a story. If you wear the symbol of punishment as a tattoo, it's not cool because it means you got arrested for something small. In the Edo period, if you committed a serious crime, you would have your head cut off. It's weird talking about what's cool when we talk about crime. He also touched on why some people conceal their tattoos saying tattoo culture in Japan is still taboo but that's why the culture is beautiful. Fireflies can only be seen at night. Their beauty is only visible at night. It isn't appreciated in daylight. When something becomes a fashion it isn't fascinating anymore. In Western culture it might just be fashion or trendy but in

Japan we appreciate tattoos you can't see and that's why we think they're beautiful because it's hidden. Japanese culture is about being in the shadows. That's some dope-ass quotes. I love the line, fireflies can only be seen at night. Maybe that's why I think certain tattoos on certain women are so sexy, right? Not everybody gets to see them. At least not all of them. There's some fun mystery there. Something special about being shown something like a hidden beautiful design. Maybe that's part of why I think Yakuza dudes with their tattoos look so badass. There's some fun mystery there with you know what they're covering up.

Alright, I think that kind of covers the association between tattoos and the Yakuza well enough. So let's move on. But I do highly suggest just just Google like you know these traditional Japanese tattoos. Oh my gosh I can't remember now I've said it a bunch of times I have to scroll back through my notes to remember the the actual word you got to put in there. Oh my god why is it so far up there my notes that I said. I started scrolling I didn't think this would take so long. Uh, there we go. Irazumi it's I R E Z U M I. Just take a little look online on your phone or whatever.

And they are just beautiful tattoos. Uh, really, really cool designs like the traditional style. The, the, the artists over in Japan who do them the best. I mean, yeah, they just look fucking incredible. Okay, I think I'm about caught up now with where I was when I tried to jump back there quickly and didn't do that. Referring back to the interview with former member Yo Yama, Shina, let's learn more about daily interactions between lower-level gangsters and their crime bosses. Shina said, basically when meeting the boss the door to his house

is always open. Sometimes you would just walk into the door when you wish, while in other cases you can be summoned to come. Members usually meet with their boss either once a week or once a month to report on different matters. Members are also expected to speak to their supervisors on the phone once in the morning and once in the evening to confirm they haven't been arrested and that they accomplished whatever task they were assigned that day.

The head chief then passes his info on to the gang chief. It is unforgivable to disobey the gang chief, but it does happen and there are punishments that serve as a form of forgiveness and allow a member to maintain their position in the gang. According to Shinya, the boss will occasionally discipline subordinates in a manner of their choosing. His particular boss had a short temper and he said if he used drugs or he did something else that was forbidden, he would get the shit kicked out of him.

The punishment most associated with the Yakuza is a practice called Yo-Bi-Tsu-Me. Yeah, Yo-Bi-Tsu-Me. A way to redeem oneself by cutting off part of the pinky finger on your left hand. Very specific punishment. If you watch a video of a bunch of Yakuza or look at photos online of Yakuza Pay attention to their hands, their left hand specifically. See how many of them are missing a part of their pinky finger. It's fucking crazy. This tradition comes from the time when samurai regularly carried katana swords, the pinky, very important for maintaining control of the sword. So removing the pinky represents a loss of control. Shinya carried out Yubitsume on himself

after he lied to his gang boss. He felt so guilty that he cut off part of his pinky finger. Like he didn't even get caught. He just did it before he got caught, or in case he got caught. Cut off part of his pinky finger down to the first knuckle, brought in that little bit of his finger to his boss all wrapped up in cloth as an apology. Only 20 years old at the time. Sheenia said there are two types of pain. It hurts when you're told by your superiors to cut it off. But it doesn't hurt when you feel bad about something and cut it off yourself because there's a lot of adrenaline kicking in from the remorse you feel by having to bring them your

finger. I think it would hurt both ways personally. I'm guessing if I did it myself because I feel bad it would still hurt. Okay. Sheenia said that some bosses keep the severed fingers of the men working for them beneath them in their offices. Or like the men working beneath them in their offices. We'll keep them in freezers, keep in altars, bury them sometimes under trees near a Shinto shrine. Keeping fucking severed fingertips in the office is wild. Imagine going in for a meeting with your boss and they have a jar of rotting fingertips on their desk. That would add a lot of extra stress to performance reviews.

Hey dude! Just nods over towards a pinky jar. I really need you to step it up on the Remington project. It finishes on time, right? Comprende? Or, uh, you know, just makes a little slicey motion on his pinky with what looks like a very sharp knife. If a member commits another serious infraction, the second joint of the pinky will now need to be amputated.

After that, the top of another finger gets cut off. And if you have no fingers left to slice, well, that'll never happen. Because if you have to keep lopping off fingers, you clearly fucking suck. Being a gang member. You see a Yakuza dude missing several fingers, you know that guy has a hard time not fucking up. That guy's forgetful. He's about to be out of the gang. Yobitsume is the last step before members kicked out of the gang. One 1993 survey by the Japanese government found that 45% of Yakuza members at that time had severed finger joints and that 15% performed the act at least twice. Essentially half of these dudes had chopped off a part of a finger.

Also a big drop from guys who cut off one finger tip to guys who cut off more than that. That goes to show how effective this is. Right? You have to cut off a part of your finger as opposed to just saying like, oh sorry about that. Definitely gonna be a more effective deterrent towards fucking up again. Right? Like, like you lose your keys and as punishment you have to cut off part of your fucking finger. You're probably not gonna lose your keys again. Every time you look at your hand, go to grab something, you're like, God damn it, I can't ever lose my keys again. Holy shit. Shinya also went over some of the rules the members have to follow.

There's not that many. They sound kind of vague, but I guess they encompass so much. Loyalty is like the most important rule. Yakuza members loyal to their boss and group forbidden from hiding money from the group or forbidden from going to police Testifying against a fellow member like you don't ever be a rat. That's a good way to end up dead You should also not commit petty crimes Such as shoplifting stealing from regular everyday people. It's not a big rule. Don't commit stupid crimes Don't commit crimes against the this common working man. No drugs is another rule

Not allowed to use drugs until recent decades when the Yakuza moved into the drug trade. You were also not allowed to sell drugs. Some still adhere to this. Respect another big rule Yakuza members to be respectful to all those who do not work against them and those who do not disrespect them. And finally no in-fighting. Yakuza members forbidden from disrupting the harmony of the gang. Again not that many rules but they're broad rules that I'm sure can be interpreted in a lot of ways to cover you know so much of what you're you're not allowed to do. According to authors Kaplan and Dubrow, Yakuza ethics and rules have always been influenced by the Bushido, the way of the warrior.

They prove their manliness by enduring pain, hunger, and imprisonment, by living with honor, a violent death, a life lost while helping defend one's gang family viewed as highly honorable. The Yakuza also follow the concepts of Giri and Ninjō, which have a strong impact on Japanese society. More broad vague terms here, but with a lot of unwritten rules underneath them, I'm sure. Giri means obligation or a strong sense of duty. Ninjō means human feeling or emotion interpreted as generosity towards the weak and disadvantaged. So how is it possible to live by these ethical moral codes but also make your money through crime? Well I'm not sure it is always possible to do

both but it seems like a lot of these guys do try in certain ways. Yu Yamashina explained some of the ways Yakuza make money. Shina said that if you ask the Yakuza for help, they will assist you. But then he says, quote, but after that things become difficult. They start saying that since they helped you at the time, you must pay back for the aid you got. So like with most gifts in life, there are strings attached, heavy strings in this case. Some people will try to disappear without paying the Yakuza back. Doesn't sound like it works out real well for them most of the time. Shinya claimed that in his gang this one dude who ran away

without paying his debts was later found and then for his punishment he was sold as a slave for three million yen about 20,000 US dollars sent to a different country where his master was able to do whatever the fuck he wanted to him. Yikes! Jesus! Yakuza make a lot of their money through security arrangements with clubs and bars, so, you know, protection rackets, just like the Italian mafia in America. Pays this much money, a month, we will protect you from people exactly like us. Fun little shakedown.

Club owners who are protected can call the Yakuza when drunk or rowdy customers are causing trouble and they'll swing by and fix shit. Which is great, but what if the Yakuza themselves are causing the trouble? Then who do you call? This income stream avenue has dried up more in recent years as the police have become more active in protecting small businesses and fighting back against the Yakuza. This is just very recent. The most profitable industry now is trafficking drugs, but some Yakuza gangs still won't do this due to tradition of staying away from drugs. Another profitable venture is arm smuggling. Guns are illegal for any private citizens to own in Japan, but the Yakuza are able to smuggle them into the country, obviously using themselves, but also sell them.

Shinya explained that most members have multiple streams of income. For example, he said he had some sort of business that involved sex work. So he was some type of pimp. And he made money through blackmail, possibly related to his pimp game. Then he used money from that to fund a legitimate construction business, or at least quasi-legitimate. Strongly assuming he laundered a lot of sex work and blackmail money through the construction company. Said he made at least 4 million yen per month, which actually sounds like more than it is.

It's the equivalent currently of a little over 14,000 US dollars a month. Not a crazy amount, but he was just one gangster and many in his Yakuza family. And they're all funneling a lot of this money up to the top. In order to keep law enforcement off their backs, the Yakuza bribe public officials, the police also get their own members hired by the police, or elected or appointed into political positions when possible. All right, now that we know a bit more about how the Yakuza work, let's enter our timeline of their mysterious origins, infamous leaders, and most notable events.

Right after today's second of two mid-show sponsor breaks. Thanks for listening to those sponsors, and now how about I hit that old timeline button. Shrap on those boots soldier. We're marching down a time suck timeline. It is commonly accepted that the Yakuza originated during the early years of the Edo period, a period which began in 1603. The Yakuza evolved from a few groups, small-time outlaws, gamblers, and gangsters in feudal Japan. According to Kaplan and Dubrow's book Yakuza, Japan's Criminal Underworld, to the commoners of feudal Japan they were known as

Kabukomono, the crazy ones. And as early as 1612 they began attracting the attention of local officials. Like rebels of a more recent era, they wore outlandish costumes and strange haircuts. Their behavior was often equally bizarre. At their sides hung remarkably long swords that nearly trailed along the ground as the outlaws swaggered the streets of old Japan. Terrorizing the defenseless townspeople almost at will, these outlaws were not above using them to practice Tujigiri, a hideous rite in which a samurai would waylay a passerby just to test out a new blade. Just fucking slicing some unarmed stranger down just to make sure your new sword is sharp enough for battle. That is cold-blooded and ridiculous. And I think we talked about that in the samurai episode I did a while back. Imagine losing your dad that way.

Wait, what? How did your dad die? Huh? Some guy just testing a new sword out. He's walking by carrying a basket of apples and dad's head chopped off. I mean at least he didn't die in vain, I guess. You know, I heard the guy was, you know, super happy about how sharp his new sword was. The Kabukomono were the crime gangs of medieval Japan. They were also called Hatomoto Yako, meaning the servants of the Shogun. They called themselves things like the All Gods Gang. They swore loyalty to their

group over their own families. Right? Very typical gang mentality. In the 17th century during the peaceful Takugawa Shogunate, up to 500,000 samurai were unemployed and restless. Not a good combo for samurai Many of them joined the merchant class settled in large villages in Osaka, Tokyo and Nagoya Many of the kabuki a kabukko mono the crazy ones were once samurai They were caught within a rigid medieval society about to enter a 200 year period of self-imposed isolation With few opportunities beyond those offered by street fighting, robbery, and terror. A samurai without a job was nothing new. During

their heyday, the ronin faced the same struggle. Before the Takugawa period, some ronin became bandits after their lords were defeated in battle. They looted as they traveled the countryside, were normally taken in by another feudal lord's army. Now, outlaw gangs developed during these generally peaceful times for samurai who could not adapt to a regular civilian life. According again to authors Kaplan and Dubrow, the Yakuza are more closely related to the Machi-Yako and who were once enemies excuse me of the Hatamoto-Yako. Kaplan and Dubrow wrote these were bands of young townsmen who as fear and resentment grew formed

to fend off the increasing attacks of the Hatamoto Yako. At times they sported the same odd habits as their opponents, but their leaders were often of a different stock. They were clerks, shopkeepers, innkeepers, artisans. Others were laborers rounded up by local construction bosses, including a good many homeless wanderers and stray samurai. Like the gangs of today, the machiako were adept at gambling and developed a close relationship with their leaders that may have well been a precedent for the tightly organized Yakuza. The townspeople supported the machiako and were pleased to see them standing up to these roaming fucking random sword-cutting down people rebel samurai. Both yaku groups then later disappeared after numerous crackdowns by the shogunate government. For example, a branch of the All Gods Gang in Tokyo came to an end

in 1868 when officials rounded up 300 members and had them all quickly executed. Shit! That is a very efficient way to get rid of a big gang quick. Just kill them all. The machi yaku became folk heroes in Japanese history. Robin Hood associations are mostly due to portrayals from the 18th century, where they were viewed as chivalrous commoners. The yakuza are also closely associated with two groups of people from this era, the teke-a, street peddlers, and the bakuto, gamblers. Some members of the Japanese police force still use these terms to classify the yakuza. The teke-a and bakuto were often poor landless people who did not

quite fit in with the rest of Japanese society. Each group had an area of control stuck to it which meant there wasn't much conflict between the two. The Bakkyoto operated gambling establishments along Japan's highways and in towns and the Tekkiya worked in town markets and fairs. Origins of the Tekkiya are pretty obscure. They were first called yashi which connotes banditry towns and the Tekke'a worked in town markets and fairs. Origins of the Tekke'a are pretty obscure. They were first called Yashi, which connotes banditry, meaning it's possible they evolved from the Ronan outlaws of the countryside. The most widely accepted theory is connected to the patron god Shino, a Chinese god of

agriculture that discovered medicine to help the sick and the poor. According to this legend, the Yashi were groups of medicine peddlers, but the name was applied to different kinds of peddlers then later on. By the mid 1700s, the Itekia formed gangs for mutual interest and protection. They established control over their booths in the markets, outside temples and shrines. For some reason, this all makes me picture gangs forming at a farmer's market, which makes me picture a lot of rampant crime at the farmer's market. And as someone who regularly goes to the farmers market that is hilarious to me. Just oh god oh those fuckers just ran off with all of Becky's organic locally harvested lion's mane mushrooms and they took

most of Clint's hand carved wooden middle earth figurines. Oh no they literally just set fire to the booth at Jim and Wanda's die-in fragrance free handmade soap share with Rocky's free-range bison sausage. This has to stop. We need guns and swords and a form of gangs gonna kill these motherfuckers I think they can keep terrorizing the Wednesday afternoon Third Street farmers market. Kaplan and Dubrow also wrote about the Techia scam saying they were men with a well-deserved sorry I can't stop fucking thinking about the local Hayden farmer market around Coeur d'Alene just fucking chaos just samurais lopping people's heads off defending you know the sour dough bread that somebody makes down the street whatever Kaplan and Juber also wrote

about the techiest scam saying that they were men with a well-deserved reputation for shoddy goods and deceptive salesmanship a tradition that survives today amongst the nation's thousands of Techia members. The early peddlers developed a proven repertoire of cheating techniques. They would lie about the quality and origin of a product, act drunk and make a show of selling items cheaply so customers would believe they didn't know what they were doing or delude the customer with such enterprising tricks as selling miniature trees, bonsai trees, without roots.

What? A scam involving bonsai trees without roots? That is also hilarious to me. That sounds like a scam you would run in a farmer's market. Like instead of just taking so much time to carefully craft a tiny tree. These assholes were just, I don't know, just getting a bunch of fucking little twigs, you know, gluing them together. Gluing some leaves to the twigs, add maybe a bit of gravel underneath to look like scaled down big rocks under the normal-sized tree, and just selling that shit to suckers. And that got me thinking about these bonsai tree. I wasted way too much time on getting this show ready to record on bonsai tree articles and videos after this little thing coming up.

Did you know that you can make any tree a bonsai tree? That's what the internet said. I did not know that. I thought there were special kinds of trees that were just miniature. There's just little trees out there. Like if you planted them in your yard, you wouldn't have to do a lot. And they would just grow to be tiny. You would just get like bonsai tree seeds. And you would just grow your little tiny tree.

And it would just look like a miniature version of a bigger tree. No, I guess that's not how it works. It's a lot harder than that. But there's more variety. You can just make a tree tiny. Even, I was like, get the fuck out. Even an orange tree. I found videos of this.

And then you can eat tiny or- the oranges themselves get tinier. This shit blew my mind. I watched a whole video of this woman picking and eating tiny oranges of her miniature bonsai orange tree. No idea what she was fucking saying because her accent was super thick. But she seemed very happy. She seemed to enjoy them. They looked tasty. And now I kind of wish I had a greenhouse full of lots of tiny fruit trees. And then when I want a snack, you know, I just head out to my greenhouse and I just eat a fucking shit ton of little oranges or a bunch of tiny apples

or pears or whatever. And I get to feel like a god, like a fucking powerful giant god. They look down on my full-size trees, look tiny to my powerful self. Growing these trees is a lot of work though, so I'm not gonna do that. But it's fun to think about. Sorry. Anyway, the Tekki' organized themselves in feudal rankings, the Oyuban, the underboss, the officers, enlisted men, apprentices, the Oyuban's home served as a gang headquarters, and the training center for new members who lived in his home to learn the business. The enlisted men were required to sell the boss's goods, little fucking shitty ass tricky bonsai treat and posture stuff.

They were not admitted as full members until they got the desired results and the peddlers had to follow the so-called three commandments of Tequila. Do not touch the wife of another member. This is the first. A rule established because wives were left alone for long periods while their husbands went peddling. Second, do not reveal the secret to the organization of the police and the third, keep strict loyalty to the Oyuban-Koban relationship. Rules two and three seem super obvious to me for a criminal organization. You know, don't rat us out to the police. Yeah, yeah, sure. You know, stay true to the group. Yeah.

First rule cracks me up though. Clearly a lot of fucking other dudes wives was a problem. It was going on. For that rule to need to be included. Just god damn it Takashi, seriously? Now you fucked Sugi's wife and Tetsuya's wife? God damn it. Well sir, I mean technically there's no rule against it. Well there's not! Now there's a rule! Now I have three rules you fucking idiot! No wife fuck- that's rule number one now! God you're lucky you're very good at growing lots of tiny plum trees full of delicious grape-sized plums. I'd fucking kill you right now. The Ouban controlled the allocation of stalls at the markets. The availability of

certain goods. They collected rents, protection money, paid the fee to the Templar Shrine, kept the difference. The Tekia also demanded payments from other peddlers to open up stalls. You're not going to sell that sourdough here unless you give me fucking 100 yen, whatever. They stole from or assaulted those who refused to pay. The Tekia, they would fight over territory, but in general the different bosses cooperated with one another. The Tekias work mostly legal,

and from 1735 to 1740, feudal authorities granted them official recognition. In an effort to reduce fraud, the government appointed several oyuban as supervisors, even gave them a surname and two swords, which gave them equivalent status to a samurai. Pretty badass. This recognition and the rapid growth of towns in the 18th century allowed tekia to expand. Some of the tekia began organizing their own fairs slash festivals with circus sideshows, stands that sell fruit, gifts, other household items.

So like a beefed up farmers market. Fucking love that this is all happening at farmers markets. They also developed a new criminal underworld at the farmers markets. The merchants took in wanted criminals and fugitives, established protection rackets. Joining the techia provided a way out of poverty for many recently released criminals and some upward mobility for a whole class of people called the Barakuman, which translates to village people who are considered polluted or even non-human because they did dirty jobs like undertaking or working with leather. As a random example of a filthy job. Oh you work with leather? Okay subhuman. Fucking get out of here you monster.

Legal discrimination against Barakuman ended in 1871, but Japanese society's derogatory view of them continues actually to this day. So weird. Let's now shift focus to the Bakuto. The first gambling gangs were recruited by government officials and local bosses under the Takogawa administration, who were responsible for irrigation and construction. They're required to pay the workers, but in an effort to get some of their money back, they hired outlaws, laborers, and farmers to gamble with those workers. So they would pay the workers and then, you know, have some gamblers, you know, hustle their workers to get the money

they just paid the workers back. According to Kaplan and DuBrow, they hired gamblers gradually being, uh, the hired gamblers gradually began attracting misfit merchant and artisans, as well as Japanese of higher status such as samurai and sumo wrestlers. Oh hell yeah good fucking samurai at sumo wrestlers the farmers market people you got these fucking con artists gamblers all hanging out in the same space. As they organized into discipline bands these early gamblers found their niche among the nation's great trunk roads where their colorful lives formed the basis for countless tales of old Japan. Criminologist Kanahiro Yoshino called the Bakuto the kernel of

organized crime groups in Japan. The Bakuto set up gambling houses along the highways which were often frequented by wealthy noblemen who got their asses hustled. Inside these gambling houses that the word Yakuza was created. Kaplan and Dubrow discussed the origin of the word Yakuza in their book writing, According to the most widely held belief, the term derives from the worst possible score in the card game Hanafuda, the flower cards. Three cards are dealt per player in the game, and the last digit of their total counts as the number of their hand. Therefore, with a hand of 20, the worst score, one's total is zero. Among the losing combinations, a sequence of 8, 9, 3, or in Japanese, yakuza. The losing combination of yakuza came to be used widely amongst the early gambling gangs to

denote something useless. It was later applied to the gamblers themselves to mean they were useless to society. They were born to lose. I'm a fucking rebel, Dottie. For years, the gamblers themselves to mean they were useless to society. They were born to lose. I'm a fucking rebel, Dottie. For years the word was limited to the Bakuto gangs. There are still purists today amongst the Japanese underworld who insisted only true Yakuza are traditional gamblers. As the 20th century progressed, however, the word gradually received wide use by the general public as a name for Bakuto, Takeya, and a host of other organized crime groups in Japan. And before moving forward, I should add that Kaplan and Dubrow fucked up a little bit. But at least one thing.

The Hanafuda is a type of playing card, but a bit smaller than Western playing cards with a flowery design on the back. But that's not the game. They're very pretty. The name of the actual Japanese card game from which the word Yakuza comes from is Ochi-Ochu Kabu. Oi. Oi-chu. Oi-chu Kabu. Okay now that we know the etymology of the word back to the Bakuto. Like the Tekkiya, the Bakuto had their own code of conduct, followed the Oyuban Koban system. Promotions within the ranks were based on performances

during fights, gambling skills, loyalty to the Oyuban. Those who showed cowardice, disobeyed the rules, or revealed gang secrets were killed or kicked out. Some of the worst offenses a member could commit were rape or petty theft. Weird that those were looked on equally, or at least they seem to be, that's one source. Bob, you stole Mrs. Anderson's garden gnomes. And for that serious crime, you are banished, never to return to our gang. And Johnny, you held down Mrs. Anderson and violently raped her, which is just as bad as what Bob did.

You too are banished. Once a member was banished, the Oyuban informed other groups that the individual was no longer welcome, which meant he couldn't even join other bands. That tradition is still practiced today. When you kicked out of the yakuza, you're generally done with that life forever. No other gang is likely to take you. At least, no other gang affiliated with the yakuza. You have a stain of dishonor upon you.

The bakuto were the ones to introduce. Yobitsume, that fucking crazy severing of the top joint of the pinky on the left hand is a penance. As mentioned, Yobitsume made it difficult to grasp a sword for self-defense, which made the member more dependent on their oyuban for protection. The finger cutting practice eventually spread over to the tekiya and other criminal groups. Also, the bakuto took this pinky chopping ritual from the brothels of Edodo where women would voluntarily snip off their pinkies to prove devotion to their true loves. How bad would that suck to do that? And then the guy's like, oh shit, this is whoa. This is this is okey-wocky. Oh, man. I don't feel that way about you. Maybe you can glue back on. Don't cry. You can glue back on. I have a cousin who's really good at making fake bonsai treats. They can probably help you.

The Bakkyutō also were the ones to first adopt the tradition of tattooing their bodies, which the tekia then followed. Now let's get personal. Let's meet one of the most famous yakuza members of all time, a folk hero in Japan. Arguably Japan's most famous gangster ever, a man named Shimizu no Hirocho was born in the early 19th century. Hirocho was the son of a sailor. He was born on a very special day, Japanese first, Japanese first, 1820 to be exact, in the seaport of Shimizu, which lies along the Tokaido Highway between Tokyo and Yokohama. His birth date is interesting because in traditional Japanese culture it was commonly believed for a long time that baby boys born on New Year's Day would grow up to have one of two fates and only one of two fates. They would either be wildly successful heroic men or despicable villains of the worst kind. Nothing

in between. Hirocho would kind of grow up to be both though. Hirocho's father bought into this weird superstitious belief so fully he decided he didn't want to take the risk of having a shameful outlaw for his son and he gave his son up for adoption to a wealthy clearly less superstitious relative. Hirocho was reportedly a terror as a boy but then as a young teen he calmed down, started learning the family rice business. Then Hirocho's adoptive father died when he was 16 and he inherited the family business. And he worked as a rice merchant until the age of 20. According to legend one day he discovered a monk standing in his doorway. The monk warned him he was going to die before he turned 26.

That is, that's weird. That's a weird thing to happen. There's a lot of weird shit going on in Japan. I wish we had a little more info about this part of the story. Who the fuck is this crazy ass monk? Why would anyone listen to his weird ass? Did he knock on every door he passed? Tell everyone he spoke with when they were gonna die? That was just his thing? Would he just say that out the gate?

No. Hello, how are you doing? No, can I use your bathroom? No, he just opened up the door and some motherfucker in a robe was like, 32! You're dying at 32? Ah, fuck, get out here, death monk, go some motherfucker in a robe was like, 32! You're diet 32! Ah, fuck! Get out here, death monk! Go on, get! Yeah, yeah, yeah! Was anyone keeping track of his predictions? Doing any fact-checking?

Was he really a monk or just a lunatic with a monk costume on? Right, do you know he's out there wandering around and eventually he's gonna come and tell your fate? Can you bargain with him? Can you ask him to extend your life expectancy in exchange for you not killing him on the spot? For whatever reason, Hirocho believed this weirdo according to legends and decided that if his life was going to be short, he wanted to make the most of it. He was bored with his career selling rice. He wanted to change, which I get, you know, selling rice feels boring. Sounds boring. Sounds like a boring job. Maybe it's

lucrative, but probably a little boring. So he joins up with some gamblers in Shimizu. Hirocho eventually leaves his wife and family business behind for good with his new way, a new life here. He spends the next few years just traveling, just fucking wandering around the country, earning a reputation as a fighter, mediator, leader. When he returns to Shimizu, organizes his own gang now, made up of so-called street tufts, construction workers, and Ronin. At its peak his gang will have 600 members. Hirocho will have influence over eight coastal stations from the Fuji River near Tokyo to the Oe River near Kyoto. And during a time of a lot of police corruption his men act as law enforcement. Hirocho and his gang are regarded as honorable men who protect the common people from

the samurai and their feudal lords. The height of Hirocho's power occurs at the end of the Takugawa Shogunate. Nobles and merchants wanted a change. Their displeasure was heightened by the Shogun's decision to open up the country to Western trading. On top of this, peasants were rebelling against the oppressive regime. There was a movement on both sides to install the emperor as a head of state once again. Hirocho sided with the nobles and peasants, which was the right decision. He became a powerful leader during the early Meiji Restoration and promoted national improvements in farming, fishing, and city development. Also continued running his gambling operations and established a prison and had his gangsters

keep law and order. Even started one of the first English schools in the country. Hirocho then died in 1893 at the age of 73. Mad Monk was way off. Thousands of people still visit his grave every year, and he reportedly has a Shinto shrine at the base of Mount Fuji. Walking nobly on both sides of the law, Hirocho embodies the old values of the Yakuza.

Yakuza. The Yakuza then experienced a major shift in the late 19th century, along with the rest of Japan, during the start of the Meiji Restoration. During the Meiji Restoration, all the pent-up commercial and intellectual power of Japan would be released, and the Japanese would perform their first economic miracle, breaking away the last bonds of feudalism

and swiftly transforming their country into an industrial power. By the turn of the 20th century, Japan was a fully modern society with a population of 45 million people. From 1890 to 1914, industrial production doubled. The number of factories tripled. Japan also established its first parliament and political parties and greatly strengthened its military. A military that would damn near help take over the fucking world in World War II. The Yakuza grew and adapted and evolved along with the rest of the country.

Gambling was still one of their main sources of income, but the Meiji Restoration brought more police crackdowns on gambling, and many bosses started now to go into legitimate businesses, often as fronts for gambling, and the Yakuza started paying off the police. Gangs also began organizing laborers for construction jobs in large cities, recruiting dock workers in the nation's ports, just like the Mafia in America. The Yakuza would use labor unions for everything from extortion, bribery, and embezzlement to price fixing and kickbacks. You can get a lot of money off the top of a big construction project.

And if you control the ports, it's a hell of a lot easier to import illicit materials like various drugs and guns. In the later 19th and early 20th centuries, Bakuto gamblers retreated into underground gambling rings while the Tekia thrived because their profession was legal. They still run those farmers markets, baby. Growing number of Yakuza families developed close ties with government officials as they knew that working with rather than against the government was the key to success. A spirit of ultra-nationalism amongst the Yakuza began to show itself in the 1880s.

The movement originated in Kyosho, the southernmost of Japan's four major islands. At this time, Kyosho was a poor fishing and coal mining region and also home to a large community of former samurai. Politicians who didn't support the Meiji restoration appealed to the ex-warriors discussed with the new regime. The city of Fukuoka was a hot spot for anti-government sentiments at the time and became the center of militarism and patriotism. One legendary yakuza, an ultra-nationalistic gangster, got his start in Fukuoka. A man named Toyama Mitsuru, he was one of the first in Japan to combine organized crime and politics. Toyama was born in 1855, third son of an obscure poor samurai family. Grew up in poverty, sold sweet potatoes on the streets, described as the street smart teen who idolized the samurai. He became interested in politics in his early 20s. He participated in one of the last samurai

uprisings and was sentenced to three years in jail. When he was released he joined a nationalist group called the Pride and Patriotism Society where he developed a small following. Kaplan and Dubrow wrote about him saying, Toyama took to the streets and set about organizing the listless tufts of Fukuoka. His men became both a disciplined workforce and a tough fighting force used to keep labor unrest at a minimum in the region's coal mines.

Toyama was another Robin Hood figure amongst the Yakuza. Known for handing out money in the streets literally, earned him the nickname Emperor of the Slums, also earned him the respect of local politicians who wanted to capitalize on his popularity with the poor. Toyama used his newfound power to found the Dark Ocean Society, aka Genyosha, in 1881. The Genyosha was a federation of nationalist societies that would be the forerunner of Japan's modern secret societies and patriotic groups. The Articles of the Group's charter required members to revere the Emperor, love and respect the nation, and defend the people's rights.

Toyama created a patriotic social order that attracted former samurai. His federation became a paramilitary force for nationalistic politicians, utilizing terror, blackmail, and assassinations to get their way. Toyama's followers worked as bodyguards for government officials and used violent persuasion to influence politicians. At the same time, some members of the Dark Ocean Society worked as skilled laborers and were members of unions affiliated with his society. They believed they were high-class gangsters different from Tekkiya and Bakuto. Genyosha agents were sent to China,

Korea, Manchuria as spies. They operated schools to train children in their ultra-nationalistic beliefs. Genyosha agents studied martial arts, language, spying techniques. They later formed the basis of Japan's intelligence network before World War II. Toyama's men were used to subdue political unrest, intimidate political candidates and voters, suppress laborers and punish citizens. Toyama used the money he earned to start his campaign of terror and assassination aimed at achieving a new social order in Japan. Fuckers were powerful. The Genyosha once threw a bomb into the carriage of a

foreign minister, stabbed a liberal politician, and murdered one of the Meiji's best statesmen. When Japan held a national election in 1892, the Genyosha made sure to insert themselves into it heavily. This was the first large-scale cooperation between the right wing and the underworld. Toyama called on a gang leader in Kumamoto, who sent him 300 men as reinforcements. The gangsters joined with the local police, who were mobilized by the Minister of Home Affairs to harass political opponents and dissident voters. As written by Kaplan and Dubrow, the result was the bloodiest election in Japanese history. With scores dead and hundreds wounded, Genyosha for its part stated openly in its official

account that the purpose of the Fukuoku campaign was to uproot all democratic and liberal organizations in the region. And by uproot they mean beat and kill enough of these folks for the rest of the people to fall in line. Voter and political intimidation at its finest. The Ganyosha even participated in the Japanese invasion of Korea. In 1895, Japan's minister of war asked the society to create a pretext for soldiers to move into the country. And so a squad of assassins infiltrated the palace, murdered the Korean queen. Following her death, Korea's government was filled now with Japanese loyalists. Ultra-Nationalism became a part of Japan's political landscape, and hundreds of secret

societies were now modeled after the Dark Ocean Society. Some societies were supported by wealthy elite, but others used gambling, sex work, protection rackets, street peddling, blackmail, and control of labor recruiting to earn money. The societies adopted the oyuban, Koban tradition, just like the tekia and bakuto. The tekia and bakuto bosses were also attracted to the secret societies. And this blurred the lines between gangsters and ultra-nationalist conservative politicians. Or just business people. The yakuza were similar to nationalist groups in several ways. They valued power, resented foreigners, liberalism and socialism,

romanticized the past, followed the beliefs of Shinto, and deified the Emperor. Toyama's big achievement was the creation of the first National Federation of Gangsters in 1919, the Great Japan National Essence Society. Over 60,000 gangsters, laborers, and ultra-nationalists joined. The federation was led by Japan's Minister of Home Affairs, Takihiro Tokinami, with Toyama as his chief advisor. They had the support of the home ministry, the police, the military. They became the paramilitary arm of Seiyukai, one of two dominant political parties at the time. Second major party, the Minseito Party, organized its own gangster military force called the Yam. Second major party, the Minseito Party, organized its own

gangster military force called the Yamato Minro Kai, which also had Yakuza members amongst its ranks. Right-wing groups were prolific by the 1930s. Japan experienced a period of instability where moderate politicians withdrew from the public or they were assassinated. From 1930 to the end of World War II, there were 29 assassination-related incidents involving the right, including coups by military officers and attacks on politicians and industrialists. Toyama's power grew more in the 1930s. He was regularly invited to dinners at the Imperial Palace, gave addresses at patriotic gatherings.

He also introduced the Japanese people to their new Prime Minister in 1937. Toyama's reign of terror only finally ended when he died in 1944 at the age of 89. The period of repression in the 1930s when his power was at its height, where there was no true democracy in Japan, was a militaristic society, is now called the Dark Valley. Because of all the military expansion during the time, more money was flown into Japan than ever before, which greatly benefited the Yakuza. The Yakuza organized laborers on the waterfront in the city of Kobe. Gangs gathered groups of unemployable men, sold their labor to firms who needed unskilled workers so basically they were sold into slavery.

This was a lucrative business and bosses fought over contracts and territories. The Yakuza group that was the most successful was the Yamaguchi Gumi and they would become the most powerful Yakuza clan ever was the most successful was the Yamaguchi Gumi. And they would become the most powerful Yakuza clan ever, by far. One of the most powerful organized crime syndicates in the world. Despite declining membership in recent years, according to Japanese law enforcement, they still bring in billions of dollars a year. Billions of US dollars a year from extortion, gambling, prostitution, arms trafficking, drug trafficking, real estate and construction kickback schemes and more.

They've also been involved in stock market manipulation, damn, and internet porn and bullshit bonsai trees! They're just fucking twigs glued together with a couple of grapes! Somebody painted orange and called fucking oranges! Ugh! No, they don't fuck with the fake bonsai trees. The Yamaguchigumi family was founded in Kobe in 191515 starting off as a labor brokerage led by a group of dock workers They quickly turned to criminal enterprises The Yamaguchi Gumi family is named after its founder Harukichi Yamaguchi Yamaguchi was born in 1881 died in 1938. He would actually serve as a leader of the family for its first decade

1915 to 1925. The Yamaguchi Gumi started off as a small Yakuza organization but at one point they had over 10,000 members divided into around 500 different bands. Norubu Yamaguchi born in 1902 was the second godfather. Actually they will have more than that. Early in their they grew to 10,000 according to this Britannica thing, but finding more recent articles later, sorry I didn't correct this portion of the notes to update it with later information, but they will actually get bigger than 10,000 members. Noburo Yamaguchi, born in 1902, was the second godfather of the Yamaguchi Gumi family. The son of Harukichi Yamaguchi

succeeded his father upon his retirement in 1925. He remained in leadership until his death October 4th 1942 and then was succeeded by his protege, this is a very famous Japanese gangster, Kazuo Taka who transformed the Yamaguchi Gumi from a small group of local gangsters into a national crime syndicate. Kazuo Taka, comparable to the US Mafia's Al Capone, took over the gang after World War II and it would eventually become known as the Godfather of all Godfathers in Japan. Kazuo Taka, born in a small village on the island of Shikaku, March 28th, 1913. His parents were farmers, but Taka was orphaned at an early age and then sent to work in a shipyard in Kobe.

At the age of 14, he began associated with members of Naburo Yamaguchi's gang. He left school, served as an apprentice for nine years, running errands, waiting on Yamaguchi, beating the shit out of people. Slowly but surely, he rose through the ranks, managed to keep his fingers intact. He earned a fearsome reputation

as a fighter. He was called Kuma, which means bear, because his signature move, I guess, was to claw your fucking eyes out. So scary-ass dude. That's a terrifying signature move. Taoka became a full member in 1936. Leading the Yakuza was not the vision Taoka had for his life. He was once quoted as saying, I never wanted to be a Yakuza. I used to work at Kawasaki Shipyard, but I got into a fight with my boss and quit the company. So I couldn't go home. 1937, just a year after becoming a full member,

Taoka is in prison for murder, spent most of the war years in prison. Then he got released in 1943. Didn't stay too long for murder. I was welcomed back into the gang with open arms. Yamaguchi Gumi's membership had been taken out by an increased number of police crackdowns and of course just the war. October of 1946, 33-year-old Tauke assumed control of the family. He only had 25 Koban at this time, but Tauke used his leadership skills and ruthlessness to turn the family into a force to be reckoned with amongst the Yakuza. A friend suggested that underground criminal organizations might be coming to an end.

Taoka took his words to heart and decided to start legitimate businesses to protect his family. He founded the Yamaguchi Gumi Construction Company, which became enormous, started taking on local projects, further developed the family's gambling and extortion rackets. In the late 40s, Taoka formed an alliance with the largest Bakuto gang in the area, the Honda Kai, and then they soon got into a gang war because of his ambition to control this group and he would do just that. Tauka took over their gambling rackets, incorporated the Honda Kai into the Yamaguchi Gumi, also took control of a Korean mob's territory in nearby Osaka as well. Taka then founded, so random, a talent agency to promote performers from Osaka. Okay, a good money laundering scheme, I guess.

Or maybe he just really liked singers and actors and such from Osaka. At the same time, he continued operating the family's original labor business on the Kobe Docks. He also took financial interest in cargo firms, told all his followers they needed to maintain legitimate jobs, allowed members to recruit and maintain their own smaller families which became quasi-subsidiary families of Yamaguchi Gumi Clan. Tauke was suspicious of other Yakuza gangs, refused to join the Kantōkai, a confederation of gangs within the Yakuza. He became more powerful than this confederation. Taka restored the Yakuza during the post-war period, helped turn the organization into

a business that dealt in extortion, racketeering, gambling, sex work, loan sharking, smuggling, fucking chopping people's heads off, other legal and illegal enterprises. Japan's national police agency attempted to regulate the family unsuccessfully in 1963. This is the same year that the Yakuza membership across Japan peaked with an estimated 184,100 members. By 1964, Taka was in charge of 343 gangs under the Yamaguchi Gumi syndicate. By the end of the decade he had around 10,000 followers. So I guess maybe I confused myself in that 10,000 just referring to like the numbers under his direct control. In the mid 60s the Yamaguchi syndicate controlled about 80% of all cargo on Kobe docks. The Tauke had

interest in 14 cargo firms that earned him 17 million US dollars in 1965 alone. Tauke even had government support during this time. One of his companies, the Association of Harbor Stevedoring Stevedoring, Stevedoring, Stevedoring, oh my gosh it's kind of a weird word promotion yeah Harbor Stevedoring promotion had financial backing from a right-wing politician and the Minister of Transportation. Tauke was seen as someone who could keep leftist unions trying to do dumb shit like get fair wages and humane working hours and conditions for workers off of the docks. Take the liberal pro-working man bullshit out of here you assholes.

How the fuck am I supposed to become a billionaire? You know, you pulling his crap. Police were still trying to bring him and his clan down in 1966. Tauke was indicted on five counts including blackmail, but he doesn't really get imprisoned for long. In 1972, Taoka, worried about the growing power of law enforcement, forms an alliance now between the Yamaguchi Gumi and the Inagawa Kai, the third largest Yakuza family. 1978, that July, Taoka survives an assassination attempt when a member of the Matsuro Gumi, a rival gang, shoots him in the neck at a nightclub in Kyoto. Took a fucking shot to the neck at the age of 65 like a champ. Just shook that shit off.

Tauka survived and the assassin was found dead in the woods near Kobe weeks later. So he probably had an accident. Probably just fell down and hurt himself. Then, Kazuha Tauka dies of a heart attack July 30th, 1981, just a month before he was scheduled to be sentenced and very likely imprisoned by the district court in Kobe. Taka's underboss and chosen successor, Kenichi Yamamoto, was imprisoned at the time of his death in the absence of a selected Oyu-Ban. Taka's wife, Fumiko, fills the leadership role while the gang waits out Yamamoto's prison sentence. But then Yamamoto dies of liver failure just a few months later, in early 1982. Now the top lieutenants can't come to an immediate decision about the new leader.

1984, a council of eight bosses chooses a man named Masahisa Takenaka as the new Oyuban. This insults Hiroshi Yanamoto as he had been the acting boss until the election. He now decides to leave the Yamaguchi Gumi clan. 18 lieutenants, over 3,000 soldiers follow him. Yanamoto forms a gang called the Ichiwakai. The two groups then begin a feud that turns into an all-out gang war January 26th, 1985 when the Ichiwakai assassinated the Masachisa the members of the Ichi Wakai assassinate Masahisa Takenaka

Yanamoto sends a team of hitmen now to the home of Takenaka's girlfriend, Takenaka, his underboss and one other member shot down while waiting for an elevator. The Yamaichi feud lasts from 1985 to 1989. The new acting boss of the Yamaguchi Gumi, Kazuha Nakanishi and his under boss, Yoshinora Watanabe, vowed to get revenge. 36 Yakuza members are killed, many more wounded in approximately 220 gun battles. Some local papers actually kept scorecards

with the latest body counts on both sides of the war. In 1985, several members of the Yamaguchi Gumi are arrested in Hawaii for trying to smuggle in a hundred pistols, five machine guns, and a rocket launcher back to Japan. Fucking rocket launcher, nice! Excellent intimidation weapon. Even if you miss they're still like, Jesus Christ they got a rocket launcher? Yamaguchi Gumi technically came out on top in this war but lost many top leaders in various police crackdowns and just you know taking bullets.

With the help of the neutral Inaugurakai family the two sides finally reach a peace accord 1989 and the defectors are allowed to rejoin the Yamaguchi Gumi. Hiroshi Yanamoto, former leader of the Ichiwakai, retires at the end of the war. Underboss Yoshinora Watanabe made the fifth boss of the Yamaguchi Gumi. Watanabe now led a faction called the Yamakun Gumi which had 2,000 members. The Yamakun Gumi, the most powerful faction of the Yamaguchi Gumi until 2005 with another faction called the Kodokai seized power. All this battling. Kodokai now led by 82 year old Kenichi Shinoda aka Tsukasa Shinobu.

He's the sixth and current leader of the Yamaguchi Gumi. Shinoda joined the Yakuza in 1962. He was originally part of the Hiroto Gumi faction based in Nagoya. After the group disbanded in 1984 he founds the Korokai. Korokai grows quickly, establishes branches in 18 prefectures. In 2005 Shinoda began serving a six-year sentence for gun possession charge he received back in 1997. By the late 20th century, Yakuza membership is now decreasing drastically. 1991, only 63,800 full members, 27,200 quasi-members. The Yakuza were reduced to less than half of their numbers from the 60s. This occurred because of changing sentiments towards the Yakuza and increased policing. In 1992, the Japanese government based the Anti-Bori-Yokyudan Act, which is meant to undermine the Yakuza's power.

According to Norio Tomura, a police officer who investigated Yakuza related crimes. The anti-Yakuza laws including 15 articles that prevented the Yakuza from harassing businesses. The laws allowed severe penalties for racketeering, loan sharking, and blackmail. Another law now prevented money laundering. Fucking weird. A lot of these laws didn't already exist, but whatever. Once the police detected illegal activity, they could now freeze Yakuza accounts and assets. The authorities were now finally able to hold bosses responsible for their subordinates actions. Other laws included an order to prohibit, which means the police can arrest members even if they did not commit a crime in an effort to prevent a new crime from occurring.

That sounds a little bit scary. Sounds like it's getting a little bit Orwellian, a little step towards the thought police. Residents were also allowed to file complaints about the Yakuza signage outside their offices and businesses. A complaint allowed the police to file a suit against the organization for intimidation. In the documentary Twilight of the Yakuza, a journalist listed only as Mr. X to protect their identity discussed how the Yakuza adapted to these new laws. He explained that the Yakuza was not all bad, that they are still known for being problem solvers and mediators. The so-called economic Yakuza do not rely on traditional income sources like gambling

or drugs any longer. Once Japan's economy grew after World War II, the Yakuza targeted ordinary companies. During the bubble economy of the late 80s and early 90s, a period of inflated real estate and stock prices in Japan, at the height of Japan's economic power, the Yakuza inserted themselves into legitimate real estate and finance enterprises. That was when the term economic Yakuza was first used. Yakuza members distinguished themselves for their intelligence and they studied economic publications on a daily basis. They are adapting. During the 2008 economic crisis, many financial professionals who worked for banks or insurance companies lost their jobs and

the Yakuza would scout for these people, hire them. They would now work for the Yakuza, managing their assets. And they were called fund managers of darkness. That's a pretty sweet-ass job title. What do you do? Oh me? I'm just a fund manager of darkness. Mr. X explained, in principle they are doing ordinary legal stock investment work. The only difference is that their resources come from the Yakuza. Their actions appear as sound, healthy, economic activity. However, this means that they are contributing to the profits and funds of the Yakuza. The police began to look into the fund managers, but they had to deal with the concept of equality under the law.

There was a lot of debate about whether it was right to pass laws against the Yakuza's businesses and financial practices just because they involved Yakuza money. Hard to justify laws that prohibited the Yakuza from conducting legal business. The Yakuza also left behind little to no evidence of any financial crimes, making it hard to track their activities. Police now focused on cutting off the Yakuza's financial resources from gambling and drugs. Because the Yakuza could not conduct their conventional businesses, they had to find new legitimate sources of income. According to Mr. X, so ironically one could say that the police drove the Yakuza into the business world. Now the police fear that the Yakuza will take gambling and other illegal activities even further underground,

similar to the Italian Mafia, which will make them harder to control. The National Police Agency found that in 2012 one in five Japanese companies now fell victim to Yakuza extortion schemes. One in five! In a nation of tens of thousands of companies. That's a lot of extortion. The Yakuza even became involved in the nuclear industry market and were suspected of infiltrating the Olympic Committee in Japan. In 2012, a tabloid published a photo of Shinzo Abe, Japan's former Prime Minister, with a Yamaguchi Gumi financier, who had been arrested for violating money lending laws. The photo showed the two men speaking with American politician Mike Huckabee. A photo taken in 2008, a year after Abe resigned.

It was published before his re-election and Abe Abe denied, of course, having connections to the Yakuza. The recently assassinated Abe, not the only high-profile figure to face a Yakuza scandal in recent years. In early 2015, Japan's Minister of Education heavily scrutinized for receiving political donations from a Yamaguchi Gumi company. And he eventually returned those donations, only because he was exposed. The Yamaguchi Gumi family was shaken up by an attempt of rebellion in 2008 when

former gang boss Tadamasa Goto led an insurrection after he was dismissed for insubordination. Oyuban Kinichi Shinoda had forbade the sale and use of drugs which were among the activities he viewed as dishonorable. This of course made some anger members angry and they were deprived of that income. The Yamaguchi Gumi banished ten other bosses who sided with Tadamasa Goto and split his organization into two groups. That year news also came out that Goto made a deal with the FBI to get a visa to travel to the US to obtain a liver transplant. Goto and his son traveled to the US May 18th 2001. Goto was in his late 50s at that time suffering from hepatitis C worried it

would become a cancer or become cancer. Japan had an extreme shortage of organ donors at the time which led many sick people to travel abroad for treatment. The surgeon who treated Goto was Dr. Ronald W. Buschitil. Why am I saying his name with a Japanese flash now? My brain is just going on autopilot. Busutil. Dr. Ronald W. Busutil? No, Busutil. Executive chairman of UCLA's surgery department. Busutil also performed liver transplants on three other men who are banned from entering the US because of criminal records and suspected affiliation with Japanese organized crime. So he's got a little racket with these guys. Surgeries took place between 2000 and 2004, during a time of organ scarcity.

During those years, over 100 patients died awaiting liver transplants in the LA area per the LA Times. Bousetil issued a statement saying, "'As a surgeon, it is not my role to pass moral judgment "'on the patients who seek my care. "'If one of my patients, domestic or international, "'were in a situation that could be life-threatening, "'of course I would do everything in my power

"'to assure that they would receive proper care. I consider that to be part of my responsibility and obligation as a physician. But also, how much did they fucking pay you under the table to get that transplant? Million dollars? Five million? Ten? A thousand tiny orange trees? U.S. transplant rules do not prohibit hospitals from performing transplants on foreign patients, or those with criminal histories. I never even thought of that before. U.S. transplant rules do not prohibit hospitals from performing transplants on foreign patients. Or those with criminal histories. I never even thought of that before. If you're like a really good surgeon, like the money you could make under the table.

Just treating you know some, I don't know, fucking warlord from overseas is gonna die. He wants to fly over to sneak into your country like okay for I don't know, 10 million dollars I'll help you. The FBI helped Tadamase Goto get a visa in exchange for leads on illegal activity in Japan But the FBI the FBI did not arrange the surgery Apparently Goto did not provide much useful information to them after the transplant He was barred from re-entering the US but he continued to receive medical care from Busutle in Japan Busutle also evaluated Goto in prison in 2006 when he was arrested for real estate fraud Oh, this guy's definitely like getting paid crazy money to do all this shit.

His lawyers worry he was not well enough to be interrogated because of problems with his liver, heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes. Goto was acquitted of real estate charges in March, 2008. By 2015, the Yakuza's estimated numbers down to just 53,000 now. The Yamaguchi Gumi clan has around half of that. 24,000 members, 72 affiliated gangs. That's the number I was thinking of earlier when I got hung up on 10,000. I was like, I knew they had fucking more than that at one point.

2015, there was a major schism within the Yamaguchi Gumi clan that resulted in a breakaway faction. Similar to the 1984 conflict, members within the group decided it was time to do away with old traditions. Seems as if the Yamaguchi Gumi and Kobe became a lot more tolerant of drugs while the larger Yamaguchi Gumi family was not. Some factions also complained about paying too high of dues to the Kodokai faction. There was a rumor that Kenichi Shinoda, aka Tsukasa Shinobu, was going to retire and pass leadership to another Kodokai member. Vice reported in 2015 the Kodokai has been a notably anti-authoritarian faction of the Yamaguchi Gumi, actively challenging both the police and the Japanese government while implementing a set of rules known as the Three Noes.

No members should confess to crimes. No cops can visit the offices. No cooperation with the police is allowed. So they're a more hardcore branch. Also happens to be a large number of Korean Japanese in the Kodokai faction, which is highly unusual since many Japanese people still is allowed. So they're a more hardcore branch. Also happens to be a large number of Korean-Japanese in the Kodokai faction, which is highly unusual since many Japanese people still hold strong anti-Korean sentiments. Long, deep root tension between those two cultures. In a 2011 interview, Shinoda was quoted as saying, we provide refuge for those marginalized by Japanese society, the outcasts, the Korean-Japanese, those from broken families who face discrimination. We make them strong and stop them from bothering ordinary people.

Hmm. August 27, 2015, the Yamaguchi Gumi holds an emergency meeting, expels 13 bosses and factions from the family. So a lot of the shit going on just like a lot of like with Italian, you know, mafia crime families. Japanese police confirmed that powerful factions were breaking away from the Yamaguchi Gumi. The factions were the Yamaguchi Gumi and Kobe, the Takumi Gumi, that's how it said in Osaka, and the Kyoryu Kai. They formed the Kobe Yamaguchi Gumi. This was the first major split within the family since the war with the Ichiwakai in the 80s. In response to the rebellion, the Yamaguchi Gumi issued a statement on their website saying it's... I love that they have a website also.

It is only a matter of time before the good and bad of those who have mistaken their way is corrected. They got a fucking newsletter. They got a website. They got business cards. Vice reported that the majority of the police support the breakaway group and the rebels delivered a notice to the police before they split from the family. It's weird how they're all like talking to the police too. It feels like there's a vibe over there of like well it's better to have a certain amount of these gangsters because they do have some honor than just let other criminals take over their territory. The police have been after the Kobayaki, or Kodokai, since 2009 when the head of the national police agency declared war on this specific gang saying we will obliterate

them from public society. That's a great word, by the way, obliterate. Doesn't get used enough. Currently, the Yakuza facing a membership crisis. By 2022, there were only about 11,400 members and 11,000 quasi members. And within the existing ranks, the population is aging out. The average age, 54.2 years in 2022. Only 5% of members were in their 20s, roughly 30% in their 50s.

Almost 12% of the members 70 or older. Over half of the members, over 50. The Yamaguchi Gumi Syndicate is still the largest Yakuza family, accounts for around 30% of all membership. They had 3,800 members and 4,300 quasi-members slash affiliates as of 2022. members and 4,300 quasi-members slash affiliates as of 2022. Tsukasa Shinobu, still their Oyu-Ban. He is, as I mentioned, 82 years old and has long been missing the top portion of the pinky finger on his left hand. Now let's get out of here. Good job, soldier.

You've made it back. Barely. You've made it back. Barely. The Yakuza, or more properly pronounced, the Yakuza. I hope you learned as much as I did about them today, which was a lot since I did no shit before I learned all this. They have many names, including Boryokyodan, which means violence group, and the Japanese mafia, another term for them. The word Yakuza refers to both individual members and larger groups. And they've been around for centuries, born from petty thieves, undesirables, underserved, or underserved, excuse me, marginalized members of Japanese society, and samurai who are no longer

needed or even allowed to be samurai properly any longer as Japan's culture modernized and shifted. The Yakuza engaged in crimes such as extortion, blackmail, smuggling, sex work, drug trafficking, gambling, and loan sharking. They also run legal businesses now such as restaurants and bars, trucking companies, factories, and labor businesses. Experts have estimated that at its peak in the 60s again membership around 184,000. By the early 21st century, numbers had decreased to around 80,000, split evenly between members and associates far less than that now. Yakuza members have long been divided into hundreds of gangs that belong to larger families. The largest family has been the Yamaguchi Gumi family founded in 1915. They've been the biggest

for roughly two centuries now. The traditions and structure of the Yakuza based on traditional Japanese culture, the Shinto religion, and the samurai code. They follow the Oyuban Koban or parent-child structure, Koban expected to show complete devotion, total loyalty to their Oyuban. The look of the Yakuza has been shaped by Irazumi, traditional Japanese tattooing and its centuries-old association with criminality. Today the Yakuza still continue the tradition of full-body tattoos and they also practice ritualistic initiation ceremonies and punishments. Although they are known criminals, the Yakuza also still consider themselves to be a chivalrous organization. Not sure that description really

applies anymore, but traditionally they did not steal from the poor. They have and still commit charitable acts with increased policing. The yakuza have adapted and excuse me adapted and transitioned to white collar crime recently and while membership is still not legal laws passed in the past few decades have made it harder for the yakuza to make money from their traditional income sources such as gambling and the drug trade and these laws and a changing culture have led to a huge drop in membership. Yakuza membership has decreased by more than half from its peak in the 60s, much more. And many existing members are gonna get out soon. They're gonna age out soon. Younger criminals in Japan less and less interested in following all the rules

and traditions of the old ways of the Yakuza. And many within the Yakuza believe that someday soon the Yakuza will no longer exist in any recognizable form. Which might not be a good thing. Because what other types of gangs are going to rise in their place? At a certain level of crime is it not inevitable? Will the next gangs to rise to power in Japan even attempt to conduct themselves with any sense of honor?

Will they care at all about the way of the warrior? Will you even be able to know who's a gangster? Who's not if the full body tattoos lose their meaning and everybody has both their pinkies? Time now for the takeaways. Time shock! Top 5 takeaways! Number one, the Yakuza. Now it feels right to say it that way. Are the Japanese mafia. Similar to the Italian mafia there's a mob boss, a godfather called the Oyuban, and subordinates called Koban. The Yakuza combine criminal enterprise with ancient traditions and rituals, the Shinto religion, and the samurai code of honor.

It is believed that the Yakuza originated from feudal peddlers and gamblers called Tekka, Tekia, and Bakuto respectively. Number two, the Yakuza known for tattooing their entire bodies except for their hands and faces. Tattoos are an ancient art form in Japan, Iruzumi, and they signify a member's loyalty to his gang, his masculinity, and his toughness. Although most people choose to cover their tattoos at almost all times in public, that whole fireflies can only be seen at night, they are still a great source of pride amongst the Yakuza. Number three, one of the punishments utilized by the Yakuza is a practice of yobitsume, the severing of the pinky finger on the left hand as a penance for disobedience. One

survey found again that 45% of Yakuza members in 1993 had severed fingers. Number four, one of the most well-known Yakuza bosses in 1993 had severed fingers. Number four, one of the most well-known Yakuza bosses is Kazuo Taka, who took over the Yamaguchi Gumi family in 1946. He transformed the Yamaguchi Gumi from a small gang at 25 to 30 followers in the largest crime family in Japan. The Yamaguchi Gumi controlled the majority of Yakuza business, both legal and illegal, and are the most powerful and ruthless of all the families. Kazua Taka was one of the first to start investing in legal businesses in addition to gambling rings. And number five new info,

recently for the very first time in modern Japan at least, a Yakuza member has been sentenced to death. In August of 2021 a court in western Japan sentenced to death Nomuro Satoru, the head of the Kurokai faction. Nomuro, convicted of orchestrating murders and attacks against four civilians. In 2023, it was reported that Nomuro had a nurse killed over, and I did not see this coming, a botched penis enlargement surgery. Nomuro targeted the nurse because she reportedly mocked him after the procedure and dismissed his pain.

She allegedly said, this can't possibly hurt as much as getting one of those Yakuza tattoos. At his 2017 trial, it was revealed that he told his hitmen to carry out an organized retaliation because he unjustifiably resented the failed surgery. This dude might die because he couldn't make peace with his tiny dick. He should have just had like a tattoo of a bigger dick placed onto his dick. And I know that doesn't make any sense. Also not a very honorable attack to kill a nurse for not feeling sorry enough for you making the dumb decision to try and stretch your dick out. Namura and his second command were convicted of murder, three counts of attempted murder, other charges, sentenced

to death and life in prison respectively. There was no direct proof. Saturo ordered these attacks, or these attacks making the death sentence particularly shocking to many. Before he was escorted out of court, he told the judge, I asked for a fair decision. You will regret this for the rest of your life. So that guy's fucking nervous. And then there are three other murders. He said to have been involved in in 1998, seven-year-old Kunihiro Kachawara, the head of a fishing co-op, shot four times, died in the street in Kitakyoshu City. In April of 2012, the former police captain of the Fukuoka Prefectural Police

shot multiple times on the street in the same Kita Kyosho city. In May of 2014, a male dentist stabbed in the leg and stomach in a parking lot relative of a former fishery co-op leader. And in January of 2013, that nurse who assisted with the penis enlargement procedure, maybe laughing him, stabbed in the head, died from a fucking stab to the head on the street in Fukuoka. That's a tough way to go. Kachihara's case was cold until 2014 when the police reviewed records and decided to reopen the investigation. Discovered that his successor and younger brother, Tadayoshi Yuno, was threatened after he took over the fishing co-op.

He received a threatening phone call. The caller was later arrested for extortion. Someone once shot at both his and his nephew's homes as well. Yuno was shot to death in December of 2013 and his murder remains unsolved. Nomura, currently 77 years old, appealed his death sense. I imagine him not doing very well in prison, between his age and him wondering every time he hears somebody snicker if they're laughing about his tiny dick. snicker if they're laughing about his tiny dick. Time shock, top 5 takeaways. The Yakuza, Japan's tattooed gangsters have been sucked.

I know I still don't get these pronunciations perfect, but if you, if you listened to like the first Japanese themed fucking topic I did right back in 2000, I don't know, 17, I feel like I've improved quite a bit. I'm, I'm happy with some progress. Maybe you were like, don't ever fucking talk about Japanese topics again. But I feel like I did a decent job. Thank you to the Bad Magic Productions team for all the help of making Time Suck. Starting with Queen of Bad Magic, Lindsay Cummins. She took great care of me, if you're curious at all, after last week's recording.

I had some tasty ass Frosties from Winnities, which I love when when I was so fucking high and I ate a bunch of chicken nuggets as well. Thanks also to Logan Keith helping to publish this episode, designing merch for the store at badmagicproductions.com. Thank you to Olivia Lee, excuse me, for doing the research on this one. Also thank you to the all-seen-eyes moderators. Still moderating the Cult of the Curious private Facebook page. The Mod Squad still making sure Discord keeps running smooth, and everyone over on the Time Suck subreddit and Bad Magic subreddits. And now the updates. Updates!

Get your Time Sucker updates! Got some great updates this week. Our first one comes in from a little butt fucker. And I'm sharing it just because it made me laugh. Silly sax, Scott Fouts wrote it with the subject line of my mom called us little buttafucos. Hey Dan the magic Dan the man and bad magic brand. Oh my god. Hey Dan the man and bad magic band. There we go. I haven't heard or thought about the fun nickname my mom would address me and my brothers until this episode with Joey thinks with his wrench but a few co you made the connection that I was missing with my little boy brain of but a few co what it

might mean but fuck her now that I have a big boy brain I had to call and ask my mom if she was secretly calling us little but fuckers when we got into a little bit of trouble or was she referring to us as scumbags like Joey after a very fun call I'm glad to report she was not being malicious and calling we got into a little bit of trouble or was she referring to us as scumbags like Joey? After a very fun call, I'm glad to report she was not being malicious and calling us scumbags. She was in fact just calling us little butt fuckers. Anyway, thank you for the help getting to the bottom of this trivial matter by reminding

me of this awesome name, Buttafuco. P.S. if you read this in the updates, please give a shout out to a cool meat sack of a coworker Tyler Byrd and from what I can tell, there's no relation between him and the very true and infamous Richard Bird. Although I didn't do too much looking into it. Thank you all the bad magic for the fun in my ear holes. Scott Fouts. Well Scott, first off change the legal spelling of your name. The P at the front is silent and therefore unnecessary. Please remove it! Next, thanks for making me laugh, you silly little butt fucker.

That was pretty clever of your mom. Not sure what it says about me, but I love a parent who calls her kids a code word for butt fuckers. That's very funny to me. Next time Kyler is home from college and he and Monroe are in the same room, I really hope I remember to say something along lines of, sup you goofy little butt fuckers! And yeah,

Tyler Bird, thanks for being Scotty Butt Fuckuckers buddy. I hope you two buttfuckers enjoy this message. I hope you're not related to the infamous and very real dick bird. Next up, disgusting sucker, Sal Soto, sends more torture our way after the history of torture suck. Sending in a message with the subject of the Swedish drink, the torture method you've never heard of and I had never heard of this.

This is horrific. Hey Dan, long time listener, first time caller. I love learning about the darkest side of human history. So when I saw this episode pop up on my feed, I was excited to listen. I wanted to inform you about a torture method used by Swedish troops during the 30 Years War in the 1600s called the Swedish drink. Basically the Swedish drink, also called Sweden Trunk, drink. Basically the Swedish drink, also called Sweden trunk by its victims, is a mixture of foul liquids such as shit piss, mud, animal shit piss, etc. that the victims will be forced to swallow through a funnel while being tied down and restrained. Oh my god! The method inflicted intense gastric pain and bacterial infections and because the drink was difficult to compress the

stomach and bowels would expand, causing even more pain. The torture would often press wooden boards on the bloated victim's belly, causing vomiting, even more pain. Uh, hemorrhaging. This method was used on peasants, townsfolk to hand over money, food, animals, etc. Hope you find this method as distasteful as I did. If you happen to read this on the podcast, I just want to let you know you're a bitch.

JK I love you and time suck and without you my 12-hour shifts would be a lot more boring. Not sorry for the long email. Three out of five stars. Wouldn't change a thing. Keep doing what you're doing, Sal. PS I have a topic suggestion for you, whether it be for a full episode or a short suck. You should take a trip back to medieval times and cover the Peasants' Revolt of 1381. It's pretty much about the little guy standing up the big guy and lopping their heads off. Sal, holy shit.

I thought, yeah, again, I thought you made this up at first. No, the Swedish drink, very, very real. Sweden Trunk, yeah, the German name for it, since apparently its victims were Germans. The torturers were Swedish mercenaries. And yeah, like you said, they came up with this torture method to try and get their victims to tell them where they hit money, jewels, etc. I just feel like if you can think of some terrible shit And yeah, like you said, they came up with this torture method to try and get their victims to tell them where they hit money, jewels, etc.

I just feel like if you can think of some terrible shit you could do to somebody else, no matter how horrible it is, some version of what you're thinking about has already been done to someone. Yeah, thanks for sending the topic suggestion as well. And as a reminder, if anyone listened as a topic suggestion or an update, you can send either to Bojangles at TimeSuckPodcast.com. Next up more info from the torture episode. Smart sack Thomas Smith writes in with the subject line of crucifixion correction. Hi Dan and co. There is actually another definite crucifixion victim that has been found. This was in Cambridgeshire, England in 2017. It's been a subject of a lot of research. In Britain local authorities are responsible for much archaeology and so it is the remains are

in the care of the Cambridge-Sher County Council. Cambridge University is of course very well known. I gotta back up for a second. Cambridge-Sher. You know what? I don't like it. I'm sure it's a great place. I just don't like the way that rolls off the tongue tongue I can't talk right now. I said too many Japanese words today like Cambridge. I like Cambridgeshire Mmm, so mushy From and that's from me a mushy-mouthed person. Anyway, Cambridge University is of course very well-known They've been involved in studying the skeleton. They have been studied with some of the best techniques including facial reconstruction like many others

I actually got to see it on display at the British Museum as part of the Legion Life in the Roman Army exhibition. I did Latin and classics at school and historical archaeology at university so I knew a lot of the artifacts after or excuse me from studying them. However this was found after I graduated in 2013 and with it being on display at Easter it was really quite something to behold an actual victim of crucifixion. Mentioned in some of the articles, a bunch of sources below is made of using the nails as amulets. There is some mention in sources of a crucifixion nail being a good luck charm. Not guaranteed ghost summoning material.

Superstition isn't new, but I don't think any in the English-speaking world are that gruesome. As well as the sources I have included for you, some of my photos from the exhibition, a white card circle was placed under the nailed bone to make it easier to find. 3 out of 5 stars wouldn't change a thing. I will add it would be epic to go around the British Museum with you and see what blows your mind most. The room where Karl Marx, Oscar Wilde, Lenin, Bram Stoker, Mark Twain, and Gandhi and lots of others studied. The reading room has just been reopened. While there's a good chunk of the collection that is controversial, it is an incredibly

fascinating place where you can see an Egyptian mummy, an Easter Island statue, African bronzes, ancient Chinese jade and porcelain, Indian statues, Canadian First Nation carvings, Viking weaponry, Roman weapons, Assyrian carvings all in one visit. There's probably few other collections that can rival it and variety and admission is free. Although the security checks are annoying, still quite recently you could just stroll in off the street through any door and start exploring. Which was mind-blowing when you could just pop out from the office to see some 10,000 year old

artifacts. One of the new acquisitions is something from Starcar which one of my professors dug up when I was a first year. I could go on and on, but I do promise I know enough to be sure when I dare correct the suck master. Thomas, thank you for the update. Yeah, I didn't realize it was a second crucifixion victim where a nail was found. I think I was just too focused on looking for remains from the Holy Land specifically, but the Roman Empire, you know, in the first century CE, as I'm sure you know, the time of Christ's crucifixion, it stretched from Britain in the west all the way to the Holy Land in the east. I love that that was just found in 2017. Makes me wonder what other discoveries could be just around the corner. I would love for an entirely new ancient civilization to be

rediscovered in the next few years. You know, complete with some amazing ruins that just totally change how we understand the history of human civilization. And life is a lot of things but it's never boring. Thanks again. And I would man I would love to go back to the British Museum. I haven't been in so so many years but I went there when I studied in England for one semester as a student in London and spent a lot of time there and at the Tate Gallery. I'm just pulling us out of memory now in the National Gallery I believe and it was just so fun especially as a broke student. But God, what amazing places. Finally, a submission from Batman, kind of. You'll see. Batman

sends a message with the subject line of, Casey Anthony update. Hey, Bad Magic Crew. Just wanted to let you guys know that disgusting bitch Casey Anthony just recently moved into an apartment complex about a mile from me in Murfrees Bureau Murf Murphy Murphy's it's like Murphy, but with an R Murphy's Bureau Why are there so many like level 10 fucking words in this episode Murphy? Murphy's Bureau, Tennessee Fuck that town's name dating a man whose family she destroyed he also destroyed his family she currently drives a white Mini Cooper lives at Scout's Landing off

of Veterans Park Way and Murphy's Bureau your bureau to see fuck you Murphy's just call yourself Murphy's Bureau goddamn it or burrow and works at Crunch Fitness on Broad Street choose what you do with his info this can be found in local Facebook groups so So seems reasonable to spread the word that a child killer is in our midst. May Nimrod drive this evil succubus from our shores. Thanks again. Love what you guys do with 3 out of 5 stars. Anonymous Batman. Batman. You sent this message in almost a week before the story broke in the news so well played. Right as I sat down to record I looked

into this and the UK's Daily Mail just published an article. Here's a quite a bit of it. Anthony now 38 has been photographed moving in with their new married lover Tyson Rhodes just days after the relationship was revealed. The pair collected belongings from her apartment in fuck that place Tennessee, Murphy's borough, in Rhodes' pickup truck before heading to the house that he briefly shared with his devastated wife for 22 years. And the timing couldn't have been tighter. Just 90 minutes earlier, Rhodes' blindsided ex Sandy was at the house carting off belongings herself

and putting them into a white Jeep Renegade to complete moving out. Rhodes, an engineer at an aerospace company, stood in the front doorway as she forlornly carried boxes and other containers while wearing denim shorts and a Seminoles hoodie. After she left, he headed over to New Flame Casey's digs to help his notorious new love set up home with him. Anthony dressed in tight dark shorts, a green t-shirt with the words, I need a huge margarita,

and a black cap shifted boxes and furniture from her apartment and into Rhodes' black Dodge Ram. Her 48-year-old married lover, a father of two young adults, helped lug the boxes and modest items. The pair were snapped days after claims that Rhodes was accused by two other women of using the dating app Hinge to hook up with them. Anthony and her new love are reported to have met in January this year through a gym where they worked

out while both living in South Florida. Rhodes then moved the same month to Tennessee with 45-year-old Sandy, but reportedly dropped a bombshell shortly afterward saying he wanted a divorce. Meanwhile, Anthony followed him to the volunteer estate and rented a luxury apartment near the now estranged married couple's new home. Even before that, it didn't take them long to hook up publicly according to one report. When Sandy went back to South Florida to visit relatives in January, Anthony dashed up to Tennessee to be with Rhodes. They were spotted being touchy-feely in a local restaurant and a bar recording of the outlet,

who quoted an onlooker saying they were holding hands and kissing. He even touched her butt. She got up to order a drink and they noticed people staring and he said to her, bring that innocent ass over here. He didn't care. Anthony, who was working as a researcher for an investigator in Florida, is reportedly unconcerned that her new lover is married. A friend said she doesn't care if he's married or not.

Sounds about right. That's his business. All she knows is that he makes her feel good and she likes that. She was willing to follow him to Tennessee. She sees a future with him. Pushed by the pal over the marriage issue, she reportedly hit back with, shut up, I'm living the life I want. Rhodes is reportedly still married to Sandy, has yet to file a divorce paperwork.

His estranged wife is said to have had no suspicions about his new relationship before he revealed he was dumping her. However, Anthony's hopes for domestic bliss with him were rocked this week by claims he's already trying to cheat on her. Oh Jesus. Two women independently alleged he wanted to hook up with them. Reportedly saying on the dating app hinge that he's single and looking for love. One of the women said, so he is still married and he's dating Casey

Anthony on the side and he's still on dating apps. Man, this guy does not seem at quick glance to be like to be a great dude. Casey still seems crazy and toxic. Maybe they're made for each other. Maybe they're a perfect couple. Can you imagine being his kids? Seriously, dad, you fucking moved in with Casey Anthony? Man, some people, of all the people you could date, at least she doesn't have any toddlers she can kill.

Who knows? Maybe they'll get pregnant together. And that's enough gossip, but thank you for that update. I am curious about what the fuck she's up to. I'm waiting for something terrible to happen. Thanks for the messages, everybody. Hope I get some updates about the Yakuza. Other than pronunciation updates. I did my best god damn it. Well thank you for listening to another Bad Magic Productions podcast. Scared to death, time suck each week. Short sucks and nightmare fuel on the Time Suck and Scared to Death podcast feeds some weeks. Maybe don't join a gang this week. That requires you to lop off part of a finger if you fuck up.

Just join a less serious gang. Maybe join a bonsai tree gang. It's probably more of a group or a club. You can call yourself a gang. And you can really decompress and you can relax working on those little ass trees. And if you need something to listen to while you harvest your tiny oranges, you can keep on sucking. grow a lot for yourself, but you think you can't because you live in an apartment or somewhere else without any actual land? Hey, hey, don't sell yourself short.

You can do this. If you let us sell you short. Short bonsai fruit trees, that is. Right now at bobsbattlefulbonsaifruit.biz, you can buy aren't you adorable little orange trees, tiny little lemon trees, precious little peach trees, itty bitty pear trees. We even have cute little coconuts. Yeah. And more than fruit. TINY LITTLE LEMON TREES Precious little peach trees Itty bitty pear trees We even have cute little coconuts! And more than fruit!

Get some tiny ass almond trees! I'm pretty sure we can even sell you shrunken blueberry bushes and tiny little whatever huckleberries grow on and microscopic strawberry uh flowers. I'm not fucking sure what strawberries grow on We can get you a tiny version of whatever that is I promise. So stop making excuses!

And grow your little goddamn fruit! Go to bobsbattlefulbonsidefruit.biz right now. Move your big ass, get small. I'm not fucking around! My trees are small but my dick is huge. I'll fucking bend you over and fuck you to death. If you don't want to spend $500 on some nice pine sized succulent nectarines, you fucking ding dong. Bobsbattlefulbonsidefruit.biz Bobsbattlefulbonsidefruit.biz

Bobsbattlefulbonsidefruit.biz Bobsbattlefulbonsidefruit.biz nectarines you fucking ding-dong. Bob's bountiful bonsai fruit dot biz. Bob's bountiful bonsai fruit dot biz. Bob's bountiful bonsai fruit dot biz. I'm not just gluing twigs together god damn it, I'm making tiny trees! So you can suck my tiny fruit! Bob's bountiful bonsai fruit dot biz!

God damn it! Get a tiny fruit! Thank you!