THE YAKUZA

The Yakuza was a young guy in a very old game. He had the traditional huge tattoos, the traditional katana sword, and the traditional Japanese organized crime activities.

Unfortunately, there just wasn’t that much Japanese crime around for the Yakuza to dominate. Toothless geishas in kimonos, crooked pachinko parlors — his customers there were wrinkly bald people ninety years old! They were so near death that he couldn’t even bully them.

But then, up in his tiny four-tatami apartment in a crumbling attic in Shibuya, the Yakuza discovered the Cyberdeck. All of a sudden, he was no longer a frustrated gangster stuck in a shrinking, dying industry. With the Cyberdeck: he was a Ronin Digital Ninja. He could appear like a mist in the coolest cities on Earth, wreak absolute havoc with the edge of a blade, and disappear as suddenly and totally as a discontinued anime series. Let the world fear the new, improved Shogun of Crime!

Bruce Sterling