[3] The yakuza are known for their strict codes of conduct, their organized fiefdom nature, and several unconventional ritual practices such as yubitsume, or amputation of the left little finger.

[4] Members are often portrayed as males with heavily tattooed bodies and wearing fundoshi, sometimes with a kimono or, in more recent years, a Western-style "sharp" suit covering them.

[6] However, this number has drastically dropped, a decline attributed to changing market opportunities and several legal and social developments in Japan that discourage the growth of yakuza membership.

[8] The yakuza still regularly engage in an array of criminal activities, and many Japanese citizens remain fearful of the threat these individuals pose to their safety.

[9] There remains no strict prohibition on yakuza membership in Japan today, although many pieces of legislation have been passed by the Japanese government aimed at impeding revenue and increasing liability for criminal activities.

The island of Kyushu (and particularly its northern prefecture Fukuoka) has a reputation for being a large source of yakuza members,[18] including many renowned bosses in the Yamaguchi-gumi.

This ritual is not exclusive to the yakuza – it is also commonly performed in traditional Japanese Shinto weddings, and may have been a part of sworn brotherhood relationships.

[28] The yakuza is populated almost entirely by men and the very few women who are acknowledged are the wives of bosses, who are referred to by the title ane-san (姐さん, older sister).

These tattoos, known as irezumi in Japan, are still often "hand-poked", that is, the ink is inserted beneath the skin using non-electrical, hand-made, and handheld tools with needles of sharpened bamboo or steel.

[citation needed] The total number of yakuza members and quasi-members peaked at 184,100 in 1963, and then continued to decline due to police crackdowns.

[48] In the Philippines Yakuza trick girls from impoverished villages into coming to Japan by promising them respectable jobs with good wages.

[51] In 1989, Susumu Ishii, the Oyabun of the Inagawa-kai (a well-known yakuza group) bought US$255 million worth of Tokyo Kyuko Electric Railway's stock.

[54] In the wake of the 1995 Kobe earthquake, the Yamaguchi-gumi yakuza group, who are based in the area, mobilized to provide disaster relief services (including the use of a helicopter).

Media reports contrasted this rapid response with the much slower pace at which the Japanese government's official relief efforts took place.

[55][56] Following the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami on 11 March 2011, the yakuza sent hundreds of trucks filled with food, water, blankets, and sanitary accessories to aid the people in the affected areas of the natural disaster.

[57] CNN México said that although the yakuza operates through extortion and other violent methods, they "[moved] swiftly and quietly to provide aid to those most in need.

The yakuza identified these gangs as useful partners due to the constant stream of Vietnamese cafe shoot-outs and home invasion burglaries throughout the 1980s and early 1990s.

In New York City, they appear to collect finder's fees from Russian, Irish and Italian gang members and businessmen for guiding Japanese tourists to gambling establishments, both legal and illegal.

[citation needed] In 2001, the FBI's representative in Tokyo arranged for Tadamasa Goto, the head of the group Goto-gumi, to receive a liver transplant at the UCLA Medical Center in the United States, in return for information of Yamaguchi-gumi operations in the US.

In addition to their presence in Southeast Asian countries such as Thailand, the Philippines, and Vietnam, yakuza groups also operate in South Korea, China, Taiwan, and in the Pacific Islands (mainly Hawaii).

The burakumin are the descendants of outcast communities which originated in the pre-modern, especially the feudal era, mainly those people with occupations which are considered tainted because they are associated with death or ritual impurity, such as butchers, executioners, undertakers, or leather workers.

[71] The Korean significance had been an untouchable taboo in Japan and one of the reasons that the Japanese version of Kaplan and Dubro's Yakuza (1986) had not been published until 1991 with the deletion of Korean-related descriptions of the Yamaguchi-gumi.

The law prohibited 27 acts by yakuza, including demanding hush money or donations, collecting debts and conducting land grabbing activities in an unjustified manner.

The law also made it illegal to demand and collect so-called mikajime-ryō (みかじめ料, Protection racket) from downtown restaurants and bars, which were the yakuza's main source of funding.

[85] In criminal cases, Nomura Satoru became the first "designated yakuza" (指定暴力団, Shitei Bōryokudan) boss to be sentenced to death under the employer liability clause on August 24, 2021.

They are also the basis for the 2019 BBC TV Series Giri/Haji, which features a character whose life is put in danger after he comes under suspicion for a murder tied to the yakuza.

The 2022 HBO Max series Tokyo Vice explores the dealings of the yakuza from the perspective of an American reporter Jake Adelstein.

Grand Theft Auto III features a yakuza clan that assists the protagonist in the second and third act after they cut their ties with the Mafia.

The yakuza derive most of their income from a casino, Kenji's, and are currently fighting to keep other gangs from peddling drugs in their territory while seeking to protect their activities from police interference.

A mission in the 2016 game, Hitman, set at a secluded mountaintop hospital, features a notorious yakuza lawyer and fixer as one of two targets to be assassinated.