Organized Crime on the Hanshin Expressway

street and back alley busy. The sound of drinking, conversation and cash red at every corner. There's something to spend money on if you want to. Vending machines, hole in the wall, bars and red light private clubs. Large halogen bulbs light up garish advertisements on every square foot of free space. We're in a blue collar district where no one takes card and everyone is sick of the inflation. I'm on my way to meet with the head of

a Canjo racing crew to negotiate access. I want to film a real multi car civic race on the loop, not just a few here and there, A proper race. I've been told one is planned soon, and I want in You can't understand the culture behind all of this properly if you don't see it firsthand. I don't think so anyway, Yes, I get it. It's dangerous, but it

is what it is. We get to the location this is where the Kanjo crew told us to meet, and with two guys from my team and John, who's still helping us negotiate this clandestine world of illegal street racing. The location is a really cool independent Korean restaurant. It's busy, cluttered, perfect. Just as we get to a table, the Kanjo crew arrives. Now I can't go into too many details due to various legalities, but it's a small crew of four or five people. The boss man stands out for his size.

He's about six foot two and built like a brick shitouse, an unusual frame in downtown Asaka. His number two is a skinny chainsmoking mechanic with greasy hair and a crooked smile. The others are quiet and unassuming. Everyone is dressed in an assortment of trendy Japanese streetwear. The boss man greets us with a firm handshake and we exchange pleasantries. I'm eager to give him the present are boring. In Japan, bringing gifts of people is an important tradition. It's rooted

in the country's strong etiquete culture. It's not just about giving a present, it's kind of a ritual. It shows respect, gratitude, and the careful maintenance of relationships. Presentation is key. Wrapping is considered almost as important as the gift itself. I wish I had known that. There's apparently an art to it. Handing over a nicely wrapped box with both hands and a bow tied on top shows proper etiquet. When visiting someone's home, bringing a small gift is standard, even if

it's just snacks or a souvenir from your hometown. And when someone gives you a gift, you're generally expected to return the favor later, sometimes with a return gift known as okashi, often worth half the value of the original present. There are unspoken rules to this. Importantly, gifts are usually given modestly. You don't open them in front of the giver unless invited to. Doing so might be seen as greedy. Lavish gifts can make people feel uncomfortable or feel obliged,

so everyone keeps it simple now. Japanese gifting isn't about the object. It's about maintaining balance, recognizing relationships, and expressing thoughtfulness in a way that keeps the social fabric smooth and intact. Now, with all this in mind, my contact in Japan told me to bring some gifts before we arrived. Obviously, I want to respect the customs of the country. Generally, I do that anyway if I'm going somewhere. It's been taught to me in my family. You bring gifts to

new people that you meet. That's just how it is. Obviously, I was not going to turn up empty handed, so I asked the contact, what the hell do I bring as a gift to illegal street racing petrol heads in the gritty suburbs of a Sakka. His response, Max Power magazine. I laughed, but he was serious. It's the perfect gift for a brit to bring if you're interested in kanjo zoku, he told me. Growing up, I remember seeing Max Power on the shelves of every news agent in Britain. It

was a monthly car magazine. Launched in May nineteen ninety three, Max Power quickly became the go to publication for what was then a rapidly growing buoy at racer culture. In the UK, the peak circulation around two hundred and forty thousand copies of Max Power was sold every single month.

In its early years, Max Power showcased modifications such as engine swaps, body kits and huge wheel conversions, not too far from what the Canjo race is here in Asaka Get up to Now, And like the model Civics themselves, the visual esthetic of Max Power was very much in your face. I wasn't remotely interested in cars back then when it was on sale in the UK, but the magazine's style would always catch my eye. I remember it. I think probably everybody else does. What made Max Power

unique was its indulgence in car culture contra reversy. The magazine would often have coverage of illegal cruise events and public burnouts. This drew criticism from police and safety advocates, but it also sealed the magazine's notoriety in the underground. Despite the haters, Max Power played an outsized role in shape and a community and industry tuning shops, aftermarket suppliers,

custom showers the lot. Reflecting on its cultural legacy, the former Max Power editor described this era as a uniquely vibrant British car subculture. It wasn't just about horsepower. It was about mass individuality, diy creativity and youthful defiance. Now surely that rings a bell. The Max Power aligned world of British car culture mirrored some aspects of Japan's Kanjo zoku. John tells me that racers would even import the magazine

in English, even if they couldn't read the articles. So me to bring over a stack of old Max Power issues. I got a load off eBay for about thirty quid and stuffed them into my suitcase. Now Here I am in Osaka with them all sat in a plastic carrier bag as a gift for what is the boss of a notorious Kanjo crew in Japan. Suddenly it doesn't feel like the good idea it did when I was back home. Either way, Once we're all seated, I hand the stack

of magazines over and we explain the gift. The boss band holds them in his hands, briefly looks at the first issue on the pile, and hands them off to his chainsmoking sidekick. He doesn't even look at them. Neither of them are remotely interested. I look at John like what the fuck? John shrugs at me and orders a round of pints for the table. I can't go into exactly what was said at this meeting, but we all

eventually get chatting about Kanjo. I explain what we're trying to do with the award As project, and the boss Man likes it a lot. After he gets a little more comfortable, he makes a comment about some visible tattoos me and one of my guys have on our arms. He says he likes them. He grins. This is a bit unusual, as tattoos in Japan are seen very differently to how they are in the West. Here in Japan,

there's a complicated and often negative stigma attached to them. Historically, they've been associated with criminality, particularly the Yakuza, Japan's most notorious organized crime syndicate. Full body tattoos called irazumi, were used by Yakuza gang members as a sign of loyalty and defiance, making them a visual marker of the underworld. Because of this, many public places like bath houses, swimming pools, and even weights gyms still ban visible tattoos to this day.

The perception is gradually shifting, but there is still very much an uneasiness about people with tattoos in Japanese culture. So, considering the boss Man's comment about our tattoos, I ask him if he has any. Honestly, I might half joking when I say this, but he nods, looks me right in the eye, and rolls up both of his sleeves. Traditional irizumi tattoos completely cover his ants your cusa. Suddenly, the secrecy of some of this scene begins to take

on another purpose. I get it some level of organized crime is involved with some of these teams, not all of them, not the majority, but it's there. The boss Man's friends suddenly feel like a bit of an entourage. None of them even blink when he pulls out the tats. I guess is they all have something similar? Wow? Nice, I say. The boss Man grins again, pulls down his sleeves,

and orders Korean barbecue for all of us. He loosens, and after we eat, for some reason, he pulls out a little tool he has attached to a set of his keys and fiddles with it for ages. It's a small, but sharp, spring loaded metal spike, like a flick knife, but it's a spike, not a blade. It's hardly a massively serious weapon, but if you stuck it in your neck, I dare say you'd know about it. Seems an unusual thing just to whip out at the table, but what

do I not. At the end of the night, we're all getting on great and the boss Man takes us to see his cat. I can't even tell you what it is, specifically to protect his identity, but it is a very very nice and very unique Conde civic. Let's just say that he agrees that we'll join him and his crew on the Candor Loop late one night this week. Perfect he even gives us a gift. He takes his little stabber off his keys and hands it to one of our team Max Power magazines for a little keyring

stabber Yakuza weapon. Not a bad exchange at all. A few days past and we've heard absolutely nothing from the boss Man. Honestly, I'm regutted. He seemed completely genuine about the access and rapport we'd built with them. None of us really give a shit that he's Yakuza. The whole world runs on crime, after all. Some of it's just legal because governments do it. It seems unlikely that he suddenly got cold feet, as if we'd inform on him or something. But here we are, and so we take

up the famous journalists past time. Of waiting around, we spend the day enjoying a Saka. We rented a tiny house in an area we're told is quote unquote kind of the hood. It doesn't feel like that. Though the streets are clean, everyone is nice, and crime is largely non existent. People don't even change their push bikes up here. Each day we go to this little family run cafe near the house and we order eggs on toast and black coffee. The family there get used to us, and

we communicate through Google Translate. Tinny Midi style music plays in the background from a tape. Every space on the wall is covered with something unique and homely. It's one of the calmest places I think I've ever been to in my entire life. I love it here in the cafe, in the Nishinari ward. It is the total opposite of the high octane madness of the Osaka street racers. The next day there's news there's a reason the boss man we met with recently has ghosted us. He's been arrested.

Nothing to do with racing, not from what we're told, at least he was taken in on weapons charges, not because of his spring loaded spike, but apparently firearms in Japan that is a very big deal. A legal guns in Japan are exceptionally rare. The country has some of the strictest firearm laws in the world, and as a result, gun crime is almost non existent. In an average year, the number of shootings across the entire country can usually

be counted on one hand. Most Japanese citizens will go their entire lives without ever even seeing a real firearm or even hearing gunshots. Even the yakuza tend to avoid using guns because the legal consequences are extremely harsh and police raids into their businesses become extremely relentless. Japan's firearm and sword possession control laws strictly limits gun ownership to

shotguns and air rifles under tight regulation. Even those require a lengthy licensing process, including written tests, mental health evaluations, background checks, and regular police inspections. Handguns are completely banned for civilians forget about it. The general public is culturally and legally distanced from firearms at all times, and gun ownership carries a significant social stigma. If you're call in possession of an illegal firearm in Japan. To put it bluntly,

you are fucked deep trouble. You're potentially looking at ten years in prison. Sentencing gets harshit if the gun was used in the commission of a crime or is linked to organized crime. I hope, for the boss Man's sake, he was just collecting somehow, though I doubt it either way. Needless to say, we will not be seeing him for a while. Even just owning bullets without a gun can lead to prison time in Japan, and the judges rarely

show leniency to anything. Japanese police also have the power to investigate aggressively when it comes to gun related offenses. As I said, it's raids, surveillance and forensic checks. All this is common. People generally do not mess around with guns. The system is so airtight that even Japan's underworld mostly steer clear of them. So what has happened with the boss Man is completely beyond me. If I had to guess, seen as he was pretty young and trendy but also

involved in organized crime. Maybe he wanted a gone just for status. I don't know, though. The whole thing is a bit mad, so as you can imagine, our contacts in this race, crew went cold for now anyway. Luckily for us, Kanjo Zoku is not the only street racing counterculture here in Japan. Far from it, John happens to have contacts with a very different style of underground racing. One night, he randomly calls ahead and tells us we're

going to the outskirts of a Saka. It's about an hour's drive away to a smaller town where the mountains and nearby. He comes to pick us up in his honestly immaculate civic and tells us we're going on a drive potentially into the world of toga. To understand the Japanese togay scene, you've got to picture the country's spine. The winding mountain passes, cutting through dense forests, blurry ridgelines, and treacherous switchbacks where visibility often drops to zero. These

are the backbones of rural Japan. Originally the land of farmers, villagers, and monks, but by the late eighties and nineties they became the battleground for a specific breed of underground petrol head, the Togay races. This is not a fast and furious style drag racing scene. This is something much quieter hidden. The Togay is onder wraps and is incredibly risky, a

dance between man, machine and nature. These drivers drift or grip their cars down narrow mountain roads at full speed, with drops of certain death just feet over the fence line. One wrong move and the Togay cars are flying into a jagged rock ravine. There is almost no chance of survival. This all started when the big city boys of Tokyo raised on the Wangang expressways and toll roads around Tokyo Bay. The rural and suburban kids had to get their own

thing going. With no money for track days or toll roads, they looked to the mountain passes nearby. These winding roads were free, isolated and perfect for testing cornering skills, and so togo racing was born. Not necessarily to see who was faster in a straight line, but who had the precision and the guts to thread the needle through tight mountain bends at terrifying speeds. Also, the philosophy was different. This was not about octane and speed. This was about rhythm,

flow and keeping your composure. There is no central Togay organization, no league, no official hierarchy. It's different to canjo in that respect. Small circles of trust among drivers keep the scene active in the underground. In toga, you have to prove yourself before you're even allowed to race on the mountain pass. Not with money or care or gear, but with consistency and commitment. Everyone knows the risks. A crash in Togai is worse than a bent bumper or smashed windows.

If you fuck up here, you're rolling down a mountain or slamming into a wall with no ambulances or hospitals for miles around. Most Togay races happen in the dead of night, no traffic, no witnesses, fewer cops. Walkie talkies, burner phones, and encrypted apps are used to coordinate. A century is placed at the top and bottom of the course to warn if police or other vehicles are coming. Some teams even use spotters half way along the route with torches or laser pens to signal potential has The

roads are never really uniform. You can't exactly get used to the feel of the road like you can with kanjo. Some Togay runs are type technical, full of hairpins and steep descents. Others, like the gun passes have more flow and open corners, but all are narrow, blind and very dangerous. Within the togay scene that there's a clear ideological split the grip drivers versus the drifters. Generally, it's seen that both come under the same umbrella of togai. Grip racers

believe in maximum traction, perfect apexes, and precision driving. Always their goal is to maintain speed through corners using racing lines, breaking points, and tire grip. These guys are usually quiet, disciplined, methodical drifters, on the other hand, are all about style and control in chaos. They throw the rear end out into corners, intentionally breaking traction but keeping control through throttle

steering and counter steering techniques. It's actually not always the fastest way through a corner, but it is definitely the coolest way to do it, and to the drifting contingent of togai, they feel it's the purest the truth. Many togay racers do both. They can grip when they need to win and drift when they want to show off the best affluent in both dialects of speed. It can even be argued that toga is just the place and

the whole scene, but both are interchangeable. Now, togay cars are nothing like the quarter mile drag racing machines you might see in places like America. The Japanese counterparts are light, nimble and built for twisting roads. Weight reduction is key. Like they can racing drivers got the interior, remove rear seats, spare tires, and sometimes even replace the doors and bonnets

with fiberglass or carbon fiber. Popular choices of cars for racing on Toge include Toyota A E eighty six, the Mazda RX seven, the Nissan Silvia, the Honda Civic and Integra type, and the Subaru Impretso Amtsubishi Evil. Engine swaps, coil overs, strup bars, roll cages, LSD's, and grippy tires are the norm when it can be afforded. No nos, nothing flashy, just purpose built machines made to survive the mountain's pass. Now, despite togate being highly illegal, the racers

live by a strict code of conduct. There are unspoken rules. Never race in the rain unless you're preparing to die. Never endanger civilians if a car is coming, stop the race. If you crash, you fix your own mess. No trash talking without skill to back it up, and respect the mountain always. Togai is not a free for all like other underground racing scenes. Here the mountain is sacred not just as approving ground, but as a place of honor

for the racers. Whilst the togai scene is definitely still active, as we'll see, it's nothing like it was in the mid nineties. Back then toga racing had exploded. There was even a whole manga series about it called initial D. It's very cool. You might have heard of it. If not, check it out. Initial D. Generally, message boards and forums on the Internet helped u spread the culture internationally. But

with more eyes came more heat from the cops. As with Kanjo, the Japanese police began cracking down hard night patrols in togay areas. Increased penalties for illegal modifications got harsher, and if you got court racing or even being associated with it, you risk losing your license immediately, having your car impounded, or getting a hefty fine. It got serious. In some prefectures. A street racing conviction could even tank your job prospects or get you kicked out of school.

Some local governments started installing speed bumps or roadblocks in notorious Togay areas. Others set up permanent surveillance. As a result, many Togay drivers faded into obscurity. Some moved to sanctioned motorsports. Others just got older and stopped. But a few the hard core They kept the torch burning. This hard core element has endured till today, and there are still Togay crews popping up around the country. John tells us we're headed to meet a load of them right now, hard

core underground races adapted to Togay. Apparently they're interested in speaking to us. First home, we have to go and meet them at a garage on the outskirts. We drive out of a saka at night. The more space we put between us and the city, the less neon and color days. Here, the roads are longer, flatter, and the only thing keeping them lit top are led street lights. A hazy orange glow every fifty feet points us in the right direction. John says he knows these guys well.

Back in the day, John road around with them, back when the car counterculture was widespread, violent, and a lot less hidden. We move through the streets and eventually end up at the garage. This area is kind of green. I like it. There's an extremely loud main road running through the town with angry traffic. Even at this time. There's rubbish and car deburry gathered in the gutters, and you can just feel that this is not the city.

I grew up in a place not too different from this, a backwater that's not so far from the city but has none of its poncey airs and graces. Halogen lights from inside the garage beam out to the front. There were probably one hundred cars here, all lined up next to each other in the courtyard. Almost all of them are Honda Civics or similarly adjacent Japanese street racing carts. The air is thick with the smell of petrol and cigarettes, not the best combination. A heavily deckaled civic is pulled

up out the front. It's been in a crash. The marine blue of the chassis is torn through. It looks as if a giant claw has attacked it and peeled back its skin to the metal nerve endings. The passenger door is folded inward, crushed like a cokecan. The windscreen is a cobweb of broken glass and the front wheels are bent sideways. Whoever drove this didn't die in the but they most likely thought they would at the time. As I examined the rest of the trash civic, we

hear voices approaching. Half a dozen young lads and one young woman exit the garage. They've all got their faces masked in nylon bandanas or straight top balaclavas. This is the team we've come to meet. They'll be taking us to the mountains next week. You'll hear how we drove up a small ravine and drove down it very very fast. You've been listening to the Away Days podcast. To watch independent Away Days documentaries, subscribe to our channel at YouTube

dot com slash at away Days TV. Your Wait Days podcast is a production of H eleven Studio for Cool Zone Media. Reporting, producing, writing, editing and research by me Jake Hanrahan, co producing by Sophie Lichterman. Music by Sam Black, sound mixed by Splicing Block. Photography by Johnny Pickup and Louis Hollis. Graphic design by Laura Adamson and Casey Highfield.