Shibata Family

The Shibata Family (, Shibata-gumi) is a subsidiary of the Tojo Clan featured in Yakuza 4.
==Overview==
===Background=== 
As a patriarch of a low-ranking family, Shibata decided to take action to make sure his family rose through the ranks. Around 1985, Shibata conspired with Isao Katsuragi of the Ueno Seiwa Clan for the two to gain power in their respective groups. Their plan was for Taiga Saejima of the Sasai Family to carry out a hit on the Ueno Seiwa, however prevent him from actually killing anyone letting Katsuragi pick out the victims.
The day of the hit would arrive on April 21st, 1985. Around this time, Shibata managed to obtain news that Saejima would not be a lone hitman, but rather would be accompanied by Dojima Family member Goro Majima. As this would cause problems for patriarch Sohei Dojima, Shibata decided to take things into his own hands, and called out Majima to meet with him on the day of the hit.
Shibata attempted to usher Majima into dropping the hit, but the latter refused. Shibata would end up using about twenty of his own men into attacking Majima. Through Shibata's actions the Ueno Seiwa hit was successful, and the Shibata Family would eventually become a direct subsidiary of the Tojo Clan, and eventually one of the top families.
===Yakuza 4===
In 2010, Katsuragi would come up with a scheme to try to escape Munakata's control by acquiring a substantial amount of money and power. The plot would require the collaboration of both Shibata and his personal assistant, Hiroaki Arai. He promoted one of his lower-rank officers, Masaru Ihara, to Clan Lieutenant and then sent him to cause trouble at a Shibata owned club. Arai, on Shibata's orders, would intervene in the commotion and end up killing Ihara. Katsuragi would then use the threat of war over the murder of one of his lieutenants to pressure Daigo Dojima into surrendering the Kamurocho Hills project to him in compensation, since Ihara technically held the same rank as Majima, that project's owner. Though the scheme was almost ruined because of the intervention of Arai's friend, Shun Akiyama, Arai eventually did manage to kill Ihara and set the plan in motion.
Further complications arose for Shibata, as a mysterious woman started murdering many of his men. When the murderess was spotted going into Sky Finance, Shibata sent Takumi Midorikawa, to steal the company's debtor ledger, in the hopes that it would contain information on the woman. Midorikawa also wound up kidnapping Takeshi Kido, who was close friends with Sky Finance's owner, Akiyama, in the hopes that he would know something about the woman. Unfortunately for Shibata, Akiyama managed to rescue Kido and recover the ledger before anything useful could be obtained from either.
Shibata's men would eventually succeed in kidnapping Yasuko and bringing her to Shibata's base of operations at the Tokyo Docks. Unfortunately for Shibata, when he threatened to rape and kill Yasuko, Arai turned on him and shot him in the back. As it turns out, Katsuragi's plot still required Yasuko to continue and Arai had decided to side with him over Shibata. Before Shibata died, Arai revealed that Katsuragi intended to kill him later anyway, since he'd grown irritated with Shibata's constant blackmailing for favors.
By the end of the game, once the conspiracy has been exposed and Arai has been imprisoned, the Shibata Family would end up being dissolved as a result of Shibata's treachery.
==Notable Members==
* Kazuo Shibata - Patriarch
* Hiroshi Kanemura - Patriarch of the subsidiary family, Kanemura Enterprises
* Hiroaki Arai - Captain of Kanemura Enterprises
* Takeshi Kido - Soldier
==Trivia==
* In the original localization of the game, a boss soldier whose kanji name is , is romanized as "Uchiumi", while in the remaster, his name is romanized as "Utsumi". It is impossible to know which romanization is the intended one.
Category:Tojo Clan Subsidiaries
Category:Shibata Family
Category:Yakuza Organizations