Mako Nishimura was 20 years old when she defended a friend in a street fight in Aichi, Japan. The brutality with which she faced her rivals impressed the local clan boss so much that he offered her something no woman had ever received before: a place in the yakuza. 🥷
Nishimura accepted. She became the only woman to complete the sakazuki ritual —the exchange of sake with the oyabun that formalizes full membership— while wearing a men’s kimono. Over the following years she ran prostitution and drug operations, collected debts, and mediated disputes between rival clans. She also practiced yubitsume, the amputation of the little finger as a ritual punishment; other yakuza began asking her to make the cut in their place, and that is how she earned the nickname “mistress of finger cutting”. 🩸
A methamphetamine addiction led to two arrests, several years in prison, and her expulsion from the group. In 2012 she closed that chapter for good. Today, at 58 years old and with dragon and tiger tattoos up to her neck, she works in demolition and leads the Gifu branch of Gojinkai, an NGO that helps former offenders reintegrate. In 2024 she published her autobiography with a clear goal: to discourage young people from entering organized crime. 💪
