Gangster gals tame wild lions to become timid lambs
Life in Japan's underworld is never easy and certainly not as glamorous as legend makes it out to be, yet there's no shortage of women looking to become yakuza molls.
Hazuki has been married to a member of the mob for the past 15 years and thrives in her life as a yakuza wife.
"What got me about my husband now, a yakuza, is that he was a 'situation guy (he changed his behavior according to who he was with).' When I first got to know him, he came to my bar every few days, always accompanied by a couple of young toughs. He really stood out. Even when he went to the toilet, for instance, the two young punks would stand up and guard him, walking before even the hostess escorting him to the restroom. I thought to myself that this guy must be really important. Women slowly fall in love with the strong types," Hazuki tells Flash.
Hazuki says there can be some pretty hairy moments when married to a yakuza.
"Sometimes he gets called out for urgent meetings. This call could come at any time of the day or night and he's got to rush out to answer it. When he does, I get worried that he might get hurt or do something that'll get him sent to the nick. That makes things a little bit different to the regular family," she says.
But the gangster moll adds that her hubby's tough guy exterior isn't all it appears to be."He has his soft spots, too. If his oyabun (gang boss) tells him off, he becomes like a little kid and goes all timid. Just the other day he got a real tongue-lashing and spent the next day sprawled out on his bed, moping like an old lobster. He's normally as tough as nuts, but goes to pieces just at getting told off," the mother of one says. "When I see him at his weakest, it's when I know he really needs me. The young gang members call me 'Ane-san (Big Sister),' but I think I'm probably closer to a mom than a sister. My maternal instincts are stronger than most. You've gotta be pretty patient to put up with the lot of a yakuza wife."
Tomoko, a 19-year-old student, has spent much of her young life tied up to yakuza louts and she wouldn't have it any other way.
"When people go to the zoo, they don't go to see the lambs. Everybody likes the lions. But they're too scared to go near them. I'm not. I'm 19 and I've spent my life chasing after the lions," Tomoko tells Flash.
Tomoko says she encountered her first yakuza when she was just 13 and preparing for her junior high school entrance ceremony. There was a guy with dyed blonde hair in her class and she fell in love with him at first sight.
"We used to skip class together. He was in a biker gang and I used to ride on the back of his bike. It was a little town in (rustic) Fukushima Prefecture, so they still had biker gangs. He was only in junior high, too, but he was already an associate member of a yakuza gang at the time," Tomoko says. "He used to put on this hard front, but around me he didn't mind showing his weakness. He wanted me to baby him."
Tomoko says she and her young yakuza boyfriend first had sex when she was just 14, but the experience scared him more than her.
"He was petrified," she says. "He kept on asking me if it was really OK to do it. My lion turned into a little lamb."
Teenage Tomoko says she likes her mob lover when he's at his weakest.
"I liked the fact that I'm the only woman he'd show his weak side to. When he was about to come, he'd put on a face almost as though he was gonna cry. It made me want to hug him really tight. That's the real thrill of going out with a yakuza," Tomoko tells Flash. "I came to Tokyo and we had to break up. I went to work at a cabaret club and later fell in love with one of my customers. And, wouldn't you know it, he's a yakuza, too."