Ryo Takashima (1966-December 2006) was a Japanese yakuza boss who served as Patriarch of the Takashima-gumi subsidiary of the Omi Alliance. During the 2006 Tojo-Omi war, he plotted to seize control of both the Omi Alliance and the Jingweon Mafia for himself, assassinating Omi Chairman Jin Goda and Jingweon Mafia boss Yukio Terada to that end. He also succeeded in mortally wounding Ryuji Goda, but Goda was able to shoot Takashima dead before he perished, greatly weakening the Omi Alliance and concluding the war.
Biography[]
Takashima being questioned by Tsutomu Bessho
Ryo Takashima was born in Osaka, Japan in 1966, and he attended Touto University in Tokyo, where he befriended several future LDP politicians. As a result, he came to be well-connected with government officials upon rising through the ranks of the Omi Alliance to become patriarch of the Takashima-gumi, and he was widely seen as the brains behind the Omi Alliance and among the more powerful of the "Four Kings of Omi". In 2005, he assumed the position of Chief of Headquarters of the Omi Alliance after Yukio Terada resigned to serve as Chairman of the Tojo-kai. Takashima outwardly showed unflinching loyalty towards Chairman Jin Goda, but, in 2006, he privately conspired with the Chairman's son Ryuji Goda (Patriarch of the Goryu-kai) and Terada (who doubly served as leader of the shadowy Jingweon Mafia) to instigate a war between the Omi Alliance and Tojo-kai which would result in the Tojo-kai's destruction. This served all three men's purposes: Ryuji was intent on killing Kazuma Kiryu to ensure that there would only be one yakuza with the nickname "Dragon", Terada sought to avenge the massacre of 36 of his Jingweon colleagues by the Dojima-gumi subsidiary of the Tojo-kai in 1980, and Takashima privately harbored ambitions of seizing control of both the Omi Alliance and Jingweon Mafia and crushing the Tojo-kai to eliminate any threat to his rule.
Takashima was present at the alliance talks between Chairman Goda and the Tojo-kai delegates Kazuma Kiryu and Daigo Dojima in December 2006, and he vocally supported an alliance with the Tojo-kai; he also feigned opposition when Ryuji and his armed men burst into the room and announced Ryuji's seizure of power in the Omi Alliance. With Jin Goda deposed and Ryuji calling the shots, Takashima put out a contract on Kiryu and Detective Kaoru Sayama, hiring an assassin to deliver a non-lethal wound to Sayama to drive Kiryu and Sayama out of Osaka without leading to all-out war. While Toranosuke Sengoku and Ryuji Goda went on the warpath against the Tojo by invading Kabukicho, Tokyo, Takashima worked from behind the scenes. Once both the Omi and Tojo-kai were weakened after several days of all-out war, Takashima interrupted the confrontation between Terada, Jin Goda, Kiryu, Ryuji Goda, and Sayama at the Kabukicho Hills construction site in Tokyo and revealed his allegiance to Terada. He proceeded to shoot Jin Goda dead, only to betray Terada and execute him as well; he proceeded to take Sayama hostage and attempted to kill Kiryu. While Takashima wounded Kiryu with a gunshot, an unconscious Ryuji picked up Terada's gun and shot Takashima several times. Takashima also shot Ryuji several times before dying; after one last fight with Kiryu, Ryuji also died from his wounds. The deaths of four of the Omi Alliance's main leaders crippled the Omi Alliance and put an end to the Omi-Jingweon conspiracy against the Tojo-kai.
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