TOKYO — The Boss is decked out in a batik shirt, plaid pants, gold medallion belt buckle, gem-studded Rolex and gold wristband. To his right is a wooden statue of a cobra ready to strike, a gold sake cup resting in its mouth as a charm.

The subject is the driver of The Boss' white Mercedes, the man's finger and how the driver sliced it off for having somehow failed his employer.

"As his \o7 oya \f7 (father), I think it was a stupid thing to do," said The Boss, head of a family of less than a dozen Japanese \o7 yakuza \f7 or gangsters. But clearly he was moved by the old-fashioned gesture of loyalty. "He is very dear to me."

Such gangster tales once touched a chord in tradition-minded Japan. But the stories are wearing thin.

The Japanese are awakening to the frightening reality that the \o7 yakuza \f7 have vastly expanded their activities. They now commit a majority of Japan's murders. They chase families from their homes. They push uncooperative businesses into bankruptcy.

In the last few weeks, Japanese have been stunned and embarrassed by revelations that the Inagawakai and the Yamaguchigumi, Japan's two largest crime syndicates, have borrowed hundreds of millions of dollars from major securities companies and banks in complex land and stock deals. The scandal has reached into the inner sanctums of Japan's business elite, contributing to the recent resignations of the presidents of Nikko Securities Co. and Nomura Securities Co.

The new, more sober view of the \o7 yakuza \f7 is a sharp shift for many Japanese. The nation's gangsters--of which The Boss' Tokyo family is one of thousands nationwide--long have run gambling, prostitution, drug and extortion rings. The families, organized into crime syndicates, were considered a necessary evil.

Operating under strict, sometimes bizarre, rules and rituals--some of which protected ordinary citizens from their activities--the digit-missing, tattooed \o7 yakuza \f7 were believed to keep crime and disorder in check. The \o7 yakuza \f7 absorbed delinquents into well-disciplined organizations, it was said, and thus minimized street crime.

After World War II, police borrowed gangster forces to suppress riots by Koreans and Chinese, and they have continued to stay in close touch.