…or the downfall of “GoldmanSachs with guns.”

“It’s unheard of, the sort of numbers of yakuza who are being laid off.”

Hiramatsu now works as a truck driver and, in his spare time, is learning to use computers and play the guitar — despite a missing pinky he chopped off years ago with a kitchen knife to atone for a sin he prefers not to discuss.

Hiramatsu is proudly old-school. His broad tatooed back features a samurai warrior clasping a knife between his teeth beneath a rippling black cod. His arms are laced with sakura cherry flowers, an ancient symbol of Japan.

Sitting cross-legged in a Tokyo house, he says he doesn’t have much time for the new generation of mobsters who have traded the mean streets for the corporate boardrooms, and their nine-milimetre automatics for the Nikkei-225.

Times are tough for everyone, it seems.

(via AFP)