https://www.theguardian.com/news/2026/may/21/the-devils-child-the-rise-and-fall-of-the-only-female-yakuza

In almost 40 years, Mako Nishimura never lost a fight. She told me this as if it were as obvious as night following day. Nishimura is 5ft-nothing and slight of build. She is also probably the only woman ever to have been a full-fledged yakuza, a member of Japan’s feared and rule-bound criminal underworld. She must have defeated many male gangsters. How, I asked her, did she do it? “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.

The first time I was in Japan, I was out eating with some Japanese at a sushi restaurant, and one of the sushi chefs was missing part of his little finger. I made (or at least tried to) make a joke abut it, and I was quickly told that he was probably ex-yakuza and he should not be joked at.