AT a barbershop in Tokyo, yakuza gangster Tekisasu glances in the mirror at his meticulous new cut and thanks the hairdresser for the weekly trim crucial to his mobster trade.
Japan's yakuza operate an organised crime empire worth billions of dollars and have long dominated the country's drug rings, gambling dens and sex trade.
From precise haircuts to sharp suits, many mobsters try to project an image of menace and wealth, and barbers play a key role in crafting it.
"The yakuza are all about vanity," said Tekisasu, whose moniker means "enemy stabber", in an exclusive interview that took months to set up.
"The neater someone's appearance, the better his reputation becomes," said the 44-year-old active gangster allied to a major clan.
For Tekisasu and his fellow mobsters, barbershops also represent a break from the violent lifestyle they have chosen and an intensifying crackdown by authorities.
During his monthly, two-hour perming ritual — plus a weekly haircut that keeps the back and sides of his head shaven in a high "skin fade" — the tattooed gangster can stop watching his back.
Yakuza numbers dipped last year to a record low of 17,600 nationwide. But even as their forces shrink, the gangsters represent
a potent threat, with younger groups of thugs brought in to diversify their business, police warned in a recent report.
Still, Tekisasu's barber, who counts around 10 active yakuza among his repeat clientele, had no qualms about serving them.
"All I do is make them look cooler," said the 32-year-old, denying there was anything wrong in making dangerous gangsters appear more aggressive.
Despite their criminal activities, many people — including some of the gangsters themselves — hold romantic views of the yakuza's traditions, lifestyles and codes of honour.
The reality is often more mundane, with more and more rank-and-file mobsters said to grind out a living by targeting vulnerable people through crimes such as organised fraud.
Originally a gangsta rapper, Tekisasu delved into the yakuza world in his mid-20s, but was arrested in 2021, then jailed, before being released last year.
"I wish I could just live smiling, without hurting anyone or getting hurt. But that's not how things work in this world."
Yakuza face pressure to remain in the violent underworld, but they can and do choose to leave. An estimated 320 gangsters quit in 2024 thanks in part to efforts by authorities.
Under Tokyo's anti-yakuza laws, businesses are prohibited from knowingly "providing benefits" to mobsters to aid their activities.
Barbers who intentionally help yakuza clients maintain their looks are unlikely to violate the rules, provided the transactions are fair, according to retired anti-mafia detective Yuichi Sakurai.
But any preferential treatment, like "setting the haircut price excessively low", may constitute an illegal favour, he said.
In his decades-long career, the ex-detective noticed many mobsters "value frequent haircuts to retain their intimidating exteriors".
Far from being dismayed that gangsters frequent his parlour, Tekisasu's barber is proud that they trust his "uncompromising standards".
Following in the footsteps of his barber father, adept at a range of "bad-boy" haircuts, he has made punch perms his forte.
The tiny, rigid curls emerged in Japan in the 1960s and 1970s as a backlash against longer, Beatles-inspired male hairdos.
They have since found a devoted fanbase in manual labourers, teen delinquents and the yakuza.
"Punch perms are what I live for as a barber," said the gregarious shopkeeper, whose full-arm tattoos include depictions of scissors, a comb and a dryer.
While lore has it that yakuza gangsters found the punch perm's ultra-short length useful during brawls, Tekisasu said in his world, "fights don't usually involve hair-pulling".
"I simply like the punch perm because it's manly and cool."
Yakuza patronage involves risks, however.
"The last thing I want is for rival gangsters to run into each other here," Tekisasu's barber said.
The onus is thus on him to space their appointments apart.
But "once they leave the shop, whatever happens out there is going to happen. When they walk out the door, I don't talk to them anymore", he said.
The writer is from AFP
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