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First ( Division of Boryokudan and YAKUZA movie are popular )
Boryokudan, is a general term for gang group, is an antisocial group who aimed to achieve their purpose by using violence or intimidation. Boryokudan is known as YAKUZA all over the world by the influence of movies mainly.
‘Outrage Coda’ which will screen from October 7th, 2017 was selected as closing work or the last movie to be shown on Venice International Film Festival this year. It proves that YAKUZA movies are still popular all over the world.
The word, YAKUZA comes from the Japanese traditional gamble game, Hanahuda and the minimum point on that game. In the game, the winner is determined by the last numeral of the total points he/she gathered from adding all 3 numbers. The higher the last numeral is the better. For example, if the three cards are 8, 9 and 3, the total is 20. In the number 20, the last numeral is 0. This is the minimum point. These cards, 8, 9 and 3 are read ‘Ya’, ‘Ku’ and ‘Za’ in Japanese.
Meanwhile, social dropouts generally try to get money by doing antisocial activity since they want to survive. The Game losers look like social dropouts. Therefore, we call the antisocial group ‘Yakuza’.
There is almost no difference between Boryokudan and Yakuza. Basically they are synonymous. However, media such as newspaper and TV treat the word ‘Yakuza’ as a bad word and prefer ‘Boryokudan’ instead.
The law to prevent unfair activities by the member of the Boryokudan, Anti-Organized Crime Law was enacted in 1991. Unfair activities mean below;
- The Activity to require hush money
Require hush money means when a company or organization operates illegally or has scandalous activities with heterosexual. - The Activity to require Mandatory fee
Require Mandatory fee – this is for regular or general people who wish to operate and open a business in a Boryokudan territory have to pay a mandatory fee to the Boryokudans to be able to do so.
There’re 27 lists including the above mentioned as prohibition of Anti-Organized Crime Law.
On October 30th, 2012, The Anti-Organized Crime Law was amended, which greatly affected the regulations of illegal requirements by Boryokudan. This amendment was strictly imposed.
By strengthening its regulations, some of the resources for Boryokudan were stopped, it made each Boryokudan seek for ways on how to survive. As a result, it caused conflict among the opinions within the Boryokudan members. Then it also caused break-up of the Boryokudan.
The biggest Boryokudan, Yamaguchi-gumi was divided to two, Kobe Yamaguchi-gumi and the original Yamaguchi- gumi on August 2015. In addition, on May 2017, Kobe Yamaguchi-gumi was divided to two again, Ninkyo Yamaguchi-gumi and Kobe Yamaguchi-gumi. Finally, the original Yamaguchi-gumi was divided into three groups.
After the separation, the conflict and fight of these groups often occur such as killing incidents, which threatens the lives of the citizens.
On September 12th, 2017, an incident occurred raiding the top of Ninkyo Yamaguchi-gumi at the residences area in Nagata-ku, Kobe-city. A man who regards as the bodyguard of the Ninkyo Yamaguchi-gumi was killed during the raid.
After the incident, battle between Boryokudans are getting a lot of media attention.
Question
You can hear a conversation between two people after you play the sound. Answer the questions about the conversation.
Sound 1
Conversation 1
You can see the conversation script after you click here.Question 1
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Conversation 2
You can see the conversation script after you click here.Question 2
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Conversation 3
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What do you think about Yakuza?
Let’s talk about it with your friend.
How is the situation in other countries?
Ask your teacher or a foreigner about it.
Example
- Is there a Boryokudan office near your house?
- What do you think about the security after the Anti-Organized Crime Law was amended?
- Do you like Yakuza movies?
- Which actor played the best Yakuza in Yakuza movies?