Japan Subculture Research Center

The Japan Times featured an interesting article by Brett Bull about nyotaimori (女体盛り), the custom of feasting on food served atop a [mostly] naked woman. Googling for images for this…

I’ve been heartened by a huge number of letters I’ve received in the last three weeks from people who read the book and were moved by it, inspired by it,…

Rocky Swift, a journalist at Bloomberg Tokyo, has posted a review of Tokyo Vice in both Japanese and English: 【書評】米国人元新聞記者がえぐり出す日本の闇社会 元読売新聞記者のジェイク・アデルスタイン氏の近著「トーキョー・バイス」は、居直ったヤクザから始末するぞと静かな脅しを掛かけられた著者が、たばこの煙をもくもくと上げながら取材戦略を練るシーンで始まる。 同書はアデルスタイン氏が警視庁記者クラブメンバーで唯一の米国人記者として連続殺人事件などを追いかけた12年間の取材の追想録で、ヤクザの中でも特に暴力的な勢力をかぎまわって窮地に陥るに至った経緯が描かれている。 「トーキョー･バイス」 に収められたのは、後藤忠正氏という病んだヤクザのボスと手下の３人がどうやって米当局のお膳立てで米国での肝臓移植手術にこぎつけたかを探ったアデルス タイン氏の調査報道の記録。今回の出版は結果的に、アデルスタイン氏の知名度を高め殺害を難しくしたため、この本は著者の救い主とも言える。 アデルスタイン氏は「ヤクザをムカつかせるようになる」前は上智大学の学生だった。ミズーリ州生まれの同氏はテレビ局や球団なども持つ日本の大手メディアの読売新聞の入社試験を気まぐれで受けたという。

The Japan Times featured an excellent article last week about the latest trend of iede (家出) web sites where young girls who have run away from home look for kami…

Last week we introduced a few of the high-paying part-time jobs (高収入アルバイト) ladies take up to make some cash, and this week we’ll continue with four more career specialties: Chat…

After Jake’s interview on NPR earlier this month, Thomas Dreisbach and other interns put their skills to work in editing a segment about Jake’s time covering the case of Gen…

After the 60 Minutes broadcast in November of 2009, we got several emails from foreigners in Japan who had had unpleasant encounters with the worst of the tattooed tribe. We…

Amazon celebrated the book’s 10th day in the top 100 best-selling non-fiction books by marking it down considerably. It’s never too late to buy it as a sushi stuffer for…

While the average Taro will cringe at the mention of the yakuza, it’s clear the culture and myth behind the organization still tickles the fancy of TV viewers in this…

Be sure to watch The Daily Show on Monday, November 16 to catch Jake Adelstein in an interview with Jon Stewart talking about his book, Tokyo Vice, and all the…