People Who Eat Darkness (闇を食う人々）An amazing book and a tissue sample of Japan's social pathological elements
People Who Eat Darkness: The Fate of Lucie Blackman* By Richard Lloyd Parry (Jonathan Cape 404pp £17.99) When the disappearance of Lucie Blackman made the news, I was covering it…
Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO): Is it time to turn off the lights?
“Jump in a nuclear reactor and die!’ Those were the words directed at the chairman of Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) by one angry man at the tense stockholders meeting…
Missing Organs, Missing Donors, & Yakuza Involvement in Organ Transplants: This time in Japan! (Not UCLA)
On June 24th, 2011, A doctor, a Sumiyoshi-kai gangster, a former mobster and two others were arrested on suspicion of conspiring to illegally trade a kidney and faking an adoption…
Film: Cold Fish (冷たい熱帯魚)
A film based on the Saitama Dog Lovers serial killings
MAFF staff, teacher, doctor show that pervs come from all professions
One usually inane but occasionally fun thing about the Japanese media is that they almost always list the professions of those who appear in news articles. This really made the…
9 Day Warning: On March 2nd, NISA disciplined TEPCO on lax equipment checks before meltdown
On March 2nd, approximately nine days before the TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company) Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Reactor One melted down, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) formally disciplined…
Moe Yamaguchi's high-rolling husband arrested for running illegal hostess club
Actress and talento Moe Yamaguchi was “really stunned” when she learned her husband, web entrepreneur Shigeo Ozeki, has been illegally running a posh hostess club without a license. Ozeki and…
Japanese study finds correlation between exhaust fumes and asthma
According to an NHK online article published on May 25th, the Japanese Ministry of the Environment announced last week its findings that children who were exposed to higher amounts of…
Hidden love hotels come out of the closet thanks to law revisions; It's a love fest in post-quake Japan
It seems business is booming for the love hotel industry. The number of registered businesses has jumped by a whopping 2,700 hotels since the beginning of the year, a hefty…