I just watched the show and though I'm sure it's got quite a bit of embellishment, anything I've read in the past made the yakuza out to be about the level they're shown in the show (have some power within their local communities, but not much in government unless they can blackmail someone via prostitution or otherwise).
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/toky...
Though he's disputed it.
His problems with National Geographic are telling... the same year he's unable to produce any connections for their show, he's got close enough connections to "high-ranking gangster bosses" to write an article where he purportedly has them play and discuss the video game Yakuza 3:
https://web.archive.org/web/20110214054056/https://boingboin...
(side note: this article describes him playing this game with these guys "one Thursday afternoon," having a teenager teach them to play a video game, having three separate people play this single-player game while discussing it, one of whom finishes it despite an average main story playtime of over 16 hours)
USA bringing "democracy" as usual.
edit: Ah I forgot to mention the elections held with the USA navy ready to invade and bomb, should the people decide to vote too left wing.
> A memoir (/ˈmɛm.wɑːr/; from French mémoire [me.mwaʁ], from Latin memoria 'memory, remembrance') is any nonfiction narrative writing based on the author's personal memories. The assertions made in the work are thus understood to be factual.
Any work of nonfiction will end up with some inaccuracies and a form based on one person's memories may be especially prone to this. But if he's outright deliberately fictionalizing events (not saying he is, necessarily), that's a big mark against the work. I mean that's exactly what got James Frey castigated on TV and made persona non grata.