Japanese secret societies

, also known as , or simply the Japanese Mafia, are members of transnational organized crime syndicates originating in Japan. The Japanese police and media (by request of the police) call them , while the yakuza call themselves . The English equivalent for the term yakuza is gangster, meaning an individual involved in a Mafia-like criminal organization.

international fraternal and religious organization

paramilitary, ultranationalist right-wing group in Japan

new religious movement founded in Japan since the mid-19th century

thumb|Tōyama Mitsuru (center) and [[Yoshio Kodama (first row, second from right) among a meeting of the Dark/Black Ocean Society (Gen'yosha), 1929]] The was an influential Pan-Asianist group and secret society active in the Empire of Japan.

150px|right|thumb|Lieutenant Colonel Hashimoto, founder of the Sakurakai , was an ultranationalist secret society established by young officers within the Imperial Japanese Army in September 1930, with the goal of reorganizing the state along totalitarian militarist lines via a military coup d'état, if necessary. Its avowed goal was a Shōwa Restoration, which they claimed would restore Emperor Shōwa to his rightful place, free of party politics and evil bureaucrats in a new military dictatorship. They also advocated for state socialism, according to the model proposed by Kita Ikki.

Terrorist organization in São Paulo, Brazil

Japanese military secret society of the 1920s