What do you really know about the Yakuza? Well, you might say, they are the Japanese Mafia who have a penchant for full-body tattoos and mutilating their hands. But you might be surprised to know that the Yakuza are responsible for a little more than the occasional protection racket and a body being dropped here and there. In fact, they are the world’s biggest crime organization with nearly 90 000 official members and have basically created modern Japan as we know it. I am talking about stuff like:

Making up a huge portion of the Japanese modern culture

Known for the tattoo suits and severed pinkies, the Yakuza’s visage has influenced the Japanese modern culture in 2 ways: being the reason behind the bans on ink in public bathhouses or… Disneyland; and ruining cartoons for a whole generation of children. When a few years ago Bob the Builder and Postman Pat were to premiere in Japan there was actually a plan to digitally attach an extra finger to their cartoonish 4 digit hands because it apparently had that Yakuza stink all over it.

HIDE THE CHILDREN!

But that was hardly the Yakuza’s first influence on TV. In the 50s and 60s one of the most popular movie genres in Japan were the so called Ninkyo Eiga Yakuza movies. They were the first productions of its kind in Japan and were made to take the place of the then unpopular samurai flicks. They depicted the Yakuza in a historical setting as chivalrous do-gooders and heroes who punished the wicked politicians and served their communities. Show of hands, who is actually surprised that the Japanese Mob had a hand in all of those productions? You are hereby excused from this article.

For some unexplainable reason the Yakuza really enjoyed this image of patriotic Supermen they crafted for themselves and not only funded the movies but often oversaw their production.

So, in this scene the handsome yakuza chokes the corrupt mayor with his 20 inch dick.

However, seeing as every Ninkyo movie was basically a less and less imaginative way of saying how awesome and well endowed the Yakuza were, the genre pretty much died around the late 70s and some dominant Ninkyo studios actually turned to soft pornography. So in all reality, the Yakuza have singlehandedly created and killed an entire movie genre. Kinda puts that whole ”Godfather”-Mafia thing into perspective, no?

A more recent example of their influence over the modern culture, might be the fact that the Yakuza have a firmgrip over the hard business of Japanese sex and pornography. Today, nearly all of Japanese brothels are Yakuza property, so you might make the case that whenever you get laid professionally in Japan, you are supporting organised crime. But hey, times are tough, right?, and there might not just be time to pay a professional to dress up as Pikachu and soap up your privates while reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. So there is always masturbation, and that cannot hurt anyone, right? Uh oh… Wouldn’t you know it? Most of the porn industry in Japan is also directly controlled by the Yakuza who import boatloads of porn magazines and movies into the country from America and Europe, proving once and for all that all this tentacle porn crap was a cruel joke played on the entire world and that everyone just likes blondes better. So now you know that whenever you masturbate to non-Asian porn in Japan, the Yakuza profit from it. Every shot into your Kleenex is like a 9mm into some poor shmoe’s head.

This store owner will have his legs broken because you rubbed one off.

And among their latest entertainment related deals, you have Professional Wrestling. Yup, the Japanese Mob has apparently a great interest in events where grown men in tights pretend to hit each other. Their influence started out mainly as a financial one, like funding certain fights, promoting wrestlers and owning most of sport stadiums where the events took place, always taking a cut from the gate sales. But soon they started to order around the wrestlers to appeal to other Yakuza members who often sat in the audience, in the end writing most of the scenarios for the matches. It is said that due to the Yakuza’s huge influence, professional wrestling will never die in Japan.

The face of modern Japanese Mob operations

Tagged with: Yakuza

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This entry was posted on Thursday, November 19th, 2009 at 3:24 pm and is filed under Japan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.