Every Level Of The Yakuza At Its Peak Explained

At six in the morning in Kobe, in 1962, you are on your hands and knees scrubbing a floor. Nobody pays you a single yen. And you are a member of the largest criminal organisation on earth. Everything you think you know about how this worked runs the wrong way. The money didn't flow down from a boss to his men — it climbed, rung by rung, from the man with nothing to the room at the top. In this video you'll walk all ten levels of that ladder, from the outsider who was never let in, to the unpaid apprentice, to the sworn brothers, the lieutenants, the accountants and lawyers most people have never heard of, and finally to the boss who turned out to be somebody else's child. Real ranks, real dates, real research from Peter Hill, Jake Adelstein, Jacob Raz and the National Police Agency's own numbers — and a closing question about which rung you're standing on right now. If this changed how you look at the word "family" on an office wall, leave a like, tell me in the comments where you think you're standing, and subscribe for more. #yakuza #japanesehistory #organizedcrime #japan #history #historyexplained #kobe #1963 #hierarchy #socialstructure #anthropology #sociology #documentary #educational #explainer #stickfigure #doodleanimation #truestory #historyfacts #powerstructures #economics #culture #japanhistory #everylevelexplained