This yakuza cut off his left pinkie – in exchange for the freedom to follow Jesus

Kaoru Inoue grew up in Hokkaido, Japan with a sickly mother and a fisherman father who was constantly out at sea.

His mother’s medical bills left their family finances in a dire state and young Kaoru came to believe that life would only be enjoyable if one had money.

“I was a child who grew up being very obsessed with money. I was poor, and I thought that money would make me happy,” said Kaoru, now in his late 60s.

Kaoru over the years.

Left to fend for himself, he began stealing when he was a junior high school student.

Eventually he was sentenced to five years in custody and was unable to enrol into high school.

Outstanding biker gang member

At the young age of 15, Kaoru moved to Saitama to work. Away from home without any parental guidance, the young teenager’s life spiralled.

At age 18, Kaoru got married but slowly lost his motivation to work.

Two years later, the young couple moved back to Hokkaido as the economy was not doing well. That was when he joined a biker gang.

Based on photos the interviewer had seen online, she was looking out for a heavily-tattooed, tough and buff guy. Instead, a grandfatherly figure in a suit greeted her. His eyes were full of warmth and kindness. Photo by the Thirst Collective.

He developed a violent nature that ended his marriage the following year.

Kaoru was such an outstanding gang member that various yakuza leaders scouted him to join their gangs.

“But I didn’t like the yakuza because I could do whatever I wanted now (in the biker gang). If I joined the yakuza, I would have to be a yakuza all the time,” he said, referring to the strict hierarchies, codes of conduct and ritualistic practices of the gangs.

Despite Kaoru’s resistance, the same leader persisted and approached him repeatedly. Eventually Kaoru developed respect for him and felt that he finally had a male role model in his life.

That was how Kaoru Inoue became a member of an organised crime syndicate in Japan.

“I joined the yakuza because I wanted to die”

Life in the yakuza did not make things better for Kaoru.

He vowed to never touch drugs because he hated them. But a challenge by a fellow yakuza member sent him on a journey of no return.

Kaoru and his leader with the gang.

“He told me that if I was a yakuza member who didn’t do drugs, I was a weak-willed person,” said Kaoru.

“So, I started injecting drugs … and became a slave to them.”

Kaoru became the person he never wanted to be. Day and night, his addiction consumed him, as did the voices he was hearing in his head. His hallucinations made him increasingly violent.

“I went to sleep every day with a samurai sword, ready to attack. When I saw my girlfriend cower in fear around me, I became suspicious of her and threatened to kill her. In the end she left,” he said.

In his search of meaning and purpose in life, Kaoru found himself falling into the darkest depths he had never known.

He harboured suicidal thoughts and attempted to take his life three times. But all three times he failed, and was somehow rescued.

“I want to live, but I didn’t know how to live. I wanted to stop, but I didn’t know how to stop.

“I realised that I joined the yakuza because I wanted to die. I was looking for a way to end my life,” he said.

The dentist’s daughter

Just like that, 10 years flew by in the yakuza. One day, the boss of a construction firm asked Kaoru to help out at one of their projects, a dental clinic undergoing renovation.

There, Kaoru met Hiroko, the daughter of the dentist, and they became well-acquainted with each other during his month at the clinic.

They went together to a carnival, where Kaoru ended up losing his jacket. Some time later, Hiroko – a Christian – gave him a used Bible, to make up for his lost jacket.

“I was very confused why she gave me a Bible instead of a jacket, plus it was a hand-me-down. But I thought since she gifted it to me, I should try to read some of it,” said Kaoru.

The dentist’s daughter, Hiroko, later became his wife in 1997.

Then he reached the book of Matthew.

One verse changed Kaoru’s life completely.

It was Matthew 5:30.

“It talks about how if your right hand causes you to stumble, you cut it off and throw it away. It is better to lose that one hand than for your whole body to go into hell,” said Kaoru.

“I looked at my own right hand. With that hand, I had committed a lot of crimes. I stole, I was violent and I was also using that same hand to inject drugs. It was a really dirty hand.”

Every deed that he had committed flashed before his own eyes and he was filled with a sense of remorse that he had never felt before.

Kaoru broke down completely.

“I really cried out, ‘If you are the real God, please help me.’

“I felt my dirty past gush out of me together with my tears, and I felt the chains that had shackled me my entire life break apart,” he said.

The beginning of transformation

Kaoru became very passionate about reading the Bible, and he began carrying it wherever he went. His fellow yakuza members were astonished to see him reading.

About a month later, he finished reading the entire Bible. He reached out to the dentist’s daughter to let her know.

She was pleasantly surprised. She was patient with every question he had about the Bible, and invited him to join her at church. But Kaoru still felt that he was too messy and too dirty for church and turned her down repeatedly.

“Mr Inoue, there are many beautiful single women at my church. Are you sure you don’t want to visit?” she asked.

That was how Kaoru found himself in a church for the first time. And eventually, Hiroko became his wife.

Cutting off an old life

As Kaoru continued showing up at church, he started to feel joy in his life.

The sense of emptiness that he was too familiar with started to fade away. He felt less drawn to drugs and his change was visible.

“Everyone around me had kept their distance. But everyone at church welcomed me with a smile instead,” he said.

Even his gang leader saw the change in him, and followed him to church one day to see what was going on.

That day, his leader met with the Pastor at the church. What he said to the Pastor left Kaoru very puzzled.

“Pastor, I’m speaking to you as Inoue’s father. If Inoue decides he is going to live righteously from now on, I will let him step away from the yakuza.”

His leader folded his hands in front of him and respectfully bowed to the Pastor. He had tears in his eyes.

His leader knew that letting Kaoru leave the yakuza was the only way to let him live. Photo by the Thirst Collective.

Kaoru later found out that his leader knew that if he had continued staying in the yakuza, he would die. Letting him go was the only way to let him live.

But in exchange for his freedom, Kaoru had to have his left pinkie cut off.

Cutting his finger off was a yakuza ritual of yubitsume, which requires self-amputation to atone for mistakes and failure, and to express remorse. Photo by the Thirst Collective.

Four months later, Kaoru left the yakuza. He publicly declared his faith in Jesus on June 3, 1990.

Finding meaning in being alive

To the unsuspecting passerby, Kaoru looks like a friendly and soft-spoken grandfather.

His wife looks on with warmth and love in her eyes whenever he speaks. He tenderly checks on her and asks if the bag that she is carrying is too heavy.

It’s hard to imagine that he was a man who used to live a life of violence and vice.

“When I read the Bible, Jesus told me three things: ‘I love you. I will protect you. I will always be with you.’ Until today, these three things have always been etched onto my heart,” he said.

Since leaving the yakuza, Kaoru hasn’t stopped praying for people around him to come to know Jesus. So moved by the love of God, he wants everyone to experience the same joy.

Two years after he left the yakuza, his leader miraculously decided to disband the group.

In addition, Kaoru’s own biological father – with whom he had little to do with since young – was baptised at the age of 70 during Christmas that same year.

“My father said, ‘There’s a God who changed my son who no one could change. My son was crazy with drugs and fighting all the time, but God changed him.

“‘I want this God who changed my son.’

“‘Life is worth living. It really is’.”

Defiant hope

In 2024, Japan recorded its highest number of student suicides ever, despite a downward trend in overall suicide cases.

According to health ministry data, 529 suicides were reported in 2024 among elementary, junior high and senior high school students with a significant increase among girls.

Suicide is the leading cause of death among children aged between 10 and 19 in the nation.

Kaoru feels a sense of duty towards the troubled youths of today as they remind him of his younger self.

“I want to give hope to those youths. I want to walk with them and tell them that they are loved and they are not alone,” says Kaoru.

“In the world today, there are many young people who have no hope. I didn’t have any hope for myself either,” he explained.

“But I want to give hope to those youths. I want to walk with them and tell them that they are loved and they are not alone.”

Since 1990, Kaoru, who became a Pastor, has devoted his entire life to serving others.

Together with wife Hiroko, Kaoru partners widely with various organisations to show others the love of Christ across the world.

He has been actively serving in juvenile rehabilitation centres, prisons, drug rehabilitation centres.

Even now as he battles an incurable illness, he is still hopeful.

He says: “I’m trying to bring light to the places that I go to. The doctors have given up on me, so I think I’m being kept alive now for this sole purpose.

“I have a mission and I want to fulfil it to the end.”

This interview was conducted in Tokyo with Samuel Anudeep interpreting.

A version of this story first appeared on Thirst and Stories of Hope.

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