>Without organized crime, crime would be rampant! We need ruthless criminals to illegally control things because the police are useless!Why is this such a common theme in Anime and Manga? I thought Japanese people respected the police and government.
>>287287259>why doesn't this organisation of killers turn themselves in to the policeI'm not sure what you expect.
>>287287259It was pretty weird how Pokemon tried to treat fucking loan sharks as sympathetic good guys in Legends ZA. To the point that a character even says that the loan shark boss (who was raised by a super-villain who tried to genocide the world) should run for mayor.
>>287287307For the organization of killers to be treated as evil people who do evil things because they're violent greedy psychos who don't give a shit about human life, not for the author to try and whitewash them.
Shikata ga nai I guess we gotta bow to the Yakuza that's just how it's been
>>287287403Violent greedy psychos justify their own behaviour. They aren't going to call themselves bad they'll either convince themselves they are doing good or say the victims deserve it.
>>287287259>Why is this such a common theme in Anime and Manga?Because the Yakuza have been using that excuse to continue to exist in a pretty powerful and influential position in their society up until pretty recently.
>>287287259not allowed to just kill criminals anymore
>>287287259Japan is second only to China for most Civil Wars, has the world record for most war crimes, and basically only act docile when you remove literally all weapons from them (Tokugawa Shogunate era and post WW2 era)They are not sane.
>>287287259Millenial Japs are witnessing the death of the Yakuza and are feeling sympathetic towards an evil that they have never suffered fromThe Golden Age of Yakuza was horribleThe entire Namek arc was made as a blatant metaphor for the Yakuza and the land sharks that terrorized Toriyama's hometownGovernment crackdown was justified\They give you a sob story about how Yakuzas were honorable and how their deaths led to a rise in crimeBut they don't tell you about how there is now less cases of loan/land sharks, government collusion, and entire prostitution rings wherein women from poor countries get promised a job in Japan only to be forced into sex trade and be their drug mulesArrest each and every single one of them
>>287288113
>>287287259This is what the CIA unironically believes, anon.
>>287288189Living on an island nation seems to do that to people, Brits and by extension Australians aren't known to be normal people either
>>287287355They had bigger fish to fry compared to some low life loan shark.
I ran into one in Tokyo. Never been more scared in my life. People think Japan is safe, but it really isn't.
>>287287259yakuza propaganda
>>287287259Is called romantization, you can see It in every mafia movie/show
>>287289424Most Western mafia shows still ultimately portray the criminals as criminals who are ultimately a detriment to society though. They may sometimes be sympathetic for one reason or another, and often they're given sad backstories that explain why they're criminals, but their criminal enterprises are still depicted as a bad thing. Breaking Bad didn't have a scene where somebody said "and that's why drug dealers are good for the community!" You're not supposed to think that Tony Soprano is a noble man.
>>287287259Sakamoto Days has a very fucked up view on morality. The main character refuses to kill anymore, but other characters who are meant to be "good guys" casually kill people all the time. The entire concept of the JAA and their whole assassin society is just fucked up.
>>287287259The Yakuza shilling one of my least favorite aspects of the Wano arc. Like, making people root for "good" pirates is easy enough because they embody freedom. But the Yakuza are the antithesis of freedom, they're all of the tyranny of a government but with just the crime and none of the positives.
>>287288325The Yakuza still exist, the corruption still exists, the crime still exists, its just more underground than ever but I wouldn't expect a nihongophile who never once taken a step into Japan to know this.>>287287259The Cops are "respected" like the Diet is, but its an open secret they choose to not go after crime and/or go after victims if they try and report something.Sex crimes are actually super prevalent, particularly child molestation, but Japan thinks its "icky" to talk about it so the police choose to ignore cases of it happening. It also threatens to affect their birth rate and economy which is all the more reason to not go after it. And if you talk about how you were assaulted, people will publicly ostracize you because they don't want to be associated with the crime. Worse yet if you name your assaulter even if they've been convicted and found guilty, because they can turn around and sue you for "besmirching theit honor".In regards to the Yakuza themselves, mostly romanticism. The Yakuza were fucking bad, but unless you were super poor, they wouldn't bother you. And if you had money, they could take care of problems for you.For a country like Japan that is still very much in the grips of their Buddhist class heirarchy where people don't associate based on last names, lineages can get you hired or barred from an industry, and political marriages are still like 15% of all marriages happening, they were useful to have around.
>>287290670Cart before the horse, the Yakuza were an extension of the Japanese Government, that became heavily integrated ibto Japanese politics during the Showa Reconstruction Era. They kept a "lid" on petty crime, while facilitating the highly profitable organized crime that let people ibdulge in vice behind prying eyes, which helped maintain face and social hygiene in a highly unsanity era.
>>287290670With revolutionary type stuff it’s a bit easier to write since in the history of the real world it’s pretty common that criminals organizations helped over throw the difference in real life is most of these guys turned over and were given government jobs or were taken out if they refused to play ball with the new leaders.
>>287287259People are more sympathetic towards criminals in general everywhere in the world because people do not comprehend danger.
>>287287259This page doesn't even make sense. Most crimes don't get solved due to lack of evidence, especially if the victims are the poor and marginalized and thus the police have no real incentive to bother. The poor and marginalized who are victims of crime wouldn't be able to afford to hire assassins.
>>287287259Not sure about Japan but if you live in a society where the system utterly and completely fails to punish criminals like most Western societies, typically you'd romanticize the ones that have organization and a degree of honor over the ones stabbing people randomly because the judge let them go free after their previous 14 offenses.
>>287287259It’s true. America went to shit when the mafia went under in the 70s. Now criminals run all the top companies and there’s no competition from the bottom.
>>287293631That is not Japan at all, in Japan if you get arrested, you're basically guilty until proven innocent. Drugs and violent crimes are stamped down on hard, although they are infamous for being too lenient on sex crimes.
>>287287259it's bullshit and has been true only for societies where central government can't get shit done. was true for most post soviet countries in 90s for an example but those people become blight on society when country manages to stand on its legs.
Which is better criminals or corruption?
>>287287259Because being brutally tortured and killed by the Yakuza is still preferrable to the hell that is the Japanese prison system.
>>287288325I too played the Yakuza series.
>>287293774Trick question, where there's criminals there's corruption and where there's corruption there's criminals.
>>287291251>Buddhist class heirarchyoxymoron
>>287287259Why, indeed...........I don't know...really, I don't..stop asking...
It's objectively correct. Ask around Las Vegas. All the old-timers lament that the gangbangers and bums started getting more uppity when the mob stopped openly running the city.
>>287294498It is very much not objectively correct. Tell that to all the Mexican towns terrorized by the Narcos.
>>287294650The mob and the yakuza are not the narcos
>>287294217real Buddhism has never been tried.
>>287290377hell shishiba (blonde guy in op)'s introduction was him murdering a waiter at a restaurant for serving him a dish that had too much onions in it.
>>287294776I laughed.But taking things seriously, it kinda stops being Buddhism as soon as it's mandated in some way. Societal structures are their own thing.
>>287287259Organized crime is bad, but history has genuinely shown that unorganized crime is worse. Typically organization crime arises out of the collapse of feudalism. Thats how it happened in places like Japan and Sicily. You have an established social order built around lords as authority figures, protectors, and mediators. Then the feudalism ends and the nobles stop filling that role, but the people who live there now have a vacuum in their society that is no longer being filled. Problems that used to be solved by appealing to the local lord now simply go unanswered, and the newly establishment governments lack the power and social tradition needed to step in and solve these themselves. Yakuza, mafias, etc were the societal figures that stepped up into the vacant position of 'local lord' to take care of problems for the community, even if it was illegal for them to do so. This is why the default and iconic mob practice is the protection racket, because that was the first and most fundamental basis of their power stemming from a time when it wasn't just a racket: when people genuinely did need protection and no one else was providing it. Of course, over time the post-feudal governments get their shit together and the mafia is no longer needed to fill the gap. But the power structure and the loyalties survive, evolve, and become the crime organizations we know and love.
>>287294705The only reason the Yakuza and the Italian Mafia aren't like the cartels is because of the weakness of the Mexican government. If left unopposed, the Yakuza and the mob would become just as bad.
>>287287259Because that's literally the Yakuza, Japanese art is just reflecting Japanese reality
>>287288422>Don't you see? Criminal organization membership is declining because it's illegal to be a member of criminal organizations.The Japanese can be very funny without trying. I know it's true, but then why don't the Yakuza just lie about being Yakuza?
>>287293731That's what he said lol
>>287294836Buddhist temples and their bureaucracy over their "parishes" were integral to keeping track of undesirable demographics, like the Eta/Burakumin, something that continued into the modern era (though perhaps not any more).Religion with any sort of group cohesion to it will always end up coopted by the political or ruling structure. Just how these things go.
>>287290377>>287294830Does "Sakamoto" mean something in Japanese? The cat in Nichijou was named "Mr. Sakamoto"
>>287288422A shame that we stopped getting updates on this series. Only the first 3 volumes have been translated.
>>287295954Saka means slope and moto means base. Like the peasant that lived at the foot of a hill. Most of the common nip last names are basically where in the village the peasant lived.
>>287295327Nah, there's definitely some racial shit at play. The cartels are regressing to their Aztec roots, whereas Japan has always respected the idea of honor and civility even during the most violent eras
>>287295327I don't think thats true. There is a significant cultural divide between the two in mentality. Yakuza/Sicilian mob style organizations are fundamentally founded on protecting a community, and then grew into being protector-owners of that community, and then finally petty kings who can do what they want BECAUSE of the self-myth of them providing an essential service. It grows more corrupt in increments, but the foundational myth is always there, and these types of organizations still see themselves as part of the community that they rule over. Because once they get too far removed from that central myth they spin out of control and burn out, having broken the social contract that their rank and file members believe in and their business model depends on. The community protects the mob as much as the mob protects the community.Cartel organizations, meanwhile, have their roots based not in community but fear and power. They crave strength and brutality, because the world around them is brutal and they need to be strong enough to be brutal back. They'd rather be the aggressor than the victim, which is why they are quick to violence and that violence has to be total. This is also why the cartels eat themselves and each other, because that brutal competition is internal as well as external: mafia and yakuza infighting is typically more restrained and motivated by rivalries or business. Cartel violence is a matter of opportunity and inevitability. Killing your way up the chain of command is not just possible but encouraged in cartels in a way that just isn't true in more loyalty-based crime organizations. If you tried to become the new yakuza boss by killing the old one, that shit usually wouldn't fly. There would be too many other people in the organization that refused to accept that, you'd be forced to purge the ranks of loyalists and by the end of that civil war you'd be weak.
>>287287259In the last few decades since the Japanese government cracked down on the Yakuza both directly and indirectly by going after the crimes that bring them money, crime in Japan has increasingly been taken over by less organized, less controllable, and mostly foreign crime organizations. The Yakuza were never as honorable and helpful as their myths said they were, but what will fill the vacuum they left behind will probably become even more of a headache for the government.
>>287287259It's the criminals arguing for a system that supports them. Why are you taking this seriously?
>>287287259you're probably taking it out of context, it is just criminals justifying their role in society
>>287295537It's not illegal, though. There are just harsh economic sanctions.
>>287288325>poor countriesIt happened to American women too. They made a movie about it.
>>287289655Society is the man, though. They step on your neck every day even if the threat of violence is more distant. Neither is good, and the idea of jlm profiting from a conflict between them and anything else is tantalizing.
>>287296947People keep saying this, but in practice crime rates keep going down. Plus, foreign criminals have a much harder time gaming the system than the Yakuza, who used to have tons of cops and politicians in their pocket. Foreign criminals may be a "headache", but they're much easier to stamp down on than the Yakuza at their peak.
>>287291517Sounds like Spanish pirates.
>>287296106>whereas Japan has always respected the idea of honor and civility even during the most violent erasTell me you know nothing about Japanese history without telling me you know nothing about Japanese history.
>>287297084In context, you're clearly meant to take what the characters are saying at face value. These guys are criminals, but they're supporting characters who are on good terms with the protagonists. If the author expected us to disagree with these statements, then one of the good guys would have made it clear that these guys are wrong.
>>287293748>true only for societies where central government can't get shit done.Or when the government doesn't want to get shit done. Like everywhere today.
>>287294858>over time the post-feudal governments get their shit together and the mafia is no longer needed to fill the gap.In actuality, cities today have a lot more crime than in the past because government police is just dogshit at keeping crime down compared to just letting local communities handle it.
>>287299365hey I do get the sentiment but government in that case is the biggest criminal organization out there. they are bigshots so it's in their interest for you to be safe from petty criminals because it would directly affect their purse. they are even applying 50% tax on your ass.
>>287287355Especially bad since even though it's played for laughs, the Rust Syndicate conned a fucking teenager into a terrible contract, and they only got out of debt because of the main character doing a bunch of favors for Corbeau.
>>287299646>In actuality, cities today have a lot more crime than in the pastSauce? As far as I can tell, crime rates have steadily been going down in the West for years, aside from a brief spike due to COVID.
>>287287259If you allowed teenagers to wield weapons and pay them to take out enemies of the government it might work out pretty well
>>287293774criminals
>>287296106Beyond what >>287298757 already implicitly alluded to about Japan not being the bastion of honor and civility you think they were (they had ritual headhunters and beheadings and shit like samurai testing their swords on random passerbys), the Aztec also a lot of the same concepts around honor and etiquette and intellectualism that people wank off Japan or Chivalrous knights for having.Nahuatl (the Aztec language) had a whole series of increasingly flowery and lyrical class based dialects the higher status and more formal the social context was, nobles and kings were expected to be intellectuals who recited poetry and did rhetorical public speeches in addition to being warriors, and pretty much every Spanish conquistador and friar who regularly interacted with them praised their social order and etiquette, moral virtues, etc (in addition to their cities and art, see pic) even if they decried their sacrifices and cannibalismThe Aztec doing sacrifices didn't prevent them from being cultured and high brow any more then bushido and chivalry didn't stop the Japanese and Medieval Europeans from killing people in different horrible ways.
