• Thu. Dec 19th, 2024

Japan Subculture Research Center

A guide to the Japanese underworld, Japanese pop-culture, yakuza and everything dark under the sun.

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  • Kobe neighbours once again regret living near those pesky Yamaguchi's

Kobe neighbours once again regret living near those pesky Yamaguchi's

There goes the neighbourhood.. again. Kobe authorities led a raid on the Yamaguchi-gumi headquarters April 22, bringing a mass of 100 officers as backup for a quick in-and-out of the…

Shiga: What's a few tons of paper to spread the word against yakuza?

The Shiga prefectural government knows no limits in their dedication to fight crime, printing a whopping 100,000 fliers to spread information on new anti-organised crime regulations that will come into…

Ladies going under the laser and razor in anticipation of a sweaty summer

As electricity conservation remains a grudgingly important fact of life in post-disaster Japan, many urbanites dread what this eco-friendly movement will inevitably lead to: a summer with no air conditioning. With Tokyo’s concrete…

Yakuza: Of the End to be released June 9 with special commemorative sticker

For those of you who don’t follow the Ryu ga Gotoku: Of the End Twitter feed through their nifty application we previously reviewed, it was announced today that the game’s…

Review: People Who Eat Darkness: The Fate of Lucie Blackman

Jake has done an honest and intriguing review of journalist Richard Lloyd Parry’s People Who Eat Darkness: The Fate of Lucie Blackman over at Literary Review. Partial transcript below. When…

Nuclear Ginza: Japan's secret at-risk labor force and the Fukushima disaster

Back in 1995, the UK’s Channel 4 produced a 30-minute documentary on Japan’s nuclear industry and how they use disadvantaged people, including burakumin and other day laborers, to do manual…

The manga that predicted nuclear meltdown

There’s been a number of postponements and cancellations in the Japanese entertainment world since the March 11 Tohoku Earthquake. Many are out of a sense of respect, some are due…

Portraits of devastation–uprooted lives in Miyagi

After the earthquake, documentary photographer Max Hodges felt that it was important to document the event to raise awareness of the devastation and needs of thousands of displaced people. He headed…

Ryu ga Gotoku for Twitter

Release of the much-awaited next instalment in the Yakuza series, Yakuza: Of the End (龍が如く Of the End) may have been postponed because of the Tohoku earthquake, but impatient fans…

Updated list: How to donate to relief efforts in Japan

Note: This is an updated list from the previous entry. If you have anything to add, please let us know in the comments. For those who are interested in contributing…