Rage, Chivalry, and Laceration: The Showa Untold Story of the Ichiwakai and Shigemasa Kamoda (1930-2020)

Rage, Chivalry, and Laceration: The Showa Untold Story of the Ichiwakai and Shigemasa Kamoda (1930-2020)

Shigemasa Kamota was a man who ran through the darkness of the Showa era. Born in Kobe in 1930, Kamota took his first steps as a gangster in the Wasabi Kai against the backdrop of postwar chaos. He eventually became independent in 1956 and founded the Kamota-gumi, which expanded its power in Kobe and Osaka while being absorbed into the Yamaguchigumi led by Kazuo Taoka. The Kamoda-gumi, feared as a martial arts faction, made its mark with such fierce fighters as Tsutomu Shiomi and Hiroshi Kimura.

In 1984, triggered by the Yamaguchigumi's succession struggle, Hiroshi Yamamoto and others left the group to establish the "Ichiwakai". Kamota responded to this and joined as vice president and chairman of the board. This was the start of the "Yamaichi War" that would go down in the annals of Japanese backstage history. Kamota, who led the war that resulted in dozens of fatalities, eventually dissolved the Kamota-gumi in 1988 and announced his retirement, despite thoroughly adhering to the logic of the warrior class. In his later years, he remained silent, but in 2016, he released his autobiography, "Retsugyo," in which he quietly wrote about his life, his struggles, and his humanity. He was no longer a chivalrous man, but a storyteller of the stormy winds of the times.