Japan’s biggest organized crime syndicate has launched its own Web site, complete with a corporate song and a strong anti-drugs message, as the yakuza looks to turn around its outdated image and falling membership.
The clunky-sounding “Banish Drugs and Purify the Nation League” Web site is an offering from the Yamaguchi-gumi, Japan’s largest yakuza grouping.
It includes shakily shot footage of members making their New Year pilgrimage to a shrine. The soundtrack is a traditional folk-style song with lyrics extolling the virtues of the Ninkyo spirit — an ideal of masculinity that battles injustice and helps the weak.
“Nothing but Ninkyo, that is the man’s way of life,” the lyrics say. “The way of duty and compassion, bearing the ordeal for our dream.”
Another video shows men with crew cuts pounding sticky rice for a New Year festival, and there are galleries of pictures showcasing the clean-up work members did in the aftermath of the 2011 tsunami and the 1995 Kobe earthquake.
The Web site is not the group’s first foray into media — the crime syndicate last year began publishing a magazine for its members that includes a poetry page, senior gangsters’ fishing diaries and a message from the boss.
Unlike their underworld counterparts elsewhere, the yakuza are not illegal and each of the designated groups, like the Yamaguchi-gumi, have their own headquarters, with senior members dishing out business cards.
They have historically been tolerated by the authorities and are routinely glamorized in fanzines and manga comics. However, periodic crackdowns have gained momentum, and there is evidence the mob’s appeal is waning.
The number of people belonging to yakuza groups fell to an all-time low last year, slipping below the 60,000-member mark for the first time on record, police said last month.
An increasingly poor public image and Japan’s flaccid economy have made gangsters’ lives difficult, which has made membership less attractive for potential recruits, experts said.
The Web site, which looks outdated, is an attempt to counter the yakuza’s image as “anti-social forces” — the police euphemism for them — by showing how neighborly its members are, experts say.
One page shows men collecting litter along the banks of the Toga River near the Yamaguchi-gumi’s headquarters in Kobe.
Police said they could not immediately confirm the Web site was made by the Yamaguchi-gumi.
IDENTITY: A sex extortion scandal involving Thai monks has deeply shaken public trust in the clergy, with 11 monks implicated in financial misconduct Reverence for the saffron-robed Buddhist monkhood is deeply woven into Thai society, but a sex extortion scandal has besmirched the clergy and left the devout questioning their faith. Thai police this week arrested a woman accused of bedding at least 11 monks in breach of their vows of celibacy, before blackmailing them with thousands of secretly taken photos of their trysts. The monks are said to have paid nearly US$12 million, funneled out of their monasteries, funded by donations from laypeople hoping to increase their merit and prospects for reincarnation. The scandal provoked outrage over hypocrisy in the monkhood, concern that their status
Trinidad and Tobago declared a new state of emergency on Friday after authorities accused a criminal network operating in prisons across the country of plotting to kill key government officials and attack public institutions. It is the second state of emergency to be declared in the twin-island republic in a matter of months. In December last year, authorities took similar action, citing concerns about gang violence. That state of emergency lasted until mid-April. Police said that smuggled cellphones enabled those involved in the plot to exchange encrypted messages. Months of intelligence gathering led investigators to believe the targets included senior police officers,
A disillusioned Japanese electorate feeling the economic pinch goes to the polls today, as a right-wing party promoting a “Japanese first” agenda gains popularity, with fears over foreigners becoming a major election issue. Birthed on YouTube during the COVID-19 pandemic, spreading conspiracy theories about vaccinations and a cabal of global elites, the Sanseito Party has widened its appeal ahead of today’s upper house vote — railing against immigration and dragging rhetoric that was once confined to Japan’s political fringes into the mainstream. Polls show the party might only secure 10 to 15 of the 125 seats up for grabs, but it is
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr is to meet US President Donald Trump this week, hoping Manila’s status as a key Asian ally would secure a more favorable trade deal before the deadline on Friday next week. Marcos would be the first Southeast Asian leader to meet Trump in his second term. Trump has already struck trade deals with two of Manila’s regional partners, Vietnam and Indonesia, driving tough bargains in trade talks even with close allies that Washington needs to keep onside in its strategic rivalry with China. “I expect our discussions to focus on security and defense, of course, but also
RSS