
Toru Hirose (1931-December 2016) was a Japanese yakuza who served as patriarch of the Hirose-gumi, a subsidiary of the Yomei Alliance's Masuzoe-gumi. Hirose was taken in by the shipbuilding magnate Heizo Iwami as a young street criminal, and Iwami cultivated him into his right-hand man and personal assassin, tasking him with the protection of the "Secret of Onomichi". In 1976, Hirose wiped out the few surviving members of the Yomei who were aware of the secret's existence, and, even at the age of 85, he was tasked with getting rid of Saio Triad boss Big Lo for his attempt to use the secret as blackmail. Hirose's killings continued until he came up against Kazuma Kiryu and his friends in the Hirose Family, the latter of whom Hirose refused to kill. As a result, the 100-year-old Iwami turned on Hirose and shot him dead, only to be murdered by his own son Tsuneo Iwami shortly after.
Biography[]

Hirose as a kid
Toru Hirose was born in Hiroshima, Japan in 1931, and he lost both of his parents during World War II, forcing him to turn to crime in his youth. He started his own gang at the age of 14 and attacked an Iwami Shipbuilding facility shortly after the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima by the United States in 1945. Hirose and his friends were caught, but Heizo Iwami accepted Hirose into his organization and mentored him into becoming an assassin in order to protect the "Secret of Onomichi", a Yamato-class battleship built at the end of the war with embezzled funds. He became Iwami's most competent assassin, killing several men to protect the secret, including several of his sworn brothers. Two of his victims were the fathers of Tsuyoshi Nagumo and Takaaki Matsunaga, but he chose to adopt their sons as an act of compassion. He later became part of the Yomei Alliance, the yakuza group that Iwami ran as a front for Iwami Shipbuilding. However, his Hirose-gumi family was made a subsidiary of the Masuzoe-gumi under Koji Masuzoe's oversight. Hirose later swore Yuta Usami, Naoto Tagashira, and Shu Tatsukawa into his family.

Hirose in 2016
During his later years, Hirose lived off insurance fraud. In 2016, he befriended Haruka Sawamura when she came to Onomichi, helping her go into hiding after she became pregnant and was pressured by Yuta and his retainers to have an abortion. He later forced Big Lo of the Saio Triad to leave the country, revealing that he was aware that both Masuzoe and Tatsukawa were Saio Triad infiltrators. He continued to watch over Haruka until she was lured to Kabukicho; shortly after, he made the acquaintance of her adoptive father Kazuma Kiryu after Nagumo swore an oath of brotherhood with him. Hirose later revealed that Yuta was Haruto Sawamura's father, as well as revealing his own involvement with Haruka's second disappearance. Shortly afterwards, the Jingweon Mafia attacked, forcing Hirose to kill Masuzoe for his treason. He then joined Kiryu on a boat to retrieve Haruto, and he killed Joongi Han before he could reveal the Secret of Onomichi to Kiryu.

Hirose dying
Soon afterwards, Kiryu and the Hirose-gumi raided an Iwami Shipbuilding base, where Hirose, desperate to protect the secret, turned on Kiryu. The 85-year-old Hirose was able to put up a fight thanks to his skills with his knife, but he was ultimately defeated. Tagashira then caused the Yamato Mark II to reveal itself from the depths of the sea, with Hirose glad to be able to see it at last. Shortly after, Heizo Iwami arrived and demanded that Hirose execute Kiryu for having revealed the secret. When Nagumo stepped in to protect Kiryu, Hirose hesitated, leading Heizo to shoot him. He then confessed to his adoptive children that he wished that they would be the ones to kill him, since he killed their parents to protect the secret, and he died in Nagumo's arms.