Masayoshi Tanimura

Masayoshi Tanimura (3 July 1980-) was a Japanese policeman who served in the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department (TMPD)'s Community Safety Division during the 2000s. In 2010, he played a central role in uncovering Deputy Commissioner Seishiro Munakata's corrupt ties to organized crime, while also learning that Munakata had ordered the murder of his adoptive father Taigi Tanimura at the hands of Junji Sugiuchi, with whom Tanimura had also served.

Biography[]

Early life[]

Masayoshi Tanimura was born in Tokyo, Japan in 1980, the son of Japanese policeman Yusuke Kaga and a Thai prostitute. He was adopted by another policeman, Taigi Tanimura, who was killed in 1985 while investigating the "Ueno Seiwa hit"; Masayoshi was only five when he lost his father, but he was left with a lifelong desire to investigate his father's death, which was recorded sa an "accident." Tanimura was partly raised by Mei Zhao, a Chinese immigrant restauranteur who ran the Homeland restaurant in Little Asia. He went on to join the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department's Community Safety department, and, to support Little Asia's immigrant children who were left without their parents, Tanimura started gambling illegally (including at Orchid Palace Mahjong) and blackmailing smmaller criminal businesses in Little Asia to help support them. He was thus nicknamed the "Parasite of Kabukicho" by his detractors, but he accepted his reputation to ensure that other children would have the same opportunities as he did.

Finding Yasuko[]

On the morning of 2 March 2010, he was the first officer on the scene of Hiroaki Arai's murder of Masaru Ihara, where he met the witness Shun Akiyama. He advised Akiyama to run before he was mistaken for the murderer, but Akiyama - shaken by what he had witnessed - loitered until he was taken into custody and questioned. Over the next few days, Tanimura got into trouble for gambling on the job, but he continued his illicit activitites, including blackmailing businesses employing undocumented labor into giving him hush money; he also advised them to treat their workers well. He took his illicit gains to Zhao for donation to Asian Gateway, which helped poor migrants from other Asian countries get settled in Japan.

Tanimura also found out from his fellow gamblers that the famous "Mr. Try and Hit Me" Iida had been the one to inform the police of his gambling habit, so Tanimura defeated him in a fight at a parking lot, proving how far he had fallen. Iida confided that his defeats at the hands of Kazuma Kiryu in 2006 and 2009 had caused him to lose the reputation that once drew crowds and paying customers, and that his gambling losses had left him desperate. Tanimura forgave Iida, and he carried on with his day. He also came across Mamoru Akaishi after intervening in a Theater Square fight, and Akaishi persuaded him occasionally lend his aid to the Kabukicho Guard community organization.

At the same time, Tanimura put the word out that he was seeking information on Yasuko Saejima, who was supposed to have met his father on the day the latter died in 1985. On the afternoon of 8 March 2010, Tanimura received a tip from the Korean salon Midori that Yasuko was spotted there. Tanimura had the manager bring Yasuko out to talk with him, and he told her why he was looking for her. Before he could ask any questions, however, Shibata-gumi thugs led by Masashi Takahashi showed up to kidnap Yasuko. While Masayoshi fought most of them off, Yasuko was ultimately taken, and Tanimura forced Takahashi to reveal that she had been taken to the Tokyo Bay docks.

Tanimura gave chase, fighting his way through an army of thugs as they guarded the docks and even created an oil fire in an attempt to kill Tanimura. Ultimately, Tanimura arrived at Kazuo Shibata's office, where, from a crack in the doorway, he witnessed Hiroaki Arai's murder of Shibata on behalf of Isao Katsuragi. Tanimura then rushed in to arrest Arai, but Arai fled, and Tanimura failed to interrogate Shibata before he died. However, he rescued Yasuko, whom he took under his protection and brought back to Homeland. There, she revealed that Tanimura's father never showed for their meeting after the Ueno Seiwa hit, and he instead sent her a message telling her to leave Tokyo becasue the conspiracy surrounding the hit was much "bigger than a yakuza squabble."

Investigating the Ueno Seiwa hit[]

When Tanimura asked Yasuko why she was killing Shibata's men (prefacing his questions by saying that her answers would not be admissible in court as "hearsay"), she said that Katsuragi had contacted her and offered her help with obtaining her brother's freedom in exchange for her either giving him 100 million yen or committing murder for him. Katsuragi wound up demanding more and more killings in exchange for the proof, but she eventually decided to get the money instead, for which purpose she took out a loan from Shun Akiyama's Sky Finance. Tanimura convinced Yasuko to give him the money so that he could meet with Katsuragi and get the truth about the 1985 hit. Yasuko told him that she stashed the briefcase in a car trunk at the Kabukicho Underground Mall parking lot, and she gave him the key before departing for Okinawa to find her brother.

As he left the restaurant, Tanimura came across a policeman attempting to speak with a Filipina lady, and he volunteered his own Tagalog services and offered to deal with the situation. He learned that her name was Nair, and she was a detective searching for a Southeast Asian criminal; later, she would reveal that she was searching for GG, who had murdered her parents and brother. She persuaded Tanimura to help her with the search, and she trained him in combat as her "sparring partner" while she conducted her investigation.

Tanimura then left Nair to investigate the parking garage, hoping to match Yasuko's key to the correct car. Along the way, his attempts to open different trunks provoked fights, including the yakuza Satoshi Okada (who protested that his car was a custom job) and the thug Kenta Machida. However, he ultimately retrieved the briefcase and promptly decided to reach out to Katsuragi.

However, Tanimura was instead called by an unknown number who told him that he would need to meet an informant at a specific rooftop point. Tanimura received a text of a photo of the vantage point, so he made his way across the rooftops until he met a clueless homeless man who said that his only orders were to give Tanimura a bouquet of flowers. Tanimura found a note with Katsuragi's number, and he proceeded to call him and arrange a meeting for the next day, 9 March, in front of the Millennium Tower.

On the evening of 9 March, Katsuragi met with Tanimura, and the two went for a stroll as Tanimura asked about the events surrounding his father's death. Katsuragi revealed that his father had been killed for discovering the truth about the Ueno hit: Katsuragi and Shibata had arranged for Taiga Saejima to attack Yoshiharu Ueno and his officers so that all of Katsuragi's rivals would be killed but he and Ueno would survive. This would fast-track Katsuragi's career within the clan and allow Shibata to also advance his own career by serving as peacemaker with Katsuragi. However, Katsuragi insisted that he was not behind Taigi's murder, but rather his allies in the police had murdered him to cover up police involvement in the plot. Tanimura realized that Katsuragi's ties to the police were why he outsourced the killing of Shibata's officers to Yasuko. Tanimura then offered the briefcase of the 100 million yen in exchange for Katsuragi forgetting about Yasuko, but Katsuragi had an army of Ueno Seiwa thugs surround them and asked Tanimura if he really believed that he would let him live after hearing all that. He then revealed that he was the one who killed the 18 men, and his men then closed in on Tanimura. Just then, Sugiuchi drove his police car into the crowd, forcing the yakuza to step aside and distracting them long enough for Tanimura to grab the money and escape back to Little Asia.

The Ueno Seiwa thugs threatening Mei Hua

Tanimura fought his way past the Ueno Seiwa and reached Little Asia, where he found Hiroshi Oka threatening Mei Hua. Tanimura stood in their path, and Oka claimed that he and his men were more interested in Homeland and the money than Tanimura, while warning him that they could walk over his corpse to get them. Tanimura proceeded to take down the yakuza, forcing them to flee. He then returned to Homeland, where he found his superior Satoshi Hisai waiting for him.

Confronting Sugiuchi[]

Tanimura revealed that the police knew the real killer was Katsuragi, but they pinned it all on Saejima. He then requested Hisai's help in gaining access to the original case files from the 1985 shooting, and Hisai hesitantly took Tanimura to the police headquarters to access the "Forbidden Room", also called the "scandal graveyard." There, Tanimura discovered that his father's partner in the investigation was Sugiuchi, something that Sugiuchi had never mentioned despite knowing Tanimura since he joined the force. He then left the archives and decided to return Yasuko's money to Sky Finance, as she would no longer need it. Before Tanimura left, Hisai warned him not to go out guns blazing over the revelations from the archives.

Tanimura then headed to Sky Finance, where he was surprised to find that Akiyama was the owner, as they had already met each other at the scene of Ihara's murder. Tanimura explained his findings to Akiyama, who then received a phone call from Takeshi Kido, who had bumped into Yutaka Mishima at the Tokyo docks and relayed Mishima's request for police protection. Tanimura volunteered to help, as he wanted to set a trap for Sugiuchi. He informed police headquarters that he would be going to meet Mishima to take him into custody, and he then took a taxi to the docks.

Tanimura met with Mishima in the dock warehouse where he was hiding, and Mishima claimed that Katsuragi had instructed him and Ihara to cause trouble for the Shibata Family on the night of Ihara's murder, and that he overheard Katsuragi telling someone on the phone that Ihara's death was part of the plan and that Mishima would be next. Mishima then said that he would be amenable to being arrested to keep him safe from the Ueno Seiwa, but the conversation was interrupted when Mishima was shot dead by Sugiuchi, who revealed himself to be Katsuragi's mole within the TMPD. Tanimura was not surprised, telling Sugiuchi that he had always been suspicious of him because of his new shoes and expensive watch. Just then, Chief Junichi Sudo and several TMPD officers arrived to arrest Sugiuchi. An unshaken Sugiuchi told the officers that they would face retaliation by higher-ups in the force if they created a scandal by arresting them, and reminded them that Japanese police couldn't shoot. Tanimura then stepped forth, saying that he didn't mind doing things differently, so Sugiuchi fled, with Tanimura pursuing him. When Sugiuchi fled on a motorboat, Tanimura jumped on another boat and shot out Sugiuchi's motor, forcing him to return to land.

There, Sugiuchi refused to accept defeat, shooting off the handcuff that Tanimura placed on him. Tanimura was forced to defeat Sugiuchi in a fistfight, after which he demanded answers. Sugiuchi, in a sentimental mood, revealed that he had killed Tanimura's father, and expressed remorse for his days as a yakuza lapdog. He also revealed that he had been an Ueno Seiwa infiltrator from the beginning, described his own role in the Ueno Seiwa hit (he shot Katsuragi in the arm to make him look like a victim of the shooting), and regretted all of the praise from his colleagues he believed was undeserved. He then shared that Tanimura's honesty made him with that he had gone straight years ago, and he then offered his surrender. Before Tanimura could arrest Sugiuchi, however, a gunman on a motorboat (unbeknownst to Tanimura, Hisai) shot Sugiuchi dead.

Hisai then headed to Homeland and took Mei Hua and Zhao hostage, and he called Munakata, only to lie and say that he had killed both Sugiuchi and Tanimura. He then shot himself in front of the Chinese hostages, and, when Tanimura returned to Homeland, he and the hostages changed their minds about Hisai, expressing admiration for his brave decision to turn against Munakata and kill himself rather than murder the restauranteurs.

Final victory[]

Not long after, Katsuragi and Munakata engineered an investigation of Sky Finance that left Akimura without a home once again, and also without his 100 billion yen. Tanimura joined forces with Akiyama and and contacted Yasuko, asking her to come to Purgatory to meet up with her brother Taiga Saejima, who had escaped from prison and reached Kabukicho. After drugging Makoto Date, whom Kazuma Kiryu had assigned to protect her, Yasuko ran off to join Akiyama and Tanimura, who took her through the sewers to reach Purgatory. Kiryu, mistaking the two men for kidnappers, gave chase, causing the two men to tell Yasuko to continue on to Purgatory as they held Kiryu off. Kiryu took down both men before following Yasuko to Purgatory, only to find Yasuko and Taiga kidnapped and the Florist of Sai badly beaten.

Kiryu, Akiyama, and Tanimura meeting at New Serena

Akiyama and Tanimura caught up to Kiryu and also came across the scene. They soon learned that Katsuragi and Kido had kidnapped her, so Kiryu decided to bait Katsuragi into a trap by offering him an incriminating police ledger (which threatened to put Munakata and the Ueno Seiwa leaders in prison) in exchange for the ¥100 million and the release of the Saejima siblings. Tanimura and Akiyama reluctantly stayed behind as Kiryu single-handedly fought his way through the Ueno Seiwa thugs at Kabukicho Hills and secured the freedom of the Saejima siblings, only for Katsuragi and Yasuko to kill each other. Kiryu managed to free Taiga and recover the ¥100 million, although their victory was hollow due to Yasuko's death and Arai's escape.

The next day, the four men resolved to avenge her death by bringing down all of their remaining enemies: Munakata (who was responsible for the murder of Tanimura's father, as well as the whole gang war of 2010), Arai (who had been working with Munakata the whole time, engineering the war in order to rise to lead the Tojo), Kido (who had double-crossed Akiyama and betrayed his money stash to Daigo Dojima), and Daigo (who had betrayed Goro Majima to Katsuragi and attempted to use Akiyama's stolen money to rebuild his clan). Akiyama proposed that they set a trap for their enemies by announcing that his ¥100 billion would be left on top of the Millennium Tower. Sure enough, Daigo and Kido were the first to arrive, while Arai also arrived to confront Daigo and Munakata and a police team showed up to execute the three men.

Munakata guards — Tanimura fighting Munakata and his guards

However, Akiyama, Tanimura, Saejima, and Kiryu arrived in their own helicopter, interrupting the standoff between their enemies and blowing the pyramid of Akiyama's money away. Akiyama then suggested that each man pick their "a** to kick"; while Kiryu chose his protege Daigo, Saejima chose the traitor Kido, and Akiyama chose to face off against his former friend Arai, Tanimura chose the corrupt Munakata. In the ensuing fight, Tanimura was forced to fight the cowardly Munakata (who often ran into a corner to shoot at Tanimura) and his elite police team, narrowly scraping by and defeating his enemies. His friends also defeated their foes, ending their conspiracy. Before they could celebrate, however, Munakata shot Akiyama in the chest with his handgun. Akiyama was surprised to find that a wad of cash in his coat pocket had stopped the bullet, and Arai, accepting his defeat, told Munakata that they would be going to prison together now that their crimes were known to the public. Munakata was sure that he would evade prison until the policeman-turned-journalist Makoto Date arrived in a helicopter, scattering newspapers revealing Munakata's corruption and causing them to rain down on Kabukicho. Confronted with life in prison, Munakata shot himself.

Over the next few years, Tanimura kept a low profile due to the unpopularity of his investigation among the TMPD leadership, which was embarrassed by Munakata's corruption scandal. When Jo Amon reached out to Kiryu, Saejima, Tanimura, and Akiyama in 2012 and challenged them to a fight, Tanimura did not answer the call, instead laying low.