Anton Kusters is a Belgium-based photographer who in 2011, published his first photobook on the Yakuza, the Japanese organized crime families, that he photographed for two years. Yakuza is a personal visual account of the life inside an inaccessible subculture – a traditional Japanese crime family that controls the streets of Kabukicho, in the heart of Tokyo, Japan. Through many months of delicate preparations and negotiations by his brother Malik, their fixer Taka-san, the duo became the only westerners ever to be granted this kind of access to that closed world. With a mix of photography, film, writing and graphic design, Anton tries to share not only their extremely complex relationship to Japanese society, but also to show the personal struggle that each family member faces – being forced to live in two different worlds at the same time; worlds that often have conflicting morals and values… It turns out not to be a simple ‘black’ versus ‘white’ relationship, but most definitely one with many shades of grey.
A man shows his hand with missing digits on two fingers. Yakuza members sometimes sever digits from their own hands to lend weight to an apology for wrongdoing.
Members pose in the streets of Kabukicho, the red light district in the heart of Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan.
Nitto-san sits in the back of a car en route to the Niigata prison to pick up two yakuza members, who would be released from prison that morning.
Men shower in an Onsen, a typical Japanese bath house, after playing in a golf tournament. Some bath houses in Japan deny access to those with tattoos, in an effort to stop yakuza from frequenting them.
Traditional Japanese tattoos, often seen on the bodies of the yakuza, are done manually with several sharp, inked needles.
Yamamoto Kaicho, a number two boss, lies still as master Tattooist Hori Sensei completes his full body tattoo.
A Yakuza street fighter shows off his tattoo in Shinjuku, Tokyo.
Members of the Shinseikai family stand guard outside a restaurant where the bosses are eating dinner.
Young yakuza recruits line up at the beach every morning to have a moment of meditation before they start their daily training routine of close combat fighting, bodyguard training, and knife practice.
The ‘Godfather’ arrives at a service for a member who has died surrounded by bodyguards
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