Coming Events
Contemporary Culture
crime
Dark Side of the Sun
Featured
Organized Crime
Photo Essays
Pop Culture
Yakuza
It’s a hand grenade! Pretty poetic, don’t you think? I heard the term last week when a cop was discussing a series of incidents in Fukuoka Prefecture in which the trucks of a landscape gardening company had grenades tossed inside them while the drivers were away, none of which exploded.
It seems like a very evocative word for those little instruments of mass destruction. Of course, I probably seemed like an idiot asking, “Why would yakuza throw fruit inside a truck? Does a pineapple have some sort of cultural significance?”
Sometimes a pineapple is just a pineapple; sometimes, it’s a grenade.
Hi Jake !
I am writing a book on the Yakuza game series and I wanted to know if there are any specific terms for the second tier and third tier groups in the yakuza group structure ?
Thank you so much for your time and help !
Best Regards,
一次団対
二次団対
三次団体
Some groups have a more lateral structure. The Yamaguchi-gumi tends to follow a pyramid. Allegedly there were even 4th tier groups at one time but that’s sort of an academic point.