• Wed. Apr 2nd, 2025

Japan Subculture Research Center

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

Yamaguchi-gumi number two arrested

Just some quick news: Kiyoshi Takayama, second in command of the Yamaguchi-gumi, was arrested Thursday during a raid of his home in Kobe. Read here and here. More information to…

Injured Sapporo groper identified by teeth marks

Telltale teeth marks from a feisty victim pinned a Sapporo man on charges of indecent assault, despite his denial of the crime during questioning. The 30-year-old man is suspected of…

Tokyo Vice: Now in.. Hungarian!

Jake Adelstein’s epic tale of a foreign cub reporter’s climb Japan’s underbelly is now available in Hungarian! We can’t decipher anything about it without the aid of Google Translate, but…

Dissatisfied customer reports 'Deri-heru' manager to police

Police arrested the manager of a Shinjuku “delivery health” prostitution business Thursday after they received a call from a customer complaining that the services offered were a rip-off. The 35-year-old…

Yakuza imposters arrested after tip from sumo association

Two men were arrested for impersonating yakuza and threatening staff at the grand sumo tournament held in May at Kokugikan in Ryogoku. The two men, ages 39 and 45 and…

Explosion rocks Yamaken-gumi office, gang claims no video footage

As many who are up on their Japan news probably saw, there was an explosion Monday morning at an office owned by the Yamaguchi-gumi affiliated Yamaken-gumi. Thus far, the Mainichi…

Deai kissa matchmaking cafes more than just a meet n' greet

In the wake of the September murder of a 22-year-old university student by a man she met at a deai kissa, or matchmaking cafe, the Mainichi ran an article (Japanese…

Sticky handed groper finds his way back into the slammer

An Aichi man was arrested under prefectural nuiscance prevention laws when he was caught groping a teenage girl in a parking lot while on his way home from being arrested…

JSRC is now on Twitter!

Just a bit of housekeeping: Japan Subculture Research Center now has a Twitter feed exclusively for updates. A slightly simpler way to find out about new posts than RSS for…

J-League team employee arrested for production of child porn

An employee of the Montedio Yamagata J-League football team was arrested October 14 after it was discovered he requested and received pornographic videos from an underage girl. While it is…