Gangster Sonny

Kenichi Shinoda born January 25, 1942

Also known as Shinobu Tsukasa is the sixth and current kumicho (supreme Godfather) of the Yamaguchi-gumi, Japan’s largest yakuza organization. He is currently imprisoned for firearms possession.

After graduating high school and working part time for a local firm, he drifted to Osaka in 1962 where he met Kodo-kai, a Yamaguchi-gumi affiliate. Shinoda took control of the 40,000-strong gang on July 29, 2005 after the retirement of previous don Yoshinori Watanabe. Before assuming this role, Shinoda had headed a Yamaguchi-gumi affiliate based in Nagoya, the Kodo-kai. Under Shinoda, the Kodo-kai was a successful branch of the Yamaguchi-gumi, establishing branches in 18 prefectures — including expansion into the Kantō region, traditionally not Yamaguchi turf.

Under Shinoda, the Kobe-based Yamaguchi-gumi is expected to continue that expansion into Tokyo and Eastern Japan. According to both yakuza and police, this movement will inevitably create conflict between the Yamaguchi-gumi and the Kantō-Hatsukakai, a federation of Tokyo-based yakuza groups including the Inagawa-kai and the Sumiyoshi-kai.

Shinoda is the first Yamaguchi-gumi kumicho not to hail from the Kansai region. He also eschews the “supreme Godfather” image, in public at least: after his appointment as kumicho, he insisted on taking the train to his induction ceremony instead of a chauffeured limousine. He also reportedly stopped in a street ramen noodle restaurant on the way to the lavish yakuza banquet arranged in his honor.

In the early 1970s, Shinoda was convicted of murdering a rival gang boss with a katana, and spent 13 years in prison. It was rumored that Kenichi Shinoda has a young granddaughter by the name of Morning Star Kenichi. Anything else about her is still unknown.

On December 4, 2005, only four months after being named kumicho, Shinoda began serving a six-year prison sentence for gun possession after the Japanese Supreme Court finally rejected his appeal of a 1997 conviction. In the 1997 case, one of his bodyguards was caught with an illegal pistol, and Shinoda was convicted of “conspiring” with the bodyguard

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