Fearing to confront them himself, he deputizes a hotel accountant, Suzuki (Yasuo Daichi) and a bellboy and former college sumo-club member, Wakasugi (Takehiro Murata).

The hapless pair are no more daring than their employer, however, and their tentative attempts to address the problem fail until they meet Mahiru Inoue (Nobuko Miyamoto), a lawyer who specializes in dealing with the yakuza.

The word "minbo" is a contraction of minji kainyū bōryoku (民事介入暴力), literally translated as "violent intervention in civil affairs".

It was a technique utilized by the yakuza following the crackdown of traditionally "victimless" crimes of drugs, gambling, and prostitution in the early 1980s, and exploited the Japanese reluctance towards confrontation in order to "gently extort" money from otherwise innocent individuals by making a scene with implied threats of violence over trivial matters.

[4] The brutality of the attack, combined with Itami's popularity and the success of Minbo, led to a public outcry and a government crackdown against yakuza activity.