The devil's child': the rise and fall of the only female yakuza

Mako Nishimura maintained an almost 40-year streak of never losing a fight despite her small, slight build. She described her method as starting with the legs, using a club or plank to cut an opponent down, then continuing the attack. Her relaxed attitude toward violence drew attention from yakuza members in 1986 when she was 19, a runaway and former juvenile-prison inmate living near Nagoya. After a phone call about her pregnant friend Aya being attacked by five men, Nishimura grabbed a baseball bat, confronted the attackers, and fled before police arrived. She later refused an offer to join the Inagawa-kai, despite deeper involvement in serious crime, including running sex workers, extorting businesses, and selling methamphetamines.

"First the legs, she said, hands clasped, maintaining the calm demeanour of a village priest. You cut him down with a club or a plank of wood. Then you get to work. Nishimura's relaxed attitude to violence you suspect, speaking to her, that it's a little more than that is what first caught the attention of yakuza members in 1986, when she was a 19-year-old runaway and former juvenile-prison inmate living in Gifu, a city near Nagoya."

"One night that year, Nishimura received a phone call. A pregnant friend named Aya was in trouble. Nishimura grabbed a baseball bat, ran down the street and found Aya surrounded by five men. When one of them kicked Aya in the belly, Nishimura yelled for her friend to run, then went for the attackers with her bat. By the time the police arrived, the attackers were covered in blood and Nishimura had fled."

"A fortnight later, when she returned to Gifu, a local man approached her in a nightclub. He was a member of the Inagawa-kai, one of Japan's largest organised crime syndicates, and he wanted her to join. Nishimura was already in a biker gang called the Worst, who raced and robbed while dressed in the white jumpsuits of wartime kamikaze pilots. She was getting more deeply involved in serious crime, too, running sex workers and extorting local businesses, as well as selling and taking large quantities of methamphetamines."

"The Inagawa-kai man didn't have the right energy, Nishimura thought. She turned him down. Yakuza life nonetheless appealed. It offered respect, protection and, above all, the opportunity to make big"

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