"One thing I noticed early on with [Yakuza] life was how subtle everything was."
- Thread starter zerozero
- Start date
I actually heard somewhere that Yakuza roots are from Chinese Triads and that alot of the major bosses are originally from Chinese heritage and they copied alot of their swag... but threw in some distinct Japanese culture in their over the years... is their any truth to that?
Broke Wave
The GOAT
People always exaggerate the foreign gangs and criminal organizations...
OOOH the Yakuza!!
The TRIADS!! Oh dear!
You think any of them could fukk with BMF?
Meech woulda had 9 crazy nikkas shootin up the temple 
OOOH the Yakuza!!
The TRIADS!! Oh dear!
You think any of them could fukk with BMF?
Meech woulda had 9 crazy nikkas shootin up the temple 
People always exaggerate the foreign gangs and criminal organizations...
OOOH the Yakuza!!
The TRIADS!! Oh dear!
You think any of them could fukk with BMF?
TrueEpic08
Dum Shiny
Not really. A lot of them come historically from the lowest classes of Edo period Japan, peddlers of counterfeit goods, gamblers, etc., with a lot of burakumin-level Japanese filling out the numbers (they're basically the equivalent of dalits in India- groups within society designated for ostracization due to the fact that they worked in trades related to death and impurities. These were the undertakers, body disposal experts, butchers, executioners waste removers, etc.).
Their rituals and the like come from their roots as tekiya (peddlers) or bakuto (gamblers) and the status that they struggled to attain from their low classes (the removal of sections of fingers for failure, insubordination and the like, come from the way that Japanese swords are held, and has its roots in the legitimation of the tekiya in the Edo period, which came with the ability to carry wakizashi freely), and modern-day yakuza will favor the rituals and customs of one over the other depending on the origins of that specific group.
However, quite a few Zainichi Koreans end up as yakuza (something like 30%) due to the heinous discrimination that they face in Japanese society, which allows the burakumin rooted yakuza to identify with them due to a shared outsider status.