• Sun. Jan 12th, 2025

Japan Subculture Research Center

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

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…

Fuzoku lite: "Aquarium of girls" offers thrills for herbivore men

Girls in uniform, some as young as 15, sit sprawled out on the floor of a small room, chatting or reading books. Skirts are rolled high, some have their legs…

Evacuees forced to pay rent at Miyagi yakuza home

Straight out of a suspense film: A yakuza couple have been arrested for abuse after they coerced a pair of tsunami evacuees to stay at their home, demanded rent and…