Photo by Shoko Takayasu/The Guardian in Gifu, Japan
Hi r/pics, this is Jake from The Guardian US. We wanted to share a photo from this story that we published about Mako Nishimura, who is possibly the only woman ever to have been a full-fledged yakuza.
From our story by Sean Williams:
In almost 40 years, Mako Nishimura never lost a fight. She told me this as if it were as obvious as night following day. Nishimura is 5ft-nothing and slight of build. She is also probably the only woman ever to have been a full-fledged yakuza, a member of Japan’s feared and rule-bound criminal underworld. She must have defeated many male gangsters. How, I asked her, did she do it? “First the legs,” she said, hands clasped, maintaining the calm demeanour of a village priest. “You cut him down with a club or a plank of wood.” Then you get to work.
Nishimura is no longer a member. She lives in a small, ground floor apartment near Gifu’s railway station, surrounded by plants and photos of the two sons whose adult lives she has – because of her criminal past and her drug addiction – mostly watched unfold from afar. When we met, across three days last autumn, Nishimura, 59, wore her hair in a dyed-blond ponytail, pulled through a rhinestone-studded baseball cap and paired with a white denim jacket and drainpipe jeans. The most visible signs she was once a yakuza are the lurid tattoos that spill on to her neck and hands, and the little finger missing from her left hand.
Nishimura has no desire to become a feminist icon. “I was a man,” she told me. “I had to behave like a man.” Nonetheless, she speaks of feeling ashamed of her decades of crime – much of it targeted at women – and she is attempting to add redemption to her repertoire. She has written a memoir about the highs and lows of life in the mob, and works for a charity to help ex-yakuza ditch the gangs for good. As the fortune of Japan’s historic underworld fades, Nishimura hopes her life’s latest chapter may just pull her own family back together, too.
![image showing [OC] Former yakuza Mako Nishimura, 59, poses in her home in Gifu, Japan](58761154-ab91-53bd-ae31-ab5456c1b91a.jpg)
guardian on May 21st, 2026 at 17:27 UTC »
Photo by Shoko Takayasu/The Guardian in Gifu, Japan
Hi r/pics, this is Jake from The Guardian US. We wanted to share a photo from this story that we published about Mako Nishimura, who is possibly the only woman ever to have been a full-fledged yakuza.
From our story by Sean Williams:
In almost 40 years, Mako Nishimura never lost a fight. She told me this as if it were as obvious as night following day. Nishimura is 5ft-nothing and slight of build. She is also probably the only woman ever to have been a full-fledged yakuza, a member of Japan’s feared and rule-bound criminal underworld. She must have defeated many male gangsters. How, I asked her, did she do it? “First the legs,” she said, hands clasped, maintaining the calm demeanour of a village priest. “You cut him down with a club or a plank of wood.” Then you get to work.
Nishimura is no longer a member. She lives in a small, ground floor apartment near Gifu’s railway station, surrounded by plants and photos of the two sons whose adult lives she has – because of her criminal past and her drug addiction – mostly watched unfold from afar. When we met, across three days last autumn, Nishimura, 59, wore her hair in a dyed-blond ponytail, pulled through a rhinestone-studded baseball cap and paired with a white denim jacket and drainpipe jeans. The most visible signs she was once a yakuza are the lurid tattoos that spill on to her neck and hands, and the little finger missing from her left hand.
Nishimura has no desire to become a feminist icon. “I was a man,” she told me. “I had to behave like a man.” Nonetheless, she speaks of feeling ashamed of her decades of crime – much of it targeted at women – and she is attempting to add redemption to her repertoire. She has written a memoir about the highs and lows of life in the mob, and works for a charity to help ex-yakuza ditch the gangs for good. As the fortune of Japan’s historic underworld fades, Nishimura hopes her life’s latest chapter may just pull her own family back together, too.
You can read the full story for free at this link.
Jeptic on May 21st, 2026 at 18:14 UTC »
Faded or evolved into the corporate sphere?
thekind78 on May 21st, 2026 at 20:44 UTC »
Many surprising things in that article, this ranking near the top: colleagues particularly enjoyed her potato salad