Tsuyoshi Kanda (1960-2009) was a Japanese yakuza who served as Patriarch of the Nishikiyama-gumi subsidiary of the Tojo-kai from 2006 to 2009, succeeding Koji Shindo. He played an integral role in the 2009 Tojo-kai civil war, during which his attempt to usurp the chairmanship of the Tojo-kai resulted in his death at the hands of his former ally Yoshitaka Mine.
Biography[]
Tsuyoshi Kanda was born in Tokyo, Japan in 1960, and he became a member of the Tojo-kai yakuza clan due to his violence, desire for wealth, and his sexual sadism (in particular, Kanda had a fetish for massaging curvy women). Kanda spent most of his criminal career as a low-ranking grunt, eventually becoming an officer of the Nishikiyama-gumi. Kanda's sexual depravity inadvertently rescued him from the disastrous 2005 Tojo succession war and the 2006 war with the Omi, both of which devastated the Nishikiyama-gumi, as Kanda was imprisoned from 2005 to 2007 for sexual assault. On his release, Kanda used the power vacuum within the Nishikiyama-gumi to rise to the position of Patriarch, and he relied on brute force and the financing of his protege (and later sworn brother) Yoshitaka Mine to extort shopkeepers across Kabukicho, taking over most of the neighborhood's businesses from the once-powerful Kazama-gumi. Kazama-gumi patriarch and Tojo Clan captain Osamu Kashiwagi opted not to retaliate out of a desire to maintain the fragile peace within the Tojo Clan, and the powerful Kanda came to desire the Tojo Clan chairmanship for himself.
Kanda in 2009
However, Mine would go on to form his own family, the Hakuho-kai, and he gradually distanced himself from Kanda while growing closer to Chairman Daigo Dojima. By 2007, Kanda, Mine, Goh Hamazaki, and Goro Majima had become the Tojo-kai's top four lieutenants, and, after Daigo Dojima was critically wounded and reduced to a comatose state, Hamazaki vehemently opposed Kashiwagi's plan to invite Kazuma Kiryu to serve as interim Chairman, as Hamazaki coveted the position for himself. Hamazaki took advantage of the opportunity to prepare for a war against the Kazama-gumi, dispatching his officers across Kabukicho to gather men and money, and take over Club Stardust for use as his base of operations. However, Kiryu suspected that Kanda played a role in Kashiwagi's apparent assassination, as he apparently stood the most to gain from it, so Kiryu tracked Kanda down to the Red Brick Hotel and fought his way through the Nishikiyama-gumi before beating down Kanda and discovering that he was not responsible for the hit.
Afterwards, Kanda met with Mine at his penthouse and demanded more money to hire assassins to kill Kiryu, but Mine tacitly refused. Kanda promptly took out his fury by destroying Mine's collection of expensive antiques, causing Mine to call Kanda a fool for destroying a collection worth a million yen. Kanda attempted to attack Mine, but an unamused Mine displayed his superior physical strength by beating down Kanda, before summoning his men to murder Kanda. Four of his men removed a weakened Kanda from Mine's room before executing him, and Mine delivered Kanda's severed head to Kiryu as an apology for lending Kanda the money he used to cause trouble for Kiryu.