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Kazuo Shibata

Kazuo Shibata (1955-8 March 2010) was a Japanese yakuza who served as patriarch of the Tojo-kai's Shibata-gumi from the 1980s to 2010. He and Isao Katsuragi of the rival Uenoseiwa-kai formed an alliance in 1985, helping each other rise through the ranks of their families through staging the famous "Ueno Seiwa hit" of 1985 and manufacturing another gang war near-miss in 2010. However, Katsuragi had Shibata murdered when he outlived his usefulness and became the object of detective Masayoshi Tanimura's investigation.

Biography[]

Shibata in 1985

Shibata in 1985

Kazuo Shibata was born in Tokyo, Japan in 1955, and he joined the Tojo-kai yakuza organization during the 1970s. By the early 1980s, he became patriarch of the low-ranking Shibata-gumi within the Tojo umbrella. The conniving and unscrupulous Shibata placed his advancement within the yakuza above loyalty to the clan, causing him to conspire with Uenoseiwa-kai officer Isao Katsuragi to stage a hit against the Ueno Seiwa leadership in 1985 and have Katsuragi and Yoshiharu Ueno be the sole survivors. Sasai-gumi hitman Taiga Saejima was sent to carry out the hit, although Shibata secretly supplied him with rubber bullets obtained from Katsuragi's police contact Junji Sugiuchi. This ensured that Katsuragi and Ueno survived the hit, while Katsuragi executed the other officers while Ueno was still incapacitated; Katsuragi thus appeared to have been the lone survivor, who protected his boss from danger. Meanwhile, Shibata claimed that Saejima's boss Hideki Sasai had conspired with the Ueno Seiwa to start a war that would only benefit a traitor in the Ueno Seiwa and the "treacherous" Sasai, causing a slandered Sasai to go into hiding as his family was disbanded. His own role in the massacre covered up, Shibata helped a newly-promoted Katsuragi negotiate a peace deal, all while Shibata had Saejima's sworn brother Goro Majima tortured for attempting to violate orders and join Saejima on the job. Shibata proceeded to rise to the top of the Tojo Clan by 2010, by which time many worthier leaders had been assassinated in either wars with the Omi Alliance or in civil wars between rival Tojo families.

In 2010, Shibata and Katsuragi once again conspired as Shibata had his subordinate Hiroaki Arai kill the Ueno Seiwa member Masaru Ihara to nearly start a gang war. Shibata publicly presented a (secretly fake) pinkie to Katsuragi in a supposed act of apology, while Katsuragi also demanded the head of Arai or the forfeiture of the highly lucrative Kabukicho Hills project as repayment. As Shibata harbored Arai as per Katsuragi's instructions, Tojo chairman Daigo Dojima was pressured to hand over Kabukicho Hills.

Kazuo Shibata death

Shibata's death

At the same time, Shibata ordered the kidnapping of Taiga's sister Yasuko Saejima, who had taken part in a secret double-crossing by Katsuragi by killing several Shibata Family officers who knew about the 1985 plot, thus removing TMPD deputy commissioner Seishiro Munakata's leverage over Katsuragi. Detective Masayoshi Tanimura tracked Yasuko down to the docks, where Shibata and Arai detained her. Shibata attempted to violate and murder Yasuko in vengeance for her killing of his subordinates, but Arai proceeded to shoot Shibata and assure him that his betrayal was not spontaneous, but had been ordered by Katsuragi long before. When Tanimura burst into the room to arrest Arai, Arai fled and abandoned a dying Shibata, who was unable to give Tanimura any information before he died.

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