The Guardian reports a "spectacular" underworld turf war is brewing among the criminal syndicate street gangs in the biggest metropolis in the world, Tokyo. This story comes with a photo of yakuza members displaying their gang
tattoos: intricate, large, and filled with imagery from Japanese mythology, they're somehow familiar. The story says:
Japan's top yakuza don, who spent 13 years in prison in the 1970s for stabbing to death a rival with a sword, immediately joined hands with the Kokusui-kai, a much smaller gang based in Tokyo that had leased territory to the Yamaguchi-gumi's fiercest enemies, including the Sumiyoshi-kai.
There are fears that this week's shootings could be the result of the Yamaguchi-gumi's attempts to seize back the leases in an underworld version of a hostile corporate buyout.
Sounds like a movie, kinda. Or a video game. At National Geographic, Chris Rainier has an image from the yakuza tattoo culture.