The Kabukicho 3K Plan was a campaign mounted by Governor Ryo Aoki to destroy the power of the Tojo-kai yakuza federation in the Kabukicho entertainment district of Tokyo's Shinjuku ward. Named for the plan's three goals of "Keep them hungry, keep them poor, keep them out," the 3K Plan succeeded in driving the Tojo Clan underground, while also opening the way for the Kansai-based Omi Alliance to invade Tokyo and seize control of its streets.
Background[]
Previous political-yakuza conspiracies[]
Due to its political connections and its location in the national capital of Tokyo, the Tojo-kai yakuza alliance frequently found itself drawn into political intrigues. In 1988, the Dojima-gumi subsidiary's interest in taking advantage of the "Kabukicho 21st Century Redevelopment Plan" resulted in the bloody Empty Lot dispute, which nearly resulted in all-out war between the Tojo and the Kansai-based Omi Alliance. In 2005, Ministry Intelligence Agency chief Kyohei Jingu's laundering of dirty money through the Tojo Clan's bank - and the theft of that money by his underworld rival Shintaro Kazama - resulted in civil war within the Tojo Clan. In 2007-2009, the Japanese government's planned acquisition of Okinawan real estate for the expansion of the US Marine Corps base on the island and the construction of a casino - meant to draw out the Black Monday arms trafficking syndicate - resulted in an underworld conflict between the pro-Black Monday Yoshitaka Mine, the pro-casino and pro-Snake Flower Triad Goh Hamazaki, Kazuma Kiryu and his backer in Chairman Daigo Dojima (who was shot and wounded by Black Monday for backing Kiryu's right to manage an orphanage on that precious real estate), and the ambitious Tsuyoshi Kanda (who craved Dojima's vacant seat as Chairman). 2010 saw TMPD deputy commissioner Seishiro Munakata's manipulation of Tokyo underworld politics result in warfare between Tojo factions and the Uenoseiwa-kai. In 2012, Omi chairman Tsubasa Kurosawa posed as a policeman in order to encourage the outbreak of a war between the Tojo and Omi that ultimately devastated both alliances and killed acting Tojo chairman Minoru Aoyama. 2016 would see a coup in the Yomei Alliance spark warfare within the Tojo and between the Tojo and the Saio Triad, while the Daidoji Faction's insistence on protecting the "Secret of Onomichi" led to additional bloodshed.
By 2017, acting Omi chairman Masaru Watase and Tojo chairman Daigo Dojima had both grown weary of their way of life - supposedly built on feudal honor - being manipulated by politicians. The two outward rivals privately schemed to bring about the joint dissolution of their alliances to prevent further bloodshed as a result of political conspiracies. At the same time, a new political upstart, Ryo Aoki, was rising through the ranks of LDP politics. Aoki, a Harvard-educated right-wing populist activist, founded Bleach Japan in 2004 to campaign for the elimination of "gray zones" where illicit vices were tolerated by the police. Unbeknownst to the general public, Aoki was born "Masato Arakawa," the adoptive son of Tojo officer Masumi Arakawa. With the help of his father, Aoki was elected to the House of Councillors in 2010. A wheelchair user from birth until his lung transplant in America, Aoki was ashamed of his previous weakness and believed that society consisted of those who use others and those who are used, and he secretly desired to rise to the top of Japanese politics with the help of the powerful Omi Alliance. To this end, he conceived and promoted the "Kabukicho 3K Plan" to intensify governmental efforts to battle organized crime in the Kabukicho entertainment district of Tokyo.
The 3K Plan advocated harsh measures against the yakuza that would "Keep them hungry, keep them poor, keep them out." Aoki utilized his underworld connections to bribe Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department (TMPD) superintendent Juro Horinouchi into collaborating with his plan, and, in 2017, he was elected Governor on a promise to crack down on organized crime and semi-illicit vices. Bleach Japan's activism helped bolster voter turnout in Aoki's favor, as did the Arakawa Family's money.
History[]
Having received a strong mandate for change, Governor Aoki worked with Horinouchi to enact strict anti-yakuza legislation. Police raided and shuttered Tojo-kai business fronts, arrested several high-ranking leaders, and forced Chairman Daigo Dojima and his allies Goro Majima and Taiga Saejima to go into hiding with the help of sympathetic businessman Nick Ogata. Aoki blackmailed his father into giving up valuable intel on the Tojo Clan, although Dojima consented to Arakawa's outward treachery as a means of weakening the Tojo and allowing for the Omi alliance to over-extend itself by moving into Tokyo. The Tojo Clan was effectively removed from the streets of Kabukicho, enabling the Omi Alliance to invade Kabukicho with impunity. Omi lieutenants like Reiji Ishioda led this invasion, and, between Omi pressure and police raids, the Tojo Clan effectively collapsed. The construction of a new police station in Kabukicho was perhaps the greatest visual legacy left behind by the 3K Plan, its opening playing a major role in the LDP's election campaigns in Kabukicho during the 2019 snap election.
Aftermath[]
While the 3K Plan succeeded in destroying the Tojo, it - by design - failed to eradicate all organized crime in the city. In 2018, the Tojo Clan's Matsugane-gumi fought a brief gang war against the Kyoto-based Kyorei-kai gang, which initially joined the Omi in attempting to expand into Tokyo. Street criminals took shelter in the Kabukicho Underground Dungeon in the city's sewers. The Omi Alliance was in firm control of Tokyo until the Great Dissolution of 2019, after which a civil war within the Tokyo Omi Alliance resulted in the final destruction of the Omi Alliance.