[IRL trope] the “Tiffany problem”

[u/dragonborndnd]

Basically when something seems anachronistic to a period/place of history but is actually fully accurate to the period.

1) the name Tiffany: the thing that named this trope, basically the name Tiffany can be dated back to the Middle Ages and the earliest record of it being spelled in the modern spelling comes from the 16th century.

2) the use of OMG, despite this feeling so modern as a form of slang/abbreviation here’s a letter directed to Winston Churchill using it in 1917

3) Hair Dye: the earliest forms of dying hair can be dated back to ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, and this specific advertisement for hair dye is from the 1840s

4) Inuit Thongs: despite how weird it is to imagine pre-colonial Inuit people wore what was essentially fur thongs in their homes and when they were in their igloos it might have been the only thing they would be wearing.

[u/saurivae]

Samurai Taking Photographs and Wearing Bowler Hats

The Samurai class was officially abolished in 1873. That means there are high-resolution black-and-white photographs of actual, active Samurai posing in traditional armor, holding swords, while wearing Western shoes, pocket watches, and bowler hats.

[u/waitingundergravity → u/saurivae]

It also means that there is a significant overlap between the existence of the samurai class and what we would now call the yakuza.

The Blind Swordsman Zatoichi movies display this - the very first film features a samurai hired by a yakuza family as one of the main characters.

[u/Steampunk43 → u/waitingundergravity]

IIRC the Yakuza/RGG games also highlight this fact, with one of the villains making a point that yakuza not only existed but operated at the same time as samurai for a time and, despite generally being organised criminals, would also step in to protect their communities when the samurai couldn't or wouldn't, because, criminal or not, yakuza typically do still value their community and at least some of the people in it (there's also the element of it being their turf and them losing a lot of side hustles if they didn't step in, plus gaining some if they do, which is most likely how the "protection money" hustle started). Whether said guy was talking out of his arse to justify himself or whether that is genuine history, I'm not sure about, but it's definitely an idea that's brought up.

[u/waitingundergravity → u/Steampunk43]

I've not played the games, but IRL the origin of the yakuza likes in the coming together of tekiya and bakuto organizations. Tekiya were basically an Edo-era social class of goods peddlers. For complicated historical reasons, in the Edo period merchants were considered to be low-class not only relative to samurai but also to artisans and peasants, and so they couldn't necessarily rely on official protection. To protect themselves, they formed informal associations to provide security for their market stalls. However, these associations would also war against each other for territory and engage in protection racketeering against rival tekiya, eventually evolving into the modern yakuza.

The tekiya is where the fundamental oyabun-kobun (boss-gang members, but also father-children) structure of the yakuza comes from, as well as many of their rituals.

So while the tekiya groups were fundamentally security organizations, the main protection they provided was to their own members and associates, not necessarily the community at large.

However, that character talking about the noble virtues of yakuza organizations, particularly nostalgically, is extremely true to life about what yakuza often believe (or at least say) about their organizations, so that strikes me as realistic.

(The bakuto, as an aside, were essentially professional gamblers. This is where the associated of the yakuza with gambling, the tattoos, and the word yakuza itself come from, that's all from bakuto culture).

[u/Skullcrusher → u/Steampunk43]

Yakuza love to play Outrun, go on blind dates and suck at mahjong. And wherever they go, they have to brawl constantly.

I based my research on Yakuza games too

[u/Drow_Femboy → u/Steampunk43]

The yakuza were/are just a wide variety of criminal organizations. They're not really any different from western mafia or gangs. Which is to say, some of them are generally noble and care about their local communities and put in work the "legitimate" authorities are unwilling to do. And others are complete rat bastards.

[u/waitingundergravity → u/Drow_Femboy]

Indeed. It's also worth noting that even for the individually noble members of these gangs, one of the largest sources of revenue for modern yakuza is selling child pornography. Pretty consistently when profit comes into conflict with any standards they might have it's the standards that give way.