Yakuza | History, Meaning, Rituals, & Facts (2024)

yakuza, Japanese gangsters, members of what are formally called bōryokudan (“violence groups”), or Mafia-like criminal organizations. In Japan and elsewhere, especially in the West, the term yakuza can be used to refer to individual gangsters or criminals as well as to their organized groups and to Japanese organized crime in general. Yakuza adopt samurai-like rituals and often bear elaborate body tattoos. They engage in extortion, blackmail, smuggling, prostitution, drug trafficking, gambling, loan sharking, day-labour contracting, and other rackets and control many restaurants, bars, trucking companies, talent agencies, taxi fleets, factories, and other businesses in major Japanese cities. They are also involved in criminal activities worldwide.

The word yakuza (“good for nothing”) is believed to have derived from a worthless hand in a Japanese card game similar to baccarat or blackjack: the cards ya-ku-sa (“eight-nine-three”), when added up, give the worst possible total. The origin of the yakuza themselves is difficult to determine, but they are thought to have descended either from gangs of rōnin (masterless samurai) who turned to banditry or from bands of do-gooders who defended villages from those same wayward samurai during the early 17th century. Their lineage may also be traced to bands of grifters and gamblers in Japan’s feudal period.

According to police estimates, gang membership reached its highest level, of some 184,000, in the early 1960s. However, by the early 21st century their numbers had declined to approximately 80,000, divided roughly evenly between regular members and associates. The members are organized into hundreds of gangs, most of them affiliated under the umbrella of one of some 20 conglomerate gangs. The largest conglomerate is the Yamaguchi-gumi, founded about 1915 by Yamaguchi Harukichi but fully developed and aggrandized only after World War II by Taoka Kazuo.

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 oyabun (“boss”; literally “parent status”), and the followers are known as kobun (“protégés,” or “apprentices”; literally “child status”). The rigid hierarchy and discipline are usually matched by a right-wing ultranationalistic ideology. Kobun traditionally take a blood oath of allegiance, and a member who breaks the yakuza code must show penance—historically through a ritual in which the kobun cuts off his little finger with a sword and presents it to his oyabun, though this practice has declined over time.

Despite their criminal activities, the yakuza style themselves as ninkyō dantai (literally “chivalrous organization”). While their methods are often questionable, they have been known to perform charitable acts, such as donating and delivering supplies to earthquake victims during the Kōbe earthquake of 1995 and the earthquake and tsunami of 2011. Over time the yakuza have shifted toward white-collar crime, relying more and more on bribery in lieu of violence, and indeed in the early 21st century they were one of the least murderous criminal groups in the world. These activities make the relationship between yakuza and police in Japan a complicated one; yakuza membership itself is not illegal, and yakuza-owned businesses and gang headquarters are often clearly marked. Gang whereabouts and activities are often known to Japanese police without the latter’s taking any action. Members have even been called upon to perform public functions, as when a yakuza force was assembled to serve as a security force during a 1960 visit by U.S. Pres. Dwight Eisenhower (although the visit ultimately did not occur).

Yakuza are viewed by some Japanese as a necessary evil, in light of their chivalrous facade, and the organizational nature of their crime is sometimes viewed as a deterrent to impulsive individual street crime. It is in part because of the dual nature of their relationship with police—as both criminals and sometimes humanitarians—and the idolization of criminal groups as “underdogs” in popular media that the Japanese police agency in the 1990s instated the name bōryokudan in an antigang law to reinforce the criminal nature of yakuza organizations. The Japanese government subsequently continued to impose stricter laws against criminal groups into the 21st century.