Kanji Mochizuki (Mocchi): The reform-school kid who was still in the gang at thirty

In 2006, Tenjiku, the Yokohama gang, has come into Tokyo to crush Toman, and in Shibuya a giant with a braid down the back of his neck appears dragging Chifuyu Matsuno, the First Division’s vice-captain, unconscious. He has knocked him out with a single punch. This is Kanji Mochizuki, “Mocchi,” and he asks whether Toman’s other four divisions are just as weak. He orders his men to deal with Takemichi and his friends and heads off to Shinjuku, where he has heard there is a fight with the Second Division (manga chapter 126; anime episodes 37 and 38). Mocchi is one of the Four Heavenly Kings of Tenjiku, the gang of Izana Kurokawa, and a member of the S-62 Generation, the group of boys Izana gathered in a juvenile detention center. Before Tenjiku, he had led his own gang in Kawasaki, Jugem. After the Tenjiku arc he moves through Rokuhara Tandai and Kanto Manji, and in the future of 2018 he is one of the executives of Bonten, Mikey’s criminal organization. (Spoiler warning: this case file reveals the ending of the manga, which the anime has not yet adapted.)

// The theoryTwo populations in a single curve

In 1993, the psychologist Terrie Moffitt published her dual taxonomy in Psychological Review. Delinquency shoots up in adolescence and falls with adulthood, but that curve, she argued, mixes two different groups. Most are adolescence-limited: kids who offend for a few years, imitating others, in the gap between a body that is already adult and a society that does not yet give them work, independence or a voice. When those roles arrive, they stop. A small minority, around 5% of males, are life-course-persistent: their antisocial behavior starts early, shows up in every setting and goes on for decades. Moffitt traced it to early neuropsychological deficits combined with adverse family environments. She added an important warning: some adolescence-limited offenders get caught in snares, such as a criminal record, prison or an addiction, that prolong a career that was meant to be short.

// The subjectA gorilla with a code

Mocchi is neither a strategist nor a sadist. He is brute force with a street code of honor, and the manga shows it in specific moments. In Shinjuku, when he finally finds a worthy opponent in Mitsuya, Ran Haitani gets there first and hits the captain on the head with a brick from behind; Mocchi takes it with displeasure (chapter 128). Before the battle against Toman he makes it clear that he does not agree with the tactics Tenjiku has used to weaken the enemy (chapter 153). During the fight, Izana runs through the S-62’s crimes and gives Mocchi’s: he beat a police officer who was trying to break up a fight (chapter 160). And his fall is just as physical: when Angry knocks out the Haitanis, Mocchi drops his fight with Chifuyu to take him on alone, and Angry floors him with one punch (chapter 163; episode 46). What comes next is the part that interests Moffitt. After Izana’s death, the surviving S-62 members stay behind so the others can get away, and they are arrested (chapters 179 and 185). In detention South Terano beats them up, and on his release, in 2007, he founds Rokuhara Tandai with Mocchi, Shion and the Haitani brothers (chapter 227). In 2008, Rokuhara loses to Mikey’s Kanto Manji and its leaders end up inside it (chapter 243); in the final battle, Chifuyu, the boy he knocked out in Shibuya, defeats him (chapter 249). Each stage begins where the last one ended, and two of them take shape inside a juvenile facility. According to the official character book, as cited by the fan wiki, his dream is to lead a yakuza organization.

// The crackThe charity volunteer

Tokyo Revengers saves a surprise for the taxonomy. In the last time leap, Takemichi and Mikey go back to their childhood and redo everything: they save Shinichiro, Emma, Izana and Kakucho, and they welcome Tenjiku’s members into Toman (chapter 277). At the wedding that closes the manga, Tenjiku is a nonprofit that helps orphans around the world, run by Izana, and Mocchi works there as a volunteer (chapter 278). The same kid, with the same strength and the same temper, ends up at a charity. What has changed is not his temperament but his bonds: Izana is alive, and the gang that gave all of them a purpose has become something else.

That is more Sampson and Laub than Moffitt: adult turning points can bend trajectories that looked fixed. One caution has to be added. The manga says nothing about Mocchi’s childhood, so calling him persistent means classifying him by his outcome, and Moffitt required an early onset and deficits that are not on record here. The honest claim is that his trajectory fits the persistent pattern, not that it proves its cause. And explaining Mocchi is not excusing him: the beatings and the years in Bonten are his.