
Ichiban Kasuga (born 1 January 1977) was a Japanese former yakuza, businessman, and political candidate. Kasuga was a member of the Arakawa-gumi subsidiary of the Tojo-kai in Kabukicho, Tokyo until 1 January 2001, when he went to prison after assuming the blame for a murder purportedly committed by his family's captain Jo Sawashiro; he served 18 years in prison before being released in 2019. Upon finding that his former boss Masumi Arakawa had effectively disowned him and switched his allegiance from the Tojo-kai to the Omi Alliance, Kasuga became a drifter before working a succession of odd jobs in Yokohama alongside a party of followers he accumulated, becoming re-involved in organized crime by becoming involved in the underworld politics of thet Ijin Three, taking over the presidency of the moribund Ichiban Confections company and transforming the company into a massively successful subsidiary of his own "Ichiban Holdings" company, challenging Bleach Japan's efforts to persecute sex workers, the homeless, and foreign migrants in Japan's "gray zones", and ultimately running for the House of Representatives against Bleach Japan activist and LDP candidate Sota Kume. Kasuga's efforts led to the downfall of the corrupt Governor of Tokyo Ryo Aoki (a former yakuza colleague of his, formerly known as Masato Arakawa), the downfall of Captain Jo Sawashiro and the Arakawa-gumi, and, with the help of Daigo Dojima and Masumi Arakawa, among others, the joint dissolution of the Tojo-kai and Omi Alliance yakuza federations.