Shintaro Kazama (born 1945 - died 2005) was a Japanese yakuza crime boss, captain of the Dojima-gumi subsidiary of the Tojo-kai clan, and patriarch of the Kazama-gumi family within the Dojima-gumi and, later, the Tojo-kai clan itself. He was the adoptive father of Kazuma Kiryu and Akira Nishikiyama and the brother of policeman Joji Kazama.
Biography[]
Shintaro Kazama was born in Tokyo, Japan in 1945, and he became a member of the Tojo-kai yakuza clan during the 1960s. He started out as a hitman in Sohei Dojima's crew, becoming known as an incredibly skilled and cold-blooded assassin for the Dojima-gumi. However, he was haunted by his conscience and founded the Sunflower Orphanage to house the orphans of the people he killed. Among these children were Kazuma Kiryu, Akira Nishikiyama, and Yumi Sawamura, whom he raised as his adoptive children. Kazuma and Akira sought to follow in their adoptive father's footsteps, leading to several arguments between them and their reluctant father; it once even resulted in a beating. However, in 1985, Kazama ultimately agreed to let Kazuma and Akira join the yakuza, and they would both eventually become bosses.
Kazama in prison, 1988
In 1980, during a war with the Korean Jingweon Mafia, Dojima sent Kazama to massacre the Korean mob's leaders at a Christmas party, and Kazama and his fellow hitman Futoshi Shimano killed 33 of the Koreans, while Kazama spared Daejin Kim and Yeongmin Ji, having taken pity on them. The massacre boosted the Dojima-gumi's profile as the strongest Tojo-kai clan and resulted in Kazama being granted his own sub-family (the Kazama-gumi), but Kazama grew disillusioned with Sohei Dojima's leadership and secretly began to undermine his boss' power. As a result, in 1988, Sohei Dojima and his lieutenants Daisaku Kuze, Keiji Shibusawa, and Hiroki Awano responded by conspiring to betray Kazama to the police. Kuze reported Kazama's gambling operation to the police, leading to Kazama being imprisoned. From prison, however, he worked with real estate agent Tetsu Tachibana to prevent the other Dojima lieutenants from acquiring the Empty Lot in Kabukicho, as the lieutenant who obtained the lot for the Dojima family was promised the leadership of Kazama's old crew by Dojima. The other lieutenants attempted to frame Kiryu for a 9 December 1988 murder in order to provide a legitimate reason too expel Kiryu's patron, Kazama, from his own family, but Kiryu was determined to find the man who framed him, and he worked with Tachibana and others to successfully derail the Dojima-gumi's plans for the Empty Lot and ensure that the three lieutenants were either dead (Awano) or in prison (Kuze and Shibusawa) by year's end.
Shintaro Kazama being shot by a sniper
Dojima was later released, and he became acting boss of the Dojima family after Sohei Dojima was appointed a guardian to the clan's heir Masaru Sera. In 1995, Kazama planned to give Kiryu his own family, but Kiryu took the fall for Nishikiyama after the latter's murder of Sohei Dojima for kidnapping and attempting to rape Yumi, leading to Kiryu being imprisoned and expelled from the Tojo-kai, while Nishikiyama was made boss of the Nishikiyama-gumi in 1996. By 2000, Nishikiyama and Kazama had experienced a rift due to Nishikiyama's jealousy over Kazama and other clan members' favoritism towards Kiryu. In 2005, Kazama and a paroled Kiryu secretly met at Masaru Sera's funeral, but Kazama was wounded by a sniper rifle in an attempted assassination, and Kiryu was framed for the shooting. Kazama survived in the care of Omi Alliance member Yukio Terada, and he recovered on Terada's yacht until Kiryu came to visit him. Kazama confessed to Kiryu that he was responsible for the disappearance of the clan's ¥10 billion, as the money belonged not to the clan, but to the ambitious politician Kyohei Jingu, who was allied with the Omi Alliance, and was using the clan to launder his money.
Kiryu cradling Kazama's body
It was then that Futoshi Shimano and his Shimano-gumi hitmen attacked the yacht, intent on killing Kazama, who had been Shimano's rival since the 1980s. Shimano threw a grenade which mortally wounded Kazama as he protected Yumi's daughter Haruka Sawamura, and a dying Kazama handed Kiryu Chairman Sera's will (which named his successor) and also confessed to Kiryu the true nature of his orphanage and apologized for killing Kiryu's parents. Kiryu forgave Kazama and told him that he was his true father, and Kazama then died in Kiryu's arms.