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The Yakuza, a dying breed | France24 | 6min

Great Hair

Banned


The Yakuza have long been one of the biggest criminal organisations in the world. At the height of their power in the 1960s, the Japanese Yakuza had more than 180,000 members. This Japanese mafia was rich, much feared, and virtually untouchable. But now their numbers, money and power have dwindled. There are only 23,000 Yakuzas left today, and they are older and poorer.
source
 
That's what they want you to think. Any smart yakuza will not say he is a yakuza lmao, at least not like they used to. Power and money do not just simply vanish.
 

Great Hair

Banned
My thought is that they slowly invested their money into more and more legal stuff and a lot of them progressively turned into normal businessmen.
Apparently they are banned from having a normal life.

no bank account
no "real" job
their sons&daughters get the same treatment (should they find out)

They´re now 50+ and have reached a point where they realized they fucked up. But since they´re making €8,000 per day or more (or used to?), the Pachinko Bizniz seems not to be dwindling down anytime soon (thanks to Konami :p).
 

Rest

All these years later I still chuckle at what a fucking moron that guy is.
Aren't the higher ups investing in honest business and getting out of crime? I read something like that a few years ago.
 

Scotty W

Member
An old Japanese guy I know said some thing very interesting about the yakuza to the effect that having the yakuza exist gives a sort of rigid division in Japanese society between the good and the bad people.


That's what they want you to think. Any smart yakuza will not say he is a yakuza lmao, at least not like they used to. Power and money do not just simply vanish.

Perhaps something similar to what happened with the samurai will happen to the yakuza where they get absorbed into mainstream culture while maintaining a distinct culture and attitude toward work.

Pachinko Bizniz seems not to be dwindling down anytime soon (thanks to Konami :p).

I haven’t seen that many Konami pachinko businesses. They probably make lots of machines though. You are more likely to find a Konami sports club.
 

Hari Seldon

Member
In an age with everyone being tracked all the time I have no idea how any organized crime can exist in a country with a non-corrupted police force. Maybe by not doing anything illegal, which basically makes this the same as like the free masons.
 

Tschumi

Member
there's a temple fair in my suburb every month, and u can totally tell the yakuza because they sell flour-based crap from giant BBQs in messy stalls with big black vans full of junk open up behind them

nothing impressive about it lol, they look like they paused growing up around 18 and think they're accomplished, finding value in a cheap and shallow lifestyle

In an age with everyone being tracked all the time I have no idea how any organized crime can exist in a country with a non-corrupted police force. Maybe by not doing anything illegal, which basically makes this the same as like the free masons.
i think the police are pretty corrupt, and one party has been in power more or less forever because their yakuza links basically net them 100% of the rural/white collar vote (i've read), i think the problem is the yakuza were declared illegal about a decade ago (from memory) and their bank accounts were frozen.. it's pretty funny to hear them complain about not having access to money they extorted as if it's as honest a wage as any - i could be interpreting it wrong but i'm pretty sure they say that they should have social support and stuff... insanely twisted reasoning... my wife's grand father was forced to sign away the deeds to his land under threat of death from yakuza, and now they want a pension? get fucked lol
 
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Tschumi

Member
An old Japanese guy I know said some thing very interesting about the yakuza to the effect that having the yakuza exist gives a sort of rigid division in Japanese society between the good and the bad people.
an old japanese man once warned a friend of ours that his new house was connected to an outdated sewer system that, in reality, had been replaced 25 years earlier... old japanese men are basically trolling, we've decided -- "I've trod the line for 70 years i'm gonna fuck with everyone now, how many seats can i take up on this train with spread legs?" -- plenty of bad people on the non-yakuza side of society, 'crusher boss' characters being just one of a galaxy of examples
 

Scotty W

Member
an old japanese man once warned a friend of ours that his new house was connected to an outdated sewer system that, in reality, had been replaced 25 years earlier... old japanese men are basically trolling, we've decided -- "I've trod the line for 70 years i'm gonna fuck with everyone now, how many seats can i take up on this train with spread legs?" -- plenty of bad people on the non-yakuza side of society, 'crusher boss' characters being just one of a galaxy of examples

I know this guy fairly well and trust him within reasonable limits. Now, of course there are bad elements in all areas of society, but I am talking more about a tendency than something strictly defined. To me it makes a kind of intuitive sense: given the low crime rate, the criminal element has been localized in a group in a kind of containment strategy. But this is all just intuition.
 
A lot of expat's "inside knowledge" here is hot garbage. They get trolled by some random Japanese guy and assume it's true. Ask a large group of reputable people still working what they think before spreading it on the internet.
 

Tschumi

Member
A lot of expat's "inside knowledge" here is hot garbage. They get trolled by some random Japanese guy and assume it's true. Ask a large group of reputable people still working what they think before spreading it on the internet.
Ask "a lot of expats" how many "random Japanese" guys over how many years they've based their "hot garbage" on before you apply your half baked theories to them
 
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I live here and I hear bullshit everytime I talk to expats. First it was no fluoride in toothpaste. Then it was all beautiful girls were taken out of Nagoya 300 years ago so there are none left. Then it's how Japanese people are unable to say no so small children say "no" in English. Ask any Japanese person and they will say how full of shit you are.
 
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GeekyDad

Member
people tide GIF
 

Scotty W

Member
A lot of expat's "inside knowledge" here is hot garbage. They get trolled by some random Japanese guy and assume it's true. Ask a large group of reputable people still working what they think before spreading it on the internet.
What the fuck did you just fucking say about me, you little manko desu ka? I'll have you know I graduated top of my juku, and I've been involved in numerous secret raids in Kabukikcho, and I have over 5000 confirmed kanji. I am trained in the three traditional arts of the Japanese scholar: ikebana, tea ceremonies and calligraphy. You are nothing to me but just another baka gaijin. I will humiliate you in the most effervescent haikus, mark my calligraphy in syllables grouped in 5-7-5. You think you can get away with saying that shit to me over the Internet? Think again, chinko manko, I am an expert in Japanese culture and nothing is more important to me than face, honor and shame are huge to me. As we speak I am summoning a kamayama that makes the Tsushima kamikaze look like the Tokugawa shogunate in the face of Commodore Perry’s black ships.The storm that wipes out the pathetic little thing you call your floating world. You're Ikinari, kid, the very steak. I can wait in the jungle 30, nay 50 years, and I can kill you in over seven hundred ways, and that's just with my traditional karate techniques. Not only am I extensively trained in unarmed combat, but I have access to the entire history of the tea ceremony, you little unko. If only you could have known what kami retribution your little "omoshiroi" comment was about to bring down upon you, maybe you would have held your fucking tongue and not lost your face. But you couldn't, you didn't, and now you're paying the price, you kikanbo. I’ma Nobunaga your Hiei-san oshiri. By the time I’m finished collecting L’s from you all the Nihinjin will be able to pronounce them. You're chinko seppuku’d, oji-san, desu.
 
What the fuck did you just fucking say about me, you little manko desu ka? I'll have you know I graduated top of my juku, and I've been involved in numerous secret raids in Kabukikcho, and I have over 5000 confirmed kanji. I am trained in the three traditional arts of the Japanese scholar: ikebana, tea ceremonies and calligraphy. You are nothing to me but just another baka gaijin. I will humiliate you in the most effervescent haikus, mark my calligraphy in syllables grouped in 5-7-5. You think you can get away with saying that shit to me over the Internet? Think again, chinko manko, I am an expert in Japanese culture and nothing is more important to me than face, honor and shame are huge to me. As we speak I am summoning a kamayama that makes the Tsushima kamikaze look like the Tokugawa shogunate in the face of Commodore Perry’s black ships.The storm that wipes out the pathetic little thing you call your floating world. You're Ikinari, kid, the very steak. I can wait in the jungle 30, nay 50 years, and I can kill you in over seven hundred ways, and that's just with my traditional karate techniques. Not only am I extensively trained in unarmed combat, but I have access to the entire history of the tea ceremony, you little unko. If only you could have known what kami retribution your little "omoshiroi" comment was about to bring down upon you, maybe you would have held your fucking tongue and not lost your face. But you couldn't, you didn't, and now you're paying the price, you kikanbo. I’ma Nobunaga your Hiei-san oshiri. By the time I’m finished collecting L’s from you all the Nihinjin will be able to pronounce them. You're chinko seppuku’d, oji-san, desu.
Fuck you. I just bought a 40 dollar Italian dinner and backflipped a helicopter....
 

Tschumi

Member
I live here and I hear bullshit everytime I talk to expats. First it was no fluoride in toothpaste. Then it was all beautiful girls were taken out of Nagoya 300 years ago so there are none left. Then it's how Japanese people are unable to say no so small children say "no" in English. Ask any Japanese person and they will say how full of shit you are.
For the record i live in Nagoya too and my experience is now the worse for knowing your daft carcass pollutes the air i breathe.

It is genuinely necessary to find toothpaste brands that contain flouride. Of course anyone saying there are no such brands is full of shit, but it's true that many brands don't have it. I order arm and hammer from Amazon, though sensodyne does have a brand here that is available on pharmacy shelves.

Nagoya is full of attractive women so i don't know how you were ever stupid enough to think a local had to disprove that.

Japanese kids say "dame" and every other permutation of "no", again you'd have to be pretty stupid to think anything like that, don't quote that when you try to undermine my points.

You're just like all those wankers who don't make eye contact in public, you can't stand the idea anyone might **perceive the reality of Japanese life** quite as intuitively as you, so you just call everyone shit. Grow the fuck up.

Also, thindick, quote me if you're going to try and insult my intelligence with a snarky reply.
 

Ionian

Member
What the fuck did you just fucking say about me, you little manko desu ka? I'll have you know I graduated top of my juku, and I've been involved in numerous secret raids in Kabukikcho, and I have over 5000 confirmed kanji. I am trained in the three traditional arts of the Japanese scholar: ikebana, tea ceremonies and calligraphy. You are nothing to me but just another baka gaijin. I will humiliate you in the most effervescent haikus, mark my calligraphy in syllables grouped in 5-7-5. You think you can get away with saying that shit to me over the Internet? Think again, chinko manko, I am an expert in Japanese culture and nothing is more important to me than face, honor and shame are huge to me. As we speak I am summoning a kamayama that makes the Tsushima kamikaze look like the Tokugawa shogunate in the face of Commodore Perry’s black ships.The storm that wipes out the pathetic little thing you call your floating world. You're Ikinari, kid, the very steak. I can wait in the jungle 30, nay 50 years, and I can kill you in over seven hundred ways, and that's just with my traditional karate techniques. Not only am I extensively trained in unarmed combat, but I have access to the entire history of the tea ceremony, you little unko. If only you could have known what kami retribution your little "omoshiroi" comment was about to bring down upon you, maybe you would have held your fucking tongue and not lost your face. But you couldn't, you didn't, and now you're paying the price, you kikanbo. I’ma Nobunaga your Hiei-san oshiri. By the time I’m finished collecting L’s from you all the Nihinjin will be able to pronounce them. You're chinko seppuku’d, oji-san, desu.
Nice novel. Sometimes less is more. At least thats what she said.
 
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