When he was a young man, his parents returned to Korea, leaving him to earn a living alone in Japan: "At that time," Takayama said in 1998, "I had no choice but to join the Japanese gangster world.

For a yakuza boss, he was a remarkably public figure, often granting interviews to Japanese and foreign reporters for articles in which he always came off as a gentleman.

He even filed a lawsuit against the Shiga Prefectural Police for infringing on his rights to free expression.

Takayama campaigned publicly against the new laws, even writing a book on the subject, and the group launched a lawsuit challenging their constitutionality.

Takayama eventually faced pressure from outside and from within his group to drop the suit, but he refused to compromise.