I've seen an obvious yakuza in the onsen near where I live -- though only once. I stayed well away from him, as did everyone else. Sometimes even if a bathhou

I've seen an obvious yakuza in the onsen near where I live -- though only once. I stayed well away from him, as did everyone else. Sometimes even if a bathhouse has a no-tattoo policy you can get special permission. You need to know who and how to ask. I have found that this is generally true in Japan. It seems reasonable to me that at some places a yakuza could get permission to bathe at a non-busy time. Incidentally, I have been told that there used to be a fairly powerful yakuza clan in Fujieda city (a few towns over from where I live). There used to be a sumo jungyo (unofficial tournament) held there every year and I was told that it was done as a favour to the resident yakuza head. After the crackdown on yakuza involvement in sumo, they cancelled the jungyo, lending at least some credibility to the story. I also heard that sometime about 2010 something happened and the yakuza clan in Fujieda is no more. My friend who told me did not want to elaborate. When I first moved here in 2007, I would occasionally see a couple of guys hanging out at the beach -- pretty obvious: dressed in suits even though it was 35C, with their tattoo sleeves just peeking out from underneath their coats. They would just stand there for hours. I don't know what they were doing (the beach where I live is almost always empty). Haven't seen any of these guys for years and years, though.