Originally published at: Yakuza boss issues ominous threat when he was sentenced to death | Boing Boing
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This sounds like the seed of the plot for a horror-crime pulp film.
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Having had an unfortunate recent run-in with a member of a criminal gang, I’d go so far as thinking gangs are demonstrative of toxic masculinity at its worst. Their justifications are like pretzel-logic.
Assholes gonna asshole…
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What’s Japanese for “Time Is On My Side”?
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Indeed, I’d heard (unsure if this is actually true) that the grey area in which the Yakuza exists in society is sort of allowed because they heavily punish normal street thugs.
Where the Yakuza operates, random acts of violence and theft and such are not allowed to occur. When natural disasters occur, they are also often first responders with relief.
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I suspect a lot of that is the result of PR spin, much like how the Italian mafia has been romanticized in parts of American culture.
At the end of the day it’s still just a bunch of sociopaths who enrich themselves on the fruit of other people’s labor through violence and threat of violence.
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I watched a fascinating Vice documentary on the Yakuza a while back, and they’re increasingly becoming irrelevant, with their activities becoming less and less acceptable in modern Japanese society.
I may even have gotten there from here, honestly can’t remember, but yer tiz for your viewing pleasure:
Edit: Actually, I think I probably got there from a link in The Sunday Papers on Rock, Paper, Shotgun.
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whether or not the yakuza are on the decline, a veiled threat like this from the boss would have me watching my back for sure.
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Once sentenced to death, what do you do to “punish” a guy like this for making threats? When we kill you, we’ll kill you super-dead?
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Make sure you’re really most sincerely dead
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I’ve seen less convoluted stories in the Yakuza series of games, and those games have some seriously convoluted stories.
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Even more romanticized are the violent, murderous thugs that used to be endemic on the Western Frontier.
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At the end of the day it’s still just a bunch of sociopaths who enrich themselves on the fruit of other people’s labor through violence and threat of violence
Are we talking about gangs or politicians and CEOs?
ETA-Forgot the CEOs
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Move the execution date up (not viable in the USA because of mandatory appeals). Use solitary confinement (which most of the world recognizes as torture, but in the USA we are cool with that). Use a more painful form of death (not allowed in the USA, what with our commitment to avoiding " Cruel and Unusual Punishment" – I guess with emphasis on “and” since solitary is most definitely cruel, although not at all uncommon, so I guess allowed via being “usual”?)?
I suppose they could move the death sentence up. The inmate has no idea when that date is anyway. I doubt they’d change the method. Maybe just have the guards keep a closer eye on him?
Here’s a great explainer on the differences between the death penalty laws in the last two 1st world countries who still murder their citizens:
Death Row: Japan vs United States - What’s the Difference? - Bing video
TL;DR: they’re both barbaric.
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I can appreciate a good legal system that gives people fair chances - but these aren’t parking tickets… they are murders… and you’re guilty of those… so when you threaten the judge with a similar murder maybe we skip the appeal process and move right to the execution.
As an aside - just reading some Facebook posts directed at my Chief Health Director and others leading the pandemic fight - kinda blows my mind that people get away unscathed posting/saying these threats with zero retribution. I might chirp up about a politician’s folly that irks me, but I’m not going to advocate violence towards them. WTF is wrong with people.
A woman I love dearly, years ago, said she wished someone would pop Stephan Harper. I was so taken aback… I said well, we do need new leadership but I don’t wish ill upon him… she said no, he really needs to die… there’s shit you just don’t say out loud, no matter how intimate the moment.
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Hanging is the only method of execution in Japan. Death row prisoners are not told the date of execution in advance, and it can be years or even decades after they were sentenced. Given his age, Satoru Nomura might well die of natural causes first.
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Did you know that there is absolutely no correlation between “countries that practice capital punishment” and “countries that have lower murder rates”?
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