Hideki Sasai was a Japanese yakuza who served as patriarch of the Tojo-kai's Sasai-gumi during the 1980s. After he was framed for the Ueno Seiwa hit, which nearly resulted in an all-out war with the rival Uenoseiwa-kai, Sasai went into hiding and became a homeless man.
Biography[]
Hideki Sasai was born in Tokyo, Japan, and he became a member of the Tojo-kai yakuza organization. Sasai came to head his own family, the Sasai-gumi, and he took a 15-year-old Taiga Saejima under his wing after catching him shaking people down in Kabukicho to raise money for his sister Yasuko's medical treatment. Sasai offered to pay for Yasuko's treatment if Saejima would join his family, and Saejima became devoutly loyal to his boss. Sasai later worked with the Dojima-gumi to assassinate key members of the Uenoseiwa-kai in 1985, sending Saejima to work alongside Goro Majima on the hit. After the hit, however, Kazuo Shibata stepped up to mediate between the clans and accused Sasai of wanting to provoke the war to expand his own territory. Fearing reprisal, Sasai disbanded his family and went into hiding. He was found by the Ueno Seiwa clan and attacked, and he was found by Goro Majima months later and taken to Purgatory in a catatonic state. He was cared for by the Florist of Sai, and, in March 2010, he was reunited with the escape Saejima after the latter made it to Purgatory. Sasai also managed to eke out the name "Saejima" from his lips, his first word in decades, causing Saejima to bawl.