The ENTIRE History of the YAKUZA ⏐ 1604 - 2024

Japan, 1604: After a civil war that lasted for more than a century, legendary Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu did the impossible by uniting a country that seemed like it would be stuck in conflict for eternity. This unification was supposed to bring with it a new age of peace for the approximately 20 million people that lived on the country's countless islands at the time, a goal which was, for the most part, achieved successfully.

This peace, however, brought unemployment to nearly half a million soldiers whose livelihood depended on their country’s seemingly endless hunger for war and conflict. These soldiers were, of course, called ‘Samurai’. With their beloved homeland at peace, they had to find different ways of bringing food to the table, some of them becoming merchants, bureaucrats or even scholars. But not all of these battle-hardened warriors were ready to accept a peaceful life off the battlefield, which led them to pursue a lifestyle that more closely resembled their behavior pre-unification. Robbing, stealing and murdering became their new livelihood, which in the public’s eye turned them from strong, respected warriors into dreadful enemies of the people.

What these ex-Samurai did not know at the time was that through their actions, they would create an opposition group that was destined to become the precursor of modern Japan’s highly influential crime syndicates. These syndicates would become so influential, in fact, they would go on to become deeply involved in their nation’s politics, accumulate immeasurable fortunes and even plunge their own country into World War 2.

This is the ENTIRE history of the ‘Yakuza’!


MAIN SOURCES:

Book: “Yakuza: Japan’s Criminal Underworld” by Alec Dubro & David E. Kaplan

Book: “Tokyo Underworld: The Fast Times and Hard Life of an American Gangster in Japan” by Robert Whiting


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PATREON:

patreon.com/ANIKIhistory


CHAPTERS:

00:00 - Disclaimer
00:38 - Intro
03:03 - Origins
14:20 - Dark Ocean Society
31:49 - Rebirth
51:48 - The Kodama Years
01:17:49 - Downfall