
Wataru Kurahashi (1964-December 2006), born Ji Yeongmin, was a Japanese policeman who served as Kabukicho Section Superintendent for the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department's Foreign Affairs Division during the 2000s. A former member of the Jingweon Mafia and a survivor of the 1980 Christmas massacre, Ji joined the police under an assumed Japanese name, "Wataru Kurahashi", and used his position of power to collaborate with his fellow Jingweon survivors to destroy the Tojo-kai yakuza clan. While Kurahashi kidnapped Makoto Date to set a trap for the Tojo-kai's Fourth Chairman, Kazuma Kiryu, and killed the responding policeman Jiro Kawara, Kurahashi was shot dead by Kawara's daughter and fellow police officer Kaoru Sayama.
Biography[]

Ji Yeongmin in 1980
Ji Yeongmin was born in Tokyo, Japan to a family of Korean immigrants, and he became involved with the Jingweon Mafia as a teenager, befriending fellow young mobster Kim Daejin, with whom he swore an oath of brotherhood. The two young Koreans survived the Tojo-kai's massacre of the Jingweon Mafia on Christmas Day of 1980 after Shintaro Kazama spared them, and Ji and Kim went on to become Japanese citizens and assume Japanese names, Ji taking the name "Wataru Kurahashi", and Kim taking the name "Yukio Terada". The two men retained their secret associations with the Jingweon Mafia, and, while Terada entered the yakuza and rose in the ranks of the Omi Alliance, Kurahashi infiltrated the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department and worked his way up to becoming the Section Superintendent for the Foreign Affairs Division.
In December 2005, Terada assumed the role of Chairman of the Tojo-kai following the 2005 Tojo-kai civil war, and Terada conspired with his sworn brother in the Omi Alliance, Ryo Takashima, and Kurahashi to destroy the Tojo-kai and avenge the Jingweon massacre. In December 2006, Terada faked his assassination at the hands of the Goryu-kai subsidiary of the Omi Alliance, while Takashima aided Ryuji Goda in his seizure of power within the Omi Alliance, steering it towards all-out war with the Tojo-kai. Kurahashi presided over the investigation into the bombing of the Tojo-kai headquarters and assigned Makoto Date and Kawara to the investigation, only for Kurahashi to have Date kidnapped to lure Tojo-kai Fourth Chairman Kazuma Kiryu into an ambush. Kiryu, Kawara, and Kawara's long-lost daughter and fellow police officer Kaoru Sayama headed to Date's rescue.
During the ensuing confrontation, Kurahashi revealed to Kaoru that Kawara was her father. Kiryu defeated Kurahashi in a fight, but Kurahashi picked up a gun and attempted to kill Kaoru, only for Kawara to use his body to shield his daughter and take the bullets for her. He proceeded to shoot Kurahashi dead before falling into his daughter's arms and dying of his wounds.