Yashiman Five

The Yashiman Five are an informal group of Imperial zaibatsu that are some of the largest and most influential megacorporations in the Human Sphere. The family-owned corporate groups that make up the Yashiman Five are centuries old, with roots extending far back to Techsurge-era Ordic Yashima. Together, the Yashiman Five exert great economic influence within the Empire, as well as the wider Human Sphere, having expanded into most of the other hyperpowers of the Sphere, and two them are part of the "Group of 10" largest corporations in the Human Sphere. These companies alone have direct control over more than 30% of the Empire's mining and resource industries, almost 50% of control over Imperial manufacturing markets, and 70% of the private military industry. The Yashiman Five have a larger combined GDP than some of the nations in the Coreward Frontier.

Beyond their sheer economic strength, the Yashiman Five zaibatsu also exert extensive political and cultural influence, especially within the Empire. Members of the informal kazoku ruling class, the families and higher-ranked personnel atop the Yashiman Five are considered amongst the highest of elites within Imperial society, with family members and allies invariably sitting on the Imperial Court and within the upper echelons of the Empire's military government. The Yashiman Five were a crucial supporting force behind the Yashiman Cultural Lobby that established the Old Empire, and were also extremely crucial in supporting the Imperial Remnants during the Honourable Resistance Period. Some refer to the heads of the five families as the Daimyo.

Within the Yashiman Five, major rivalries that have lasted for centuries continue to exist. The biggest and most notorious disputes, known to most of the Human Sphere, is the rivalry between Mitsuhishi and Kanazawa. Rooted in ancient history, Mitsuhishi and Kanazawa originated from different regions of Yashima back on Ordis, with both maintaining a fierce rivalry to the modern day that has escalated to armed conflict on occasion.

History
Before the Imperial Declaration, the Yashiman Five and various smaller zaibatsus were largely unremarkable except for their purported Yashiman heritage and faced intense competition from their contemporaries in the Southern Sphere, both before and after Independence. Naturally, the families behind the Yashiman Five were major members and contributors behind the Yashiman Cultural Lobby, an organisation and movement dedicated to the preservation and promotion of Yashiman culture as a form of Neo-Culturalism. The Yashiman Five and the Yashiman Cultural Lobby spent a large amount of their resources into promoting Yashiman culture in the Southern Sphere and the newly-independent Federation under the auspices of promoting a more cohesive society under a shared constructed culture with familiar and popular elements. Through the Yashiman Cultural Lobby, the Yashiman Five attained great economic, political and social influence over a large segment of the Federation's population, forming the beginnings of the Kazoku.

In the wake of the First Federation Civil War, the Yashiman Cultural Lobby rallied behind Admiral Hashiyasume Shinzo when he launched his coup of the Federation government, ensuring that a majority of the Federation's population would support Hashiyasume's takeover and subsequent breakaway from the remnants of the Federation. It was also the Yashiman Cultural Lobby, which eventually transformed into the various organs of the Imperial Ministry of Culture, that pushed for the people to fully embrace Yashiman culture, culminating in Hashiyasume's formation of the Greater Empire. Under the Empire, the Yashiman Five suddenly rose to immense heights with full state backing and assistance. Alongside the mass withdrawal of most of the Federation's megacorporations due to the Empire's restrictive policies, the Yashiman Five rapidly became some of the largest megacorporations in the Human Sphere. Some believed and promoted theories that the zaibatsus had engineered the rise of the Empire in order to fully subvert their corporate rivals and attain full market dominance, and in many ways these theories are not entirely wrong.

After the Empire-Federation War and the fall of the Empire, the Yashiman Five were heavily penalised under the resurgent Federation and many assets were frozen or seized by the federal government, and many corporate leaders and clan members were also placed under strong scrutiny due to their close ties to the Imperial government. Even so, the laissez-faire economy of the Federation allowed the zaibatsus to remain in existence as they were private entities, albeit with great difficulty, and their previous dominance in the Imperial and post-Imperial markets was increasingly challenged by upstart Imperial-aligned megacorporations like Arakawa.

During the Period of Honourable Resistance, the Yashiman Five continued to supply the Imperial Remnants in secret, also funding the various resistance campaigns carried out by the Imperial Remnants and secretly preparing for the Empire's return. The zaibatsus would get what they wanted when the New Greater Empire launched the War of Imperial Restoration, reclaiming all of the systems lost in the Empire-Federation War before the Federation signed a peace treaty and officially recognised the Empire as a sovereign state. Following the Imperial Restoration, the Yashiman Five rapidly returned to their old positions as the leaders of the Imperial economy. However, they were no longer the only megacorporations to dominate the Imperial economy, as much younger conglomerates like Arakawa had emerged to challenge them with government backing, due to their support and loyalty during the Period of Honourable Resistance.

Mitsuhishi
The Mitsuhishi Group is the largest zaibatsu in the Empire and the largest single megacorporation conglomerate in the Southern Sphere, if not the entire Human Sphere. Involved in almost every industry imaginable, the Mitsuhishi Group traces its history back to the very beginnings of the Techsurge Era on Ordic Yashima, during which it spearheaded various developments and became one of the largest companies in the world. Mitsuhishi's various contributions were crucial to humanity's expansion through the stars, and it remains extremely important in the modern day as a driving force behind the Empire. The current CEO and chairwoman of Mitsuhishi is Fukumura Mizuki, and the president is Yoichiro Nagaoka.

The five main pillars of the Mitsuhishi Group are the New Mikogi Banking Group, which is the largest bank in the Empire and the Southern Sphere, the Mitsuhishi General Trading Group, Mitsuhishi Electronics Group, Mitsuhishi Heavy Industries Group, and the Mitsuhishi International Shipping Corporation. Besides these four primary pillars, Mitsuhishi also controls a massive plethora of subsidiaries in almost every industry. Fierce competition exists between Mitsuhishi and its close historical rival, Kanazawa, which also holds significant market share in the same industries as Mitsuhishi.

Ownership of Mitsuhishi has resided in the hands of the Fukumura clan for centuries. One of the largest and most powerful familial institutions in the Human Sphere, the Fukumura clan consists of the Fukumura, Ikuta, Sayashi, and Suzuki families. The clan as a whole, and the Fukumura family in particular, are widely considered to be the most powerful family in the Human Sphere, surpassing that of the Imperial Family itself, though such talk only exists outside of the Empire. The Fukumura clan maintains a strong presence in the kazoku oligarchy.

Kanazawa
The Kanazawa Group is the second-largest zaibatsu in the Empire, and the second-largest megacorporate conglomerate in the Southern Sphere. Locked in fierce rivalry with Mitsuhishi, the Kanazawa Group has been attempting to catch up to their traditional rival for centuries, with occasional success in various areas. Where Mitsuhishi is more industrially-focused, Kanazawa is generally more service-focused, though both corporations have essentially extended to almost every conceivable industry in the Empire in their endless competition. What both companies refuse to acknowledge is that their competition has caused both to become almost symbiotically intertwined in the Imperial economy, endlessly requiring each other to continue growing.

Kanazawa is the parent company of technology giants Fujiwara, Arasaka, Masayume, and others.

Kanazawa is firmly controlled by the Yamagishi family. The current CEO and chairman is Yamagishi Tamotsu, patriarch of the Yamagishi family. The president is Miyahira Hotaka.

Shinomiya
The Shinomiya Group is the third-largest in the Yashiman Five and operates primarily in the banking, real estate, insurance, logistics, and shipping industries. The current CEO is Shinomiya Kaguya.

Chiotanne-Jinteki
Chiotanne-Jinteki Group is a multinational conglomerate with strong involvement in the pharmaceutical, healthcare, bionics, bioengineering, and private military industries. Chiotanne-Jinteki controls the largest bioengineering company in the Human Sphere, the Jinteki Corporation, and also includes the second-largest pharmaceutical company in the Human Sphere.

The Jinteki Corporation is the only company licensed to produce human clones by the Imperial government, and is the only company that continues to do so in the Human Sphere, for organ-harvesting purposes. Historically, Jinteki also produced human clone soldiers and labourers. The company nearly went out of business after human cloning was banned by the Insula Fonte Treaty, though was saved by merging with Chiotanne. Abiding by treaty protocols, the human clones produced by Jinteki today are a genetically engineered subspecies of homo sapiens that never gain consciousness throughout their lifespans, and are typically killed in a humane manner at the age of 18 to harvest their organs.

Chiotanne Interstellar Logistics is Chiotanne-Jinteki's private military company. CIL is the oldest private military company in the entire Human Sphere, in continuous existence since the Techsurge-era and the Neo-Colonial era. One of the smallest major private military companies in the Human Sphere, CIL primarily caters to government and high-level corporate contracts, specialising in black operations, hostage recovery, and assassinations.

As it has been for centuries, the Chiotanne family continues to control Chiotanne-Jinteki.

Kawazaki
Kawazaki KK is the smallest of the Yashiman Five and the least diverse, though it makes up for this with extremely high participation in the industries it participates in, with a focus on manufacturing, vehicles, deep-space construction, and aerospace technology. Considered the most important subsidiary, Kawazaki Aerospace Engineering is the largest aerospace contractor in the Empire, and is known for producing many of the Imperial Navy's warships and aerospacecraft as well as a wide variety of civilian aerospace vehicles sold throughout the Human Sphere.

Kawazaki is owned and operated by the Miyazaki clan, which includes the Miyazaki and Hashiyasume family branches.