Rikio Ishikawa Tetsuya Watari, a volatile figure within the Kawada yakuza in Shinjuku, launches a brutal series of crimes to expand his hold on rival territories. He first assaults and robs the Aoki gang, then partners with Imai in a bold heist at a Sangokujin gambling den, where Ishikawa had recently become friends with Kozaburo Imai Tatsuo Umemiya and agreed to join his growing faction. In a reckless moment, Ishikawa stashes his gun with a geisha named Chieko Yumi Takigawa and, after his release from jail that night, he returns for the weapon and commits a rape against Chieko, a brutal act that haunts the subsequent chapters of his life.
The political and criminal landscape around him grows tense as the Nozu family boss, Ryunosuke Nozu Noboru Andō, campaigns for Parliament, forging ties with Kawada. When Ishikawa severely wounds Aoki in a club, Kawada scolds him, anxious that Shinwa might retaliate. A dangerous standoff erupts between Shinwa and Kawada, only defused when Kawada pays the American Military Police to disperse the gathering. The election of Nozu ends in disappointment, and Ishikawa retaliates by blowing up Nozu’s car, an act that triggers a brutal backlash: he is beaten and pressured to perform yubitsume, then, after a drunken episode, he fatally wounds Kawada and flees to Chieko before surrendering to the police days later.
Banished from the Tokyo yakuza for ten years, Ishikawa withdraws to Osaka, where drug addiction takes hold and he forms a fervent and unhealthy bond with Ozaki. Ozaki, Katsuji Ozaki in the cast Kunie Tanaka, accompanies him back to Tokyo a year and a half later. Imai, now the head of his own family, urges Ishikawa to leave, but Ishikawa—still driven and obstinate—attacks Imai alongside Ozaki before disappearing again to hide. When he returns to confront Imai a final time, the two become locked in a tense stalemate with both Imai’s and Kawada’s factions bearing down on them. Detained and arrested, Ishikawa is sentenced to ten years, yet he uses funds raised by Chieko to post bail while appealing the verdict.
On bail, Ishikawa tries to pay respects to Imai’s widow, only to be turned away. He spends his days in a fog of drugs, tending to the ailing Chieko, whose tragedy culminates in suicide. Before long, he commissions a gravestone for three people and, seeking a future of his own, asks Kawada for a land stake to start his own family; Kawada initially grants a measure of turf but ultimately withdraws, leaving Ishikawa to rob a Kawada family member in retaliation. While high in a cemetery, the Kawada faction attacks him with swords, a confrontation he survives, but his appeal is denied and he is sent back to prison. After six years inside, Ishikawa ends his life by leaping from the prison roof, leaving behind a stark note: What a laugh! Thirty Years of Madness! His ashes are laid to rest at the gravestone he had made, a cenotaph that also lists Imai, closing a brutal and fateful chapter.
