Japan, as conservative and organized as it may be, is no exception when it comes to the existence of juvenile crime, which actually saw a significant rise in the Land of the Rising Sun from the 1950s up until the 1970s in particular, so much so that a form of organized crime crept its way into a place that should be a safe space for future generations: High School.
Bullies who take your lunch money and small groups of delinquents can be found in pretty much every school worldwide, but in early post-war Japan, these fairly harmless crimes were taken to a new level, at least in terms of scale and organization.
Violence, intimidation and theft was the bread & butter of the “Banchō” and “Sukeban” groups of young Japanese delinquents who managed to strike an interesting balance between being an innocent student and being part of an actual gang.
Today, I wanna take a look at the rise of youth delinquency in post-war Japan, the gang-like structures that found their way into schools AND the impact that the Banchō & Sukeban ended up having on pop culture!


#japan #highschool #gangs


SOURCES:

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/...

https://books.google.at/books?id=Opr-...

https://thetokyofiles.com/2015/11/15/...

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/...

https://scholarlycommons.law.northwes...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banch%C...)

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1...

https://www.vice.com/en/article/mgmzx...

https://groovyhistory.com/sukeban-sch...

https://vintagenewsdaily.com/sukeban-...

https://www.per-spex.com/articles/fas...

https://www.tuxedounmasked.com/was-ma...

https://gallery30south.com/pinky-viol...


CHAPTERS:

00:00 - Intro
01:41 - “Oh, Mistake!”
04:52 - Banchō
11:03 - Sukeban