Rainy Day Yakuza #10,001

I hate them. Most yakuza do. People get taken out when it rains — the rain washes away the blood, the trace evidence, the footprints, everything. You can’t hear a gunshot in the rain, you can’t hear the whoosh of a sword, you can’t even hear people walking behind you. Rain makes it dark, makes it hard for eyewitnesses to see anything. Makes it hard for you to see anything. And… if you’re holding an umbrella, you can’t react. You’re handicapped. We get killed on rainy days. And, of course, that’s also the day that, if you’re going to take someone out, you’d choose to do it. Maybe just snatch them off the empty streets. Take them somewhere else and kill them. If there’s a turf war going on, a downpour tells me someone is going to die.

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Welcome. This blog will help you find the latest information on the “other” Japan – that largely unknown to the foreign public. Topics such as organized crime (ヤクザ, the Yakuza) and other strange and pervasive mores and institutions will be brought to light.