The Honda-kai were a Japanese

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 yakuza

Yakuza

, also known as , are members of traditional organized crime syndicates in Japan. The Japanese police, and media by request of the police, call them bōryokudan , literally "violence group", while the yakuza call themselves "ninkyō dantai" , "chivalrous organizations". The yakuza are notoriously...

 gang active in Kobe

Kobe

, pronounced , is the fifth-largest city in Japan and is the capital city of Hyōgo Prefecture on the southern side of the main island of Honshū, approximately west of Osaka...

 in the middle of the 20th century.

The Honda-kai was a "bakuto

Bakuto

Bakuto were itinerant gamblers in Japan from the 18th century to the mid-20th century. They were one of the forerunners of the modern Japanese crime gangs known as yakuza....

" gang, mainly devoted to illegal gambling

Gambling

Gambling is the wagering of money or something of material value on an event with an uncertain outcome with the primary intent of winning additional money and/or material goods...

. After World War II

Pacific War

The Pacific War, also sometimes called the Asia-Pacific War refers broadly to the parts of World War II that took place in the Pacific Ocean, its islands, and in East Asia, then called the Far East...

, they formed an alliance with the Yamaguchi-gumi

Yamaguchi-gumi

is Japan's largest and most infamous yakuza organization. It is named after its founder Harukichi Yamaguchi. Its origins can be traced back to a loose labor union for dockworkers in Kobe pre-WWII....

 syndicate, then growing under the leadership of Kazuo Taoka

Kazuo Taoka

was one of the most prominent yakuza Godfathers.Known as the "Godfather of Godfathers", Taoka was third kumicho of the Yamaguchi-gumi, Japan's largest yakuza organization, from 1946 to 1981....

. But the power-sharing arrangement was unsuitable to Taoka, and the Honda-kai were soon absorbed into the Yamaguchi-gumi's ranks and ceased to be an independent operation.