Sekiguchi and Takada’s police-yakuza cooperation

Sekiguchi and Takada’s police-yakuza cooperation is an uneasy working relationship in which a police investigator tries to contain violence by negotiating directly with a yakuza boss. Their connection is neither uncomplicated trust nor formal partnership: it depends on personal access, strategic restraint, and promises that could fail at any moment. In the investigation surrounding Sekine, Sekiguchi repeatedly used that access to keep Takada from taking matters into his own hands, while accepting the risks of leaving suspects within Takada’s reach.

An Informal Channel of Influence

Sekiguchi visited Takada periodically, not simply to exchange information but, as Sekiguchi described it, to keep events under control. The arrangement gave the investigator a route into the yakuza network that conventional police procedure alone could not supply. It also left him negotiating with a man capable of ordering violence. Their cooperation therefore rested on an unstable balance: Sekiguchi needed Takada’s influence over his men, while Takada wanted information, room to act, and outcomes that matched his own code of honor.

The relationship became especially consequential after Shimizu admitted that he had attacked Sekine with a box cutter but denied involvement in Endo’s death and denied that Takada had ordered the attack. After completing Shimizu’s written confession, Sekiguchi questioned him privately about whether Takada had directed him. He then went to Takada himself and asked directly. Takada denied sending Shimizu to kill Sekine. His response nevertheless made clear that, had he issued such an order, he would have expected it to be carried out decisively. Sekiguchi’s access could clarify what Takada had or had not commanded, but it could not make the violence behind the question disappear.

Restraint During the Sekine Investigation

Sekiguchi’s immediate objective was to prevent Takada’s suspicion from turning into an extrajudicial killing. He said that his job was to make it appear that the police were doing everything possible to keep Sekine alive, so Takada’s men would believe that killing the suspect would bring severe legal consequences. The strategy was deliberately double-sided: the appearance of police protection was meant to protect Sekine in fact, and the possibility of a forceful police response was meant to deter Takada’s organization. Sekiguchi was trying to preserve both the suspect’s life and the investigation.

That balancing act became harder as evidence accumulated against Asahi Ken Kennel. When Endo first disappeared, Takada had rejected the possibility that a civilian could have killed a yakuza. As Sekiguchi’s investigation began to challenge that assumption, Takada called him from time to time and offered to end the case by killing the main suspect. Sekiguchi politely asked him to refrain. Their repeated exchange acquired the quality of a familiar routine, but the underlying danger remained real: Takada could make the investigation stop by force, and Sekiguchi had to keep persuading him not to do so.

The arrangement was tested when Takada called Sekiguchi after taking Sekine into his custody. Takada offered to let Sekiguchi listen while he questioned the suspect, but Sekiguchi declined. Instead, he told Takada not to kill Sekine and required him to report what he learned. Takada gave his word. Sekiguchi chose to trust that promise, explaining that if Takada had not made it, he would have asked the Gyoda police to intervene and remove Sekine. The choice was not confidence without limits: it was a calculated decision to rely on a specific assurance, with an alternative ready if that assurance were absent.

Takada kept Sekine for three hours and questioned him, but Sekine continued to deny killing Endo. Takada then brought him before a small Buddhist shrine in the office and told him to pray for Endo’s soul. Sekine struggled to light the incense, breaking three sticks before he managed to place one in the ash; Takada treated the moment as a performance. The episode showed both the reach and the limits of their cooperation. Sekiguchi had allowed Takada access to the suspect on the strength of a promise, but the questioning produced no confession, and the encounter also reflected Takada’s own authority and methods rather than police procedure.

Arai, Debt, and Competing Claims

Sekiguchi’s dealings with Takada extended beyond the immediate effort to keep Sekine alive. Arai owed Takada several million yen after disappearing, and Takada believed Arai might be dead. When Arai reappeared and then vanished again, Sekiguchi told Takada that Arai seemed to be alive, although Sekiguchi did not know where he was. He later explained that he had planted this suggestion because he expected Takada to search for Arai. The tactic worked: the two men found Arai first. But Arai was broke, and Sekiguchi needed him for other investigative reasons, so Sekiguchi went to Takada and asked him to back off.

That request did not end the danger. A Sumiyoshi-kai group that Arai had also angered decided to kill him before Takada could reach him. Sekiguchi then had to calm that group as well as prevent Takada from acting. He described having to save Arai’s life twice in roughly a week. The episode reveals the practical cost of using Takada as an intermediary: influence could help locate a person or redirect an attack, but each intervention risked drawing other factions into the same contest. Sekiguchi’s cooperation with Takada was therefore one part of a wider effort to keep a volatile network from destroying the people whose testimony the investigation needed.

Sekiguchi admitted that his maneuvering had created a problem, but he rejected the idea that the simplest solution was to step away and let Takada or the other yakuza deal with Arai and Sekine. The victims’ families, he argued, needed the truth and the possibility of closure; allowing the suspects to die would deny them that. His position put the purpose of the investigation in tension with the methods used to sustain it. He relied on a yakuza boss to restrain other yakuza, even while insisting that the case had to reach a lawful and evidentiary conclusion.

The Shima Crisis and the Relationship’s Limits

The discovery of audio tapes changed the pressure on the relationship. After learning that the tapes existed, Takada called Shima and demanded the location of Endo’s body, threatening that Shima himself could need burial if he did not provide it. Takada later promised Sekiguchi that he would not kill Shima while Sekine remained free and alive. He also asked Sekiguchi to remove the police surveillance around Shima’s home so he could speak with him alone and learn what had happened to the body.

Sekiguchi could not simply withdraw the police watch. He told Takada that an officer guarded Shima’s home most of the time, repeating the qualification. Takada understood the opening in that wording. When the officer was away, Takada and two associates appeared at the house. Shima saw them, fled through the back, and ran to the police station, where he begged the police to keep watch over him continuously. They could not promise round-the-clock protection, and Shima disappeared again. Takada’s promise not to kill him did not prevent the approach that drove him to flee; Sekiguchi’s careful hint had also exposed the weakness in police protection.

The episode defines the relationship’s central contradiction. Sekiguchi could communicate with Takada, negotiate pauses, and sometimes redirect threats, but he could not control what Takada did with an opportunity or guarantee that the police could protect a witness at every hour. Takada, for his part, could offer assurances and assist the search for answers, yet his pursuit of those answers carried its own coercive pressure. Their cooperation helped keep the investigation moving, but it remained contingent, personal, and dangerous: a channel for managing violence rather than a stable escape from it.