Tsuneo Iwami was a Japanese businessman who served as CEO of Iwami Shipbuilding. In 2016, he attempted to enter the yakuza world through seizing control of the Yomei Alliance from his father, Heizo Iwami, and, while he ultimately murdered his father, he was defeated by Kazuma Kiryu and arrested for his father's murder before he could formally assume the Yomei chairmanship.
Biography[]
Iwami's back tattoos
Tsuneo Iwami was born in Hiroshima, Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan, the son of Heizo Iwami. His father, who went by "Takeru Kurusu" while conducting yakuza business, was the founding president of Iwami Shipbuilding as well as the inaugural chairman of the Yomei Alliance, and he maintained political connections to the Daidoji Faction through the preservation of the "Secret of Onomichi", a highly-classified battleship hidden in an underwater drydock at Onomichi. Heizo Iwami hoped that his son Tsuneo would stay away from the criminal side of his enterprise, instead raising him to be CEO of Iwami Shipbuilding, one of the world's largest shipbuilding companies. In 1976, however, Tsuneo learned the "Secret of Onomichi" from Takekiyo Matsunaga, who was murdered that same evening before Tsuneo could persuade his father to spare him. Learning of his father's criminal involvement, Tsuneo came to resent his father for keeping him away from the yakuza world, and, by 2015, be plotted to seize control of the Yomei and the Iwami Group once it became clear that Yomei captain Kanji Koshimizu was being groomed as his father's heir.
Using his massive wealth and influence, Tsuneo formed alliances with the Jingweon Mafia, the Saio Triad underboss Jimmy Lo, and the ambitious Tojo-kai advisor Katsumi Sugai. In 2015, he had Sugai set fire to Tokyo's Little Asia to spark a fake war between the Tojo and the Saio, enabling the Saio to move into Kabukicho and rebuild from the ruins. This war enabled the police to pin the blame on Tojo chairman Daigo Dojima and his officers Taiga Saejima and Goro Majima, who were promptly arrested, thus clearing the way for Iwami's puppet Sugai to rise to lead the Tojo. With Kanto under his control, Iwami had the Jingweon attempt to kill the Saio leaders to enable the Tojo to consolidate their hold on Tokyo. While Jimmy Lo was killed, his father Big Lo survived and vowed vengeance against Tsuneo Iwami. As a result, Iwami was forced to have the Saio turncoat Shu Tatsukawa search for Big Lo's infant grandson, Haruto Sawamura, hoping that Haruto's kidnapping would lure out Big Lo's son Yuta Usami, who could then be turned against his estranged father once he realized that the Saio wanted the half-Japanese Haruto murdered to purify Yuta's Chinese bloodline. While trying to kidnap Haruto and his mother Haruka Sawamura in December 2016, Tatsukawa accidentally struck her with a car, leaving her in a coma and thus inadvertently attracting her guardian Kazuma Kiryu back to Tokyo and thence to Onomichi to find Haruto's father and investigate her accident.
Meanwhile, Tsuneo moved to formally ally the Tojo and Yomei through swearing an oath of brotherhood with the Tojo's Takumi Someya, Sugai's heir apparent. Heizo maneuvered around his scheming son by suggesting that Kiryu bear witness to the oath so that Kiryu's Omi Alliance friends would begrudgingly accept the alliance rather than seek war on the formerly-neutral Yomei. Kiryu, lured to the Yomei leadership after Someya kidnapped his ex-wife Kiyomi Kasahara, refused to agree to the deal behind Daigo's back, and Tsuneo was thus forced to cancel his alliance with the Tojo.
Desperate to eliminate Kiryu, Tsuneo sent the Jingweon to murder Kiryu in Kabukicho and to kidnap Haruto from Toru Hirose. Kiryu survived the Jingweon ambushes in Kabukicho and returned to Onomichi on hearing that Hirose had disappeared with Haruto; once reunited, Hirose, Kiryu, and the Hirose-gumi fought off the Jingweon, and Hirose murdered the Jingweon leader Joongi Han to ensure that he did not give up the Secret of Onomichi to Kiryu. Tsuneo decided that revealing the Secret of Onomichi was the only way to cause his father's political allies to desert him in Tsuneo's favor, and, once Kiryu and the Hirose-gumi uncovered the Yamato Mark II at its drydock, the ensuing political scandal enabled Tsuneo to persuade Minoru Daidoji to break with his father and back his accession to the Yomei chairmanship.
Tsuneo proceeded to have Koshimizu murder his father after confronting him one last time about his anger at being excluded from his father's legacy; Tsuneo passed off his father's death at suicide, although few believed that. Tsuneo then turned to have Kiryu eliminated by kidnapping Kiyomi Kasahara, Someya's ex-wife and Kiryu's friend, and forcing Someya to fight Kiryu to the death at the Millennium Tower as he, Koshimizu, and Sugai watched the live-stream. When Kiryu defeated Someya, Iwami offered to spare Kiyomi if Kiryu would kill Someya. When Kiryu hesitated, Sugai committed seppuku, but Iwami still gave the order for Kiyomi to be shot. After Iwami and Sugai left the room, Koshimizu shot Kiyomi, although he did so with blank bullets, unbeknownst to Iwami and Sugai; he secretly helped her go into hiding, as he was tired of being Iwami's lapdog.
Anticipating that Kiryu would seek vengeance, Tsuneo, Koshimizu, and Sugai prepared themselves for Kiryu's attack on Heizo Iwami's funeral at the Iwami shipyard in Onomichi. Iwami bribed TMPD officers into informing detective Jiro Honjo that Makoto Date was falsely imprisoning Haruka Sawamura and Haruto at the police hospital, and, when Honjo led two officers to the hospital to arrest Date, the "officers" revealed themselves to be Omi hitmen and murdered Honjo, shot Date, and brought the Sawamuras to Heizo's funeral. There, they were held at gunpoint as Iwami forced Kiryu to endure a severe beating from Sugai and Iwami tortured Kiryu's friend Tsuyoshi Nagumo. The two men were rescued by the arrival of the rest of the Hirose-gumi, and Iwami, who typically cowered behind henchmen, fought Kiryu for the first and only time, losing to the "Dragon of Dojima". A wounded Iwami attempted to have Sugai shoot Haruka, but Nagumo took the bullet for them, and Kiryu pounded Iwami's face onto the floor to knock him out before taking more bullets meant for Haruka and presumably dying. Sugai then shot himself as he was cornered by the Hirose-gumi, and Iwami was later arrested for his father's murder.