A Hundred Years of the Ninkyou-gumi

This article is an entry in Animalia's citizen encyclopedia, the Animalopedia. Dates follow the Official Chronicle. For the organization's present state, see Ninkyou-Family.

The Ninkyou-gumi (任侠組) is one of the Five Families of the great city of Animalia. It dates its founding to AE 11, the year the harbor stevedores' mutual-aid society, the Ninkyou-ikka, first raised its banner. Under the motto "To share the cup is the yakuza's proof; the great cause abides with us," it places honor, courtesy, and the ritual of the cup at the center of its organizing principles. It was one of the drafters of the Five-Family Accord (Pax Animalia) — and, in a fine irony, the house that struck the first spark of the Decade of Blood (the Wharf War) is also the house that wrote the terms of its ending.

Edit-war notice: Over the question of "which of the Five Families is the oldest," this article and the Rosso Family centennial history have gone through recurring bouts of rewriting each other's dates. The Ninkyou side argues that "the day the stevedores first exchanged cups (winter, AE 8; oral tradition) predates the founding of the rival house (AE 9)" — but oral tradition is not accepted as a citable source (see Talk: The Oldest-of-the-Five Dispute).

Overview

The Ninkyou-gumi makes its living from harbor stevedoring, theatrical promotion, the pleasure quarters, and the information trade run out of the Kyōgetsurō (the Mirror-Moon Pavilion). As "the neighborhood's men of honor," it commands deep loyalty among civilians — women, the elderly, and children above all. Every relationship within the family rests on the forms of the cup rite, and to renege on a cup is held to be a death-worthy offense (→ Ninkyou-Family). It is the only one of the Five Families to bear a name of Japanese origin, and its aesthetic is regarded as the wellspring of Animalia's Japanese-noir culture 〔TMA Times, September AE 119, "The Aesthetics of Purple"〕.

Prehistory and Founding (AE 1–30s)

• AE 1–10 — In the years just after the Founding, the harbor was lawless. Stevedores were hired by the day and beaten down on wages, and any man who was injured was left behind on the pier. Narumi Tatsugorō, a dock foreman of Eastern-immigrant stock, started a kō — a mutual-aid pool in which the men chipped in to bury fallen comrades and look after their families. This was the direct forerunner of the Ninkyou-ikka.
• AE 11 — The raising of the Ninkyou-ikka banner (→ TMA-Timeline §2). Tatsugorō drew together the stevedores, the scaffolders, and the porters, and took his place as the first boss. The "Hundred-Man Cup" that Tatsugorō shared with every man on the founding day is remembered as the origin of the cup rite — though tradition holds there were only three cups, and a hundred men passed the same three between them 〔The Tales of the Ninkyou-ikka, apocrypha; oral-tradition collection〕.
• The AE 20s — Even as it consolidated its grip on the harbor's stevedoring rights, the family moved into festival promotion and the management of playhouses. The two pillars of the organization — "built on the coin of sweat, fattened on the coin of art," as the saying goes — were both in place by this period.
• AE 24 — The Great Fire of Broken Burrow. Beyond running soup kitchens, the Ninkyou-ikka took in the children left homeless by the blaze and raised them as wards of the family. These "children of the fire" became the core of the organization in later years, and are said to be the emotional backing behind the code "bring no trouble to civilians."

Role in the Decade of Blood (AE 38–50)

• AE 38 — The Wharf War. Over the harbor's stevedoring rights, the Ninkyou-ikka collided head-on with the Northern Society (precursor to the Tundra) (→ TMA-History-Tundra). This was the trigger for the Decade of Blood, which would drag every organization into the fighting. The two houses' accounts of how the war began still disagree to this day (Tribunal Ruling Record No. c-001, both versions recorded), but the second boss, Isobe Genzō, in his declaration of war, said, "At a dishonorable price, a comrade's sweat is bought for scraps" — a line still quoted for how well it captures the family's character as a stevedores' mutual-aid league.
• AE 38–48 — As a principal party to the Wharf War, the Ninkyou-ikka stood in the line of fire for a long stretch. Their style of storming in openly, in broad daylight, in tattoos and open kimono, was mocked by the other houses as "theatrical" — yet the Ninkyou custom of "heralding the raid" (announcing an attack in advance) is credited with producing the fewest civilian casualties of any of the Five Families 〔Nightfall Academy Bulletin, No. 44〕.
• AE 42 — The Silent Purge. The second boss, Isobe Genzō, was arrested and died in prison. The organization faced its gravest crisis, and the third boss, Kiryū Tsurumatsu, succeeded to the line while still young.
• AE 47 — The Theater Massacre (→ TMA-History-Rosso). Of the deaths of civilian theatergoers, Kiryū is said to have remarked, "Our war ain't chivalry anymore." That year the family set down in writing the Three Articles of the Cup (the cup is life / bring no trouble to civilians / know your shame).
• AE 49 — The war ends in all but name. The leading account holds that the practical spark for peace was the "Lone Walk at Frost Harbor" — Kiryū going alone to the enemy Tundra's second boss to propose a settlement 〔TMA Times, AE 100 Special Edition, memoirs〕. The tale of the fox who walked the icy pier with neither guard nor blade has become a standard number in kōdan storytelling.
• AE 50 — The raising of the Memorial Wall. The Ninkyou-ikka held an "All-Souls Requiem," burning incense to the names of the dead without distinction of friend or foe, and this became the public prototype for the later kagezen (empty-seat offering) tradition.

Growth Under the Accord (AE 51–110)

• AE 51 — The signing of the Five-Family Accord (Pax Animalia). It was drafted by the Rosso and the Ninkyou-ikka (→ TMA-Timeline §4 / TMA-History-Rosso). The official position of both houses is the "tea-room drafting theory": that the third boss, Kiryū Tsurumatsu, and Rosso's second head, Carlo, hammered out the framework in the tea room at Zennin-ji. Of the Accord's five articles, "Cubs Inviolable" is said to have been placed first at the insistence of the Ninkyou side, who had raised the "children of the fire" from the Great Fire 〔citation needed〕. That year the organization changed its name from "the Ninkyou-ikka" to "the Ninkyou-gumi." From its founding it also sent lieutenants to the Fifty Seats of the Grand Alliance (The Mafia Animals) (seat rankings undisclosed. → TheMafiaAnimals-Origin).
• AE 55 — The founding of the Tribunal. Some scholarship holds that the very idea of a court for the underworld was an export of Ninkyou culture, with its forms of the cup rite and the settlement (→ TMA-Justice).
• AE 58 — Co-financed the founding of Nightfall Academy, taking charge of its curriculum in etiquette and formal address (→ TMA-Education).
• The AE 60s–90s — The reign of the fourth boss, Amamiya Sōemon. He greatly expanded the entertainment and pleasure-quarter trades, and perfected the Kyōgetsurō as "a clearinghouse for secrets wearing the face of refined elegance." It was also in this era that the moon-viewing banquet became fixed as an annual observance.
• AE 89 — The Burrow Panic. Saved by the cash trade of its pleasure quarters and theaters, the family escaped a fatal blow, but it took on the debts of the geisha houses and playhouses to which it owed obligations, and nearly toppled itself in the process. Amamiya's words survive: "It ain't profit or loss — it's the cup" 〔Night Talks of the Kyōgetsurō〕.
• AE 100 — The Founding Centennial. The Ninkyou-gumi volunteered as the festival's guard, and achieved zero bloodshed within its territory for the duration.

The Present Day (AE 111–121)

The current boss is the fifth-generation head, Izumo Jūzō — an aged grand patriarch and a sworn brother of his predecessor. Day-to-day affairs are run by the lieutenant Kikyo (a fox), under what the young men call the okami system: "the family's face is the boss; the family's backbone is the okami" (→ Ninkyou-Family). Her history — first supporting her husband's crew as a boss's wife, then, after his death, being recognized for her acumen and raised to lieutenant — has become the subject of rōkyoku ballads in the streets.

Since AE 110, it is known that the intelligence networks of the Kyōgetsurō and Shadow-Paw have begun amassing reports of "memory discrepancies" (→ TMA-Timeline §5), though the organization has not disclosed the purpose.

The Line of Bosses

Origins of Customs and Code

• The cup rite — Its origin is the "Hundred-Man Cup" of the AE 11 founding. The forms of the brother-cup and the parent-child cup are said to have taken shape in the AE 20s, once the manners of the stage flowed in through the entertainment trade. There is a saying: "the form from the theater, the weight from the wharf" 〔citation needed〕.
• The Three Articles of the Cup — Set down in writing in AE 47 (the year of the Theater Massacre). Until then they had been passed by word of mouth.
• The kagezen — The custom of setting a place at the table for the dead and the absent. Its origin traces back to the founder's kō (the pooled contributions for funerals), and it became a public form with the All-Souls Requiem of AE 50. The "settings for those who never came back" that line the banquet grew by one for every death of the Decade of Blood, and to this day not one has been taken away.
• The full-turnout grave visit in cherry-blossom season — Its origin is AE 42, when the whole family laid down their blades to attend the first memorial of the second boss, Isobe Genzō, who had died in prison. Ever since, on this one day — even in the midst of a feud — every man lays down his blade.
• The moon-viewing banquet — Fixed as tradition in the fourth boss's day. Refined elegance on the surface; in truth, the great annual exchange of intelligence (→ Ninkyou-Family).
• Widow's relief (the okami's letters) — A quiet, hidden practice by which the okami herself delivers word and money to the partners of young men who have died. As an institution it originated in the surge of war dead during the Decade of Blood, but its present form is credited to the current okami, Kikyo 〔Night Talks of the Kyōgetsurō, second volume〕.

Family Chronology (Abridged)

Anecdotes and Disputes

• The three cups — Of the three cups used at the "Hundred-Man Cup," only two are confirmed to survive (enshrined in the great hall of the Yagyō Manor). The third is said to have been lost in the Decade of Blood, or else returned to the sea by the founder. The family makes a point of etiquette out of "never speaking aloud where the third one lies" 〔The Tales of the Ninkyou-ikka, apocrypha〕.
• The Lone Walk kōdan problem — As the "Lone Walk at Frost Harbor" was worked into kōdan, the embellishments piled up; in some performers' versions, Kiryū dances upon the ice. No one has ever cross-checked the tale against the Tundra's own records (if any exist) (→ TMA-History-Tundra).
• "Cubs Inviolable" as the first article — The order of the Accord's articles is said to reflect the arguments made during drafting, and that "Cubs Inviolable" stands as the first article is spoken of as a victory for the Ninkyou side. Yet the articles in the original of the Accord bear no numbers at all, and it has been noted that the very habit of calling it "the first article" may be a usage the Ninkyou themselves spread 〔Nightfall Academy Bulletin, No. 52〕.
• The ever-growing kagezen — Because the "settings for those who never came back" at the family's banquets have never once been reduced since the Decade of Blood, the settings in the great hall now number 114. Pouring for every one of them at each banquet is a young man's solemn duty 〔TMA Times, April AE 117〕.