Shibuya incident

Shibuya incident
Shibuya, Tokyo, in 1945.
DateJune 1946
Parties
  • Taiwanese mob
Number
400+ police officers
120+ Yakuza gangs
100+ mobs
Casualties and losses
1 dead
7 dead
34 injured
28 arrested

The Shibuya incident (Japanese: 渋谷事件, Hepburn: Shibuya Jiken) was a violent confrontation which occurred in June 1946 between rival gangs near Shibuya Station in Tokyo, Japan. The years after World War II saw Japan as a defeated nation and the Japanese people had to improvise in many aspects of daily life. In the chaos of the post-war recovery, large and very lucrative black markets opened throughout Japan. Various gangs fought for control over them. There were also many non-Japanese "third nationals" in post-war Japan. These "third nationals" or "third-country people" were former subjects of the Empire of Japan whose citizenship then transferred to other countries like China and Korea. The Shibuya incident involved former Japanese citizens from the Japanese province of Taiwan fighting against native Japanese Yakuza gangs. After the fight, the Chinese nationalist government stepped forward to defend the Taiwanese.