Japanese children from Kobe came across a tattooed type of Santa recently when they received gifts from Japan’s largest Yakuza gang, Yamaguchi-gumi, in December last year. The event took place in the gang’s Kobe-based headquarters where members gave away toys, snacks and thousands of yen.
As part of the end-of-year celebrations, it is usually customary in Japan for children to receive money as presents, a tradition that is known as Otoshidama.
In this case, the gang handed over monetary gifts that came up to 30,000 yen ($330).
Local authorities believed that this strange act might be an attempt to highlight the gang’s leadership.
As it is, the cash gifts were packaged in envelopes that contained either the name of the main gang leader, Shinobu Tsukasa, or his immediate subordinate, Kiyoshi Takayama.
Some figures also believe these actions were actually a PR move where they were placating locals prior to the pending release of a gang member.
Whatever the case, a lot of Kobe residents viewed the gang favorably.
The 40,000 member gang first won over a number of folks when they distributed food and water to hard-hit victims in the aftermath of the 1995 Kobe earthquake.
In the words of one of the local journalists: “It’s probably difficult for people outside Kobe to understand, but locals say that Kobe is one of the safer cities in Japan because of the Yamaguchi-gumi.”
mango
what is up with the tattooed kids??!?
time
that's totally wrong with the children tattoos. some form of child abuse!
ChimChim
i rly hope thats photoshop
fuckingdumbasses
you guys are retarded.
Sephi
I agree with the above.
This is actually kind of a cool story!
arks
First three posters are idiots
Try reading the whole thing next time
ChimChim
suck my balls
nam
uh, if you look closely, the first pic has spiderman and the second what seems to be picachu. they are not real,duh!
an excon bro
those kids are growin’ up gangstah
Sig
You can see that its the same kid, and he have different tattos on the same place in the pictures. Its fake 🙂
hatter
one is a japanese kid and the other looks like he could be mixed they are definitely not the same kid. this is, however, photoshopped.
bigkatslt
These kids are one and same and it is not chlid abuse it is a ink that is temperary leave them the f**** alone
hatter
they are two different kids, but this fake your right. funny how the kids get more comments that the article
Kevin
Those kids are Yakuza material waitig to happen! s far as the gang is concerned, i think it's pretty decent of those guys to help out the locals whenever they do.