Kitakata Family

The Kitakata Family (, Kitakata-gumi) is a yakuza group featured in Yakuza 5.
== Overview ==
The Kitakata Family is one of the dominant yakuza organizations in the city of Sapporo, Hokkaido. Based out of the city's entertainment district, Tsukimino, the Kitakata Family is presided over by its patriarch, Taizo Kitakata. Despite their criminal activities, the Kitakata Family is widely-respected amongst the people of Sapporo and Patriarch Kitakata is a public figure who is frequently invited to events by the city's government and businessmen.
== Ryu ga Gotoku Online ==
In 1999, the Kitakata Family faces trouble when their rivals from Aomori, the Yawata Family, start trying to muscle their way into Sapporo by pressuring local businesses into paying them for protection. However, the Yawata are being discreet about it, since they don't want to look like the aggressors in case other families from Hokkaido decide to intervene.
One night, Ryuji Goda, who was staying in town as a guest of Patriarch Kitakata, badly beats some Yawata Family thugs when they make trouble at Kitakata's seafood restaurant. This gives the Yawata Family the excuse they needed to fully invade Sapporo, since it looked like one of Kitakata's men attacked them unprompted. In response, Patriarch Kitakata meets with Patriarch Yawata and tries to smooth things out between their organizations. However, the peace talks turned out to be a trap, since Yawata had marched into town with an army of his men, fully intent on taking control of Sapporo. Unfortunately for Yawata, the Kitakata Family (aided by Ryuji Goda, who'd foreseen the trap) manage to defeat them in battle and drive them out of their city.
== Yakuza 5 ==
In 2012, fearing an oncoming war against the Omi Alliance, Tojo Clan sixth chairman Daigo Dojima sought to create a national alliance of yakuza organizations that would aid the Tojo in the event of a war. To that effect, Dojima sent clan captain Goro Majima to Sapporo to negotiate a partnership with the Kitakata Family.
During the negotiations, Majima's friend in the Omi, Naoki Katsuya, informed about a plot to assassinate him in Sapporo orchestrated by Omi Alliance chairman Tsubasa Kurosawa. Majima informed Patriarch Kitakata about this and, with his help, he faked his murder at the hands of the Kitakata Family so that he could sneak out of the city undetected and pursue Chairman Kurosawa.
Word about Majima's supposed murder reached his sworn brother, Taiga Saejima, who was serving time in the nearby Abashiri Prison. Saejima escaped from the prison with assistance from his cellmate, Shigeki Baba, and travelled to Sapporo to confront Patriarch Kitakata. The duo kidnapped Patriarch Kitakata during the town's yearly Snow Festival, where Kitakata had been the city's guest of honor, and took him to a nearby abandoned building to interrogate him. Kitakata willingly told Saejima about his conspiracy with Majima but, before he could reveal his friend's whereabouts, Baba shot him, as he'd been secretly working for Kurosawa. Despite his bullet wound, Kitakata would make a full-recovery.
Later on, after Kurosawa's conspiracy is exposed, Omi captain Masaru Watase rallied his own family, the Tojo Clan, the Yamagasa Family and the Kitakata Family to fight against Kurosawa's army. Watase led this alliance of families to war in Tokyo and successfully defeated Kurosawa's men, putting an end to his plot.
==Trivia==
*It is mentioned in Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth that the Kitakata Family is one of several smaller yakuza organizations the Seiryu Clan is looking to dissolve as part of the Second Great Dissolution, along with the Yomei Alliance and Ryudo Family.
Category:Organizations
Category:Kitakata Family
Category:Yakuza Organizations