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These astonishing photographs give an unprecedented glimpse inside the world of the Yakuza, the Japanese organised crime syndicates, known for their brutality, tattoos and strict code of honour - they make billions of pounds a year from arms trafficking, prostitution, illegal gambling and blackmail.

Belgian photographer Anton Kusters spent two years with a feared Yakuza crime family in Tokyo and was given intimate access to their secretive, and often violent, inner circle.The yakuza began as con artists and illegal bookmakers from the lowest social classes in the 1600s and developed into one of the most deadly and wealthy organised crime syndicates in the world.
Known for their brutality, members traditionally cover their bodies with intricate tattoos. They are known to cut off their own fingers as an 'apology' for offending their leaders and kumichos themselves have done the same to spare the life of one of their kobun.
There are thought to be nearly 100,000 Yakuza members in Japan. When they enlist in individual gangs they are taken to a secret location where they are trained in hand-to-hand combat and meditation.

More than 3,000 members of Japan's largest Yakuza gang recently split off from the group - sparking fears of a bloody turf war in the western city of Kobe. In the 1980s, at least 500 people were arrested and 20 people killed when a similar yakuza feud spiralled out of control.
In his own words, from his book 'Odo Yakuza Tokyo', Anton tells of the two years he spent embedded with a Yakuza crime family in Tokyo.

It quickly became a subtle story. The first time I saw a Yakuza member in the streets of Kabukicho, Tokyo, I was sitting in a bar having a beer with my brother. Up until then, we had the same idea as everyone else: crazy tattooed gangsters running around with swords and guns killing each other every chance they got. But this guy was dressed up in a suit and behaving politely, straight and confident. He walked the street literally as if he owned it, and people bowed and greeted him along his way. We talked to him and found out his name was Souichirou.
A little later, he smiles when we ask him the question straight up. He's an upper-level street boss of the borough his family controls, and he has an office smack in the middle of it: 'We seldom do that anymore nowadays, killing' – note the word 'seldom'.
We ask about me photographing him and his family, long term. He agrees to start negotiations.
Eventually, it will take us a full year of intense and difficult meetings to finally get permission.

That year, spring 2009, is the first time I go out the photograph them.
It happens to be a five hour early morning ride to the prison at Niigata, where two members are due to be released that day.
The family drives out to welcome them back. At 4 a.m., as dawn breaks, I ride along in the car that drives Nitto-san, a senior boss of the family. It is cold.


Small in posture, his gaze penetrates right through me as Souichirou instructs me to greet him first. Say 'yoroshiku onegai shimasu'. Bow.
His handshake is firm. It seems like he immediately knows what I'm made of, and as he turns away to attend to other business, I get further instructed the basics of behaving, what to say, where to stand.
They don't interfere with my images in any way. Everything is so subtle.
The details I all see in the corner of my eye, cufflinks, groomed hands, perfect haircuts, scars, cars, tailored suits, leather shoes, missing digits, bodyguards, glimpses of tattoos… everything screams 'control', and yes, if there ever were a scale for air thick with tension, this surely would be the epitome of it. And for those who don't, there is always that place in the mountains, several hours away, from which one does not return.

Slowly I'm starting to realize that - beside the obvious criminal element - Yakuza might be more about a way of life.
It appears to me like the young ones are seeking a sense of belonging, while the senior bosses see it as their task to instill traditional values upon their followers.
Many times individuals are opportunistic to gain 'positive press' in the outside world, but largely it seems like they seldom care what happens around them.


As they have mastered to walk the fine line of doing both good and bad, they have carved a path for themselves that is so intertwined with Japan as a country, that projections sometimes describe a society without Yakuza to be worse than with.
In February of 2010, one of the most important bosses of the family suffered a fatal stroke. His death was imminent. Home at the time, I pretty much dropped everything, and jumped on a plane to Tokyo.
Even though he had always kept very much to himself, I had observed, gotten to know, and photographed the man for over 12 months.
To see him lying there in that hospital bed, helpless in a coma with no chance of recovery, felt very… human.
I went to visit him three days in a row. The third night, at 2.30am, he died.
His girlfriend and older brother allowed me to attend the traditional Buddhist funeral that was about to take place. At that point, most images I
made seemed too intimate to publish. Perhaps time would tell. Perhaps, in the greater context of the story, they'd find their place. It was cold those days in February, and I was under-dressed.


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3282704/Prostitutes-guns-tattoos-amputated-pinkies-Extraordinary-intimate-photos-inside-Japan-s-fearsome-yakuza-crime-underworld.html

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Kini Eleyi Koor Wa ni sin

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