An Osaka yakuza boss traveled to Berlin posing as a diplomat to meet Himmler
This European jaunt was a calculated PR campaign by an Osaka mob boss to evade a domestic organized crime crackdown—he personally commanded a paramilitary organization with over 100,000 members.
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Unemployed samurai purged by the Tokugawa became yakuza's first cadre
After Tokugawa Ieyasu unified Japan, he seized the lands and wealth of rival samurai clans, displacing tens of thousands who became ronin. Andrew Rankin notes these battle-hardened but jobless fighters naturally formed violent gangs; they repackaged mugging and extortion as ‘sword testing’ and collected protection fees from merchants. From this emerged the yakuza's military-style hierarchy.
— Andrew RankinNinkyo let young samurai reframe ordinary crime as warrior code
Young samurai born under the Tokugawa had no wars to prove themselves in, unlike their fathers—only clerical work and security posts. This anxiety bred ‘ninkyo’, an honor code stressing loyalty, fearlessness, and protection of the weak. Rankin argues it gave mob bosses cover to rebrand themselves from common criminals into ‘righteous warriors’ while collecting protection fees and loaning money at ruinous interest—a self-mythology that survives in modern yakuza.
— Andrew RankinYakuza oyabun-kobun bonds are lifetime loyalty oaths, not blood kinship
Yakuza ‘families’ (組) are not blood relatives but sworn lifelong bonds between oyabun (‘father’) and kobun (‘child’). Many recruits were already fugitives severed from their birth families. The oyabun supported imprisoned members' families and paid for the dead members' funerals; in return, members pledged lifelong loyalty. After death, members were buried in a shared ‘family grave’—a practice continuous from the 17th century to today.
— Andrew RankinA samurai's lost fingers became the yakuza's ritual punishment
Late Edo samurai Kodera Toratetsu (小寺虎铁) lost three fingers defending a government informant from assassins. When he later became a yakuza boss, he formalized ‘finger amputation’ as the standard punishment for insubordination or failure—wrapped in silk, presented to the oyabun. The practice became yakuza ritual and persists in documented cases into the 21st century.
— Andrew RankinMob bosses extracted up to 20 percent straight from dock workers' wages
Meiji industrialization transformed small fishing ports like Kobe and Kawasaki into shipbuilding and steel centers within a decade. Yakuza gambling den bosses adapted their gang's loyalty oath rituals and territory rules for labor contracting, monopolizing dock and factory hiring. They skimmed up to 20% directly from workers' wages, while controlling their housing, dining, and entertainment—effectively extracting workers multiple times. This made yakuza bosses far wealthier than in the Tokugawa era.
— Andrew RankinThe 1882 crackdown targeted yakuza backing democracy activists, not just crime
Officially, the 1882 ‘Great Cleanup’ was Japan's largest yakuza police operation, arresting roughly 30,000 members in 18 months. But Rankin reveals the true target: yakuza families who provided security for ‘Free People's Rights’ democracy rallies and trained protesters in anti-police tactics. Kodera Toratetsu, who pioneered finger amputation, was the first victim—he likely died from arsenic poisoning administered by prison authorities before his release.
— Andrew RankinA mob boss traveled to Berlin to pledge loyalty to Himmler
In the 1920s, Osaka gambling and labor boss Sakai Eiso (坂井英藏) modeled a paramilitary force of 100,000 on Mussolini's Blackshirts, calling it the Dainihon Seigi Dan (大日本正义团). In 1938, as Japan's international standing collapsed from invasion of China, Sakai personally traveled to Europe to ‘rehabilitate’ the empire's image. He met his idol Mussolini and gifted a samurai helmet, then went to Berlin—Hitler refused to meet him, so he settled for SS Chief Himmler instead.
— Andrew RankinYakuza are losing their historic ties to Japan's working class
Rankin argues yakuza influence and harm have hit historic lows, though 400 years of history shows this is not the first cyclical decline. What may be irreversible is their loss of intimate bonds to day laborers, dock workers, and construction workers—their traditional base. Today's recruits are mainly societal dropouts, not workers, so the organizations have lost their former cultural sheen and devolved into mundane drug trafficking and online fraud.
— Andrew RankinIn their own words · checked verbatim
searching for the origin of an organized crime group is a little bit like chasing the end of a rainbow because no matter how far back you go, there's always a little bit further you can go.
Andrew Rankin3:22
Every member must obey his immediate superior, even if he knows that the superior is wrong or making a mistake. In other words, you must follow orders at all time.
Andrew Rankin7:13
A popular slogan was, I have lived too long, which gives a suggestion of the kind of mentality at the time.
Andrew Rankin9:15
I visited this village and the people came out and told me that there's some kind of robber living on the mountains. And he had come down into the town and handed out money to the villagers to help them buy rice. The fact that a common criminal had fulfilled this role, which ought to be my role as the governor, made me feel very bad.
Andrew Rankin19:48
Usually, mafiosi deny that their organization exists. Cosa Nostra? What Cosa? I don't know what you're talking about.
Andrew Rankin20:50
He lost three more fingers when he was in a tea house talking to one of the Tokugawa intelligence officers, when suddenly two radicals with swords drawn rushed in and assassinated the intelligence officer. Kotetsu got caught up in it and lost three more fingers off his hand.
Andrew Rankin26:27
The judge asked him, where is your territory? He looked at the judge and said, go to the top of Mount Fuji and look around. That's my territory.
Andrew Rankin39:54
Figures
| Tokugawa shogunate rule length | 260 years | 3:05 |
| Portion of dock worker wages extracted by yakuza | Up to 20% | 30:36 |
| Debt demanded from enslaved girl in Singapore | 600 yen | 34:45 |
| Fujisan mob boss's final sentence | 13 years imprisonment (gambling charges) | 40:59 |
Glossary
- ninkyo
- Edo-period samurai honor code emphasizing protection of the weak, fearlessness in death, and absolute loyalty
- oyabun
- Yakuza boss or family leader; the term literally means ‘father’
- kobun
- Yakuza member sworn to lifelong loyalty to an oyabun; the term literally means ‘child’
- ronin
- Masterless samurai who lost their feudal lords and became displaced, unemployed social drifters
- Dainihon Seigi Dan
- Japanese paramilitary formed in the 1920s modeled on Mussolini's Blackshirts
How to listen
Readers and creators interested in modern Japanese history, organized crime evolution, East Asian underground economies, or fascist-era street politics.
Skip the After Dark podcast ad segments around 21:00–22:18 and 35:47–36:50.