There were two original Yakuza factions.There were two original Yakuza factions.

 

There were two original Yakuza factions.

The first, Tekiya, were common street peddlers and some of the lowest ranking members of Japanese society.

In the 17th century, they became organized and gradually shifted into organized crime.

The second group was Bakuto, the gamblers, who were shunned by almost all other members of Japanese society.

They also acted like loan sharks. It’s from the Bakuto that the name Yakuza comes from, as cards were one of their most significant sources of income.

Yakuza are viewed by some Japanese as a necessary evil, in light of their chivalrous facade, and the organizational nature of their crime is sometimes viewed as a deterrent to impulsive individual street crime. It is in part because of the dual nature of their relationship with police—as both criminals and sometimes humanitarians—and the idolization of criminal groups as “underdogs” in popular media that the Japanese police agency in the 1990s instated the name bōryokudan in an antigang law to reinforce the criminal nature of yakuza organizations. The Japanese government subsequently continued to impose stricter laws against criminal groups into the 21st century.