After a death-defying game of chicken one evening in 1958, Akagi nonchalantly enters a Yakuza Mahjong parlor to shake the cops' trail. Even unfamiliar with the rules of Mahjong, his gambling ...

Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, who took office last October, said the government made the decision out of respect for Akagi, whom he described as having been "devoted to his work with a strong ...