Ryuhei Hoshino (died 2019) was a Japanese yakuza crime boss who served as patriarch of the Seiryu-kai from the 1970s to 2019, preceding Mamoru Takabe. He was the leader of one of the "Ijin Three" crime syndicates that dominated the Yokohama underworld until the Omi Alliance invasion of 2019, during which he was assassinated.
Biography[]
Hoshino in 1969
Ryuhei Hoshino was born in Yokohama, Japan, and he joined the Seiryu-kai yakuza clan as a young man. In 1969, he was sent to assassinate the actor Toshio Arakawa for allegedly skimming from the family's yen counterfeiting operation, and he murdered Arakawa at the Heian Tower Chinese restaurant while posing as a waiter. He went on to become boss of the Seiryu-kai during the 1970s, renewing his family's partnership with LDP chair and local political boss Yutaka Ogikubo. In 1976, the young Masumi Arakawa confronted Hoshino over his father's murder, and Hoshino explained the truth about the counterfeiting ring and the reasons for Toshio's death. Arakawa decided to spare Hoshino, who expressed his gratitude to Arakawa in 1984 by providing him with a batch of misprinted yen bills, giving him the means to destroy the Ijin Three and their counterfeiting operation and putting himself at Arakawa's mercy in atonement for the killing of his father.
Hoshino's body
In 2019, Arakawa had his illegitimate son Ichiban Kasuga shot and dumped at a homeless camp in Yokohama's Isezakicho district, placing one of the counterfeit bills in his pocket as an informal letter of introduction to Hoshino. Though Kasuga first met Hoshino after storming his family's headquarters to reveal Yamato Totsuka's pension and healthcare scam at Sunlight Castle and Hoshino viewed Kasuga as a man who had disgraced his family, he took a liking to him after realizing that Kasuga was Masumi Arakawa's protege. After Akira Mabuchi of the Yokohama Liumang attempted to provoke a war between the Liumang and the Seiryu-kai, Kasuga helped Hoshino defeat Mabuchi's attempted coup in the Liumang, while Hoshino's captain Mamoru Takabe put down Totsuka's rebellion. Hoshino later helped Kasuga with his fightback against Mabuchi's backers - Bleach Japan, the Omi Alliance, Tokyo governor Ryo Aoki, and the LDP - by setting up Kasuga as a fringe candidate who would challenge the LDP politician and Bleach Japan district chief Sota Kume at the 2019 Japanese House of Representatives elections. Aware of Hoshino's role in backing Kasuga's campaign, Aoki sent Jo Sawashiro to assassinate Hoshino, but, aware that Sawashiro would be reluctant to do so, he sent another assassin who murdered Hoshino at his office before Sawashiro arrived.