Kazuo Nakanishi was briefly the leader of the Yamaguchi-gumi

Yamaguchi-gumi

is Japan's largest and most infamous yakuza organization. It is named after its founder Harukichi Yamaguchi. Its origins can be traced back to a loose labor union for dockworkers in Kobe pre-WWII....

 yakuza

Yakuza

, also known as , are members of traditional organized crime syndicates in Japan. The Japanese police, and media by request of the police, call them bōryokudan , literally "violence group", while the yakuza call themselves "ninkyō dantai" , "chivalrous organizations". The yakuza are notoriously...

 syndicate in the chaotic years of the Yama-Ichi War

Yama-Ichi War

The Yama–Ichi War was a yakuza conflict mainly fought in the Kansai region of Japan from 1985 to 1989, between the Yamaguchi-gumi and the Ichiwa-kai gangs....

. He was also the founder and 1st kumicho of the Nakanishi-gumi.

Nakanishi accepted the temporary leadership position after the assassination of Masahisa Takenaka

Masahisa Takenaka

was the short-lived 4th kumicho of the Yamaguchi-gumi, Japan's largest yakuza gang.He took the role of kumicho in 1984, but was assassinated at a girlfriend's home in Osaka early the next year by a rival faction, the Ichiwa-kai. The killing sparked a massive yakuza war, the Yama-Ichi War, in...

, but was never considered an official kumicho (supreme Godfather) of the Kobe

Kobe

, pronounced , is the fifth-largest city in Japan and is the capital city of Hyōgo Prefecture on the southern side of the main island of Honshū, approximately west of Osaka...

-based gang, despite heading it from 1985-1989. In 1989, Yoshinori Watanabe

Yoshinori Watanabe

was a yakuza, the fifth kumicho of the Yamaguchi-gumi, Japan's largest yakuza organization. He became kumicho in 1989. He was known for a more low-key approach than his predecessors, partly due to an Anti-Gang law passed in 1992...

 was elected as fifth kumicho.

After Watanabe's accession, Nakanishi continued to work for the gang as a senior advisor and leader of 15 sub-gangs in Osaka

Osaka

is a city in the Kansai region of Japan's main island of Honshu, a designated city under the Local Autonomy Law, the capital city of Osaka Prefecture and also the biggest part of Keihanshin area, which is represented by three major cities of Japan, Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe...

. He died in September 2003.