Failed pick-up line: "I'm a yakuza boss"
Sankei News reported that a 34-year-old man was charged with rape after a rather dodgy incident where he told a woman that he was a yakuza member and forced her…
From historic tales to the morning news: Manga for everyone
There’s likely very few students who haven’t at least paged through one of the manga versions of the classics, like Essays in Idleness or the great Genji Monogatari, to prepare…
Homes and hotels during the recession
The talented Hiroko Tabuchi of the New York Times published an article recently focusing on a group of Japanese people who have been forced out of their homes and into…
Less on livers, more on livelihoods
The Japan Times published in last Sunday’s paper a mammoth of an interview with Jake by Mark Schreiber, stretching almost two entire pages across the Time Out section. While the…
Better late than never: Yakuza play Santa for kids in Kobe
Not the actual Yamaguchi-gumi event. (Taken by nori_n, who is not affiliated with JSRC) As posted on Japan Probe earlier this week, the Yamaguchi-gumi decided to add a little extra…
Local areas to beef up anti-organized crime legislature
There was news this week of four prefectures working on additional legislative measures to stop organized crime organizations from working their way into the operations and offices of legitimate businesses.…
Fuzoku Friday: The Alibi
On an Internet message board, a concerned mother writes: Hello. My child has been attending kindergarten from March, and since then I’ve been working as a delivery health girl. I…
Police and government fighting back against junior idols?
An article posted a few weeks ago but recently brought to my attention through Japan Probe: Tokyo Metro Police create dedicated anti-child porn unit A special Tokyo police unit to…
Eating sushi off a naked girl: yay or yuck?
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…
TOKYO VICE Reviewed In Japanese — Bloombergが東京ヴァイス （東京の性悪・米国人事件記者の警察回り体験記）を日本語で書評
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。