Former Yakuza VTuber Taro “Jailbird Taro” explains… “Horrible Jobs” that “Kyokudos” did in order to get ahead in life.
The atmosphere of the yakuza is so intense that just showing up at a train station can be newsworthy. Ordinary company employees rise through the ranks based on age and job performance, but the yakuza world has a slightly different tradition.
He is active as a virtual youtuber (VTuber) and speaks about the yakuza’s career path under the name of “Jail Taro,” which refers to a person who has been in prison many times.
Before the bubble economy,” he says, “advancement was completely based on popularity and power. Before the bubble economy, advancement was determined completely by popularity and power. People who were popular, like the chiefs of motorcycle gangs, rose rapidly in the ranks. After all, if you have the popularity to gather a large number of people, you also have power. That is the reason why many of the leaders of the big yakuza are from motorcycle gangs.
The yakuza world used to be a place where one’s popularity and power determined one’s career success, but that all changed with the bubble economy of the late Showa and early Heisei eras.
The bubble economy completely changed the yakuza world, and I was surprised,” he said. Everyone started making money from stocks and real estate. Until then, tattoos and a missing pinky finger were the status quo of the yakuza, but that changed drastically, with people growing their hair long, wearing ties, and brand-name clothes. When I asked him why, he said it was because he was popular (laughs).
The yakuza were making an unbelievable amount of money because the economy was booming and the prices of stocks and real estate were constantly rising. The money was a factor in their success, and they were willing to do anything to make a profit.
I heard that the head of one yakuza clan at the time was told to buy 3 million yen worth of stocks, but even then it was difficult for yakuza to buy stocks, and when he went to a brokerage firm, he was sometimes refused. However, there were no laws against yakuza at that time, so he harassed the employees of that branch tremendously and forced them to open an account to buy the shares.
The yakuza of the Showa period did such dangerous things as a matter of course. It is perhaps a natural consequence that their behavior was considered problematic and strict laws were made.
