By the late 1950's and the early 1960's the Yakuza grew at an alarming rate. With its growth the competition between the various gangs also grew. What was needed was a leader that could bring all the factions together with a unified structure and plan for leadership. The basic organizational structure was already in existence from the beginnings of the rise of the modern organization. Much like the structure of the European and American Mafia, the Yakuza structure build around the concepts of total loyalty and leveled leadership providing protection of the Family or Clan leader. Much like the Godfathers of the Mafia the Yakuza had a leadership position called the Oyabun, the Saiko Komon serve as the level of senior advisors to the Oyabun, the Underbosses are referred to as the So-Honbucho and are in control of a number of crews. The organization also has its special advisors called the Shinglin. One major difference in the organizational structure is the division of power between older and younger factions of the organization.
The Lucky Luciano of Japan, the man who managed to bring many of the factions together was Kodama Kodama. He had formed close ties with the nationalistic members of the Japanese government and had worked in positions of power during the war years. However, at the end of the war he suffered the same fate of many of the war period leaders and was sent to prison. Kodama was recognized by the occupation troops as a threat to their authority in Japan and the plan was to keep him in prison until his power was broken. Kodama, however, had other plans and arranged an agreement with the G-2 Intelligence section of the occupation forces placing him in a position in which he would serve as the go between in relations involving the Yakuza and the occupational forces. His nationalistic feeling continued to prevail and one of the major causes for the call of an end to the fighting between various factions was the to unite to defeat communist forces in Japan. He was able to achieve his goal and form a relationship between the three leading factors of organized crime in Japan. At the death of Kodama there was some effort to change the leadership structure and to assassinate the recognized replacement, Kazuo Taoka. In fact Taoka was able to survive a number of attempts on his life and maintain the peace between the various organized crime factions.
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