Japan Subculture Research Center

Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on The Police Beat In Japan was released in Australia this month with a wonderfully bizarre cover–dead fish in an icebox. The title was also…

Almost any American who went to a few parties during their university days will be slightly familiar with the ubiquitous Jello shot, and Wikipedia tells me they exist in a…

A few weeks ago, I had to go apologize to a yakuza boss. Always a scary thing, especially when you’re in the wrong. He had agreed to help out with…

According to an organized crime watchdog, police in Wakayama Prefecture have uncovered a child pornography ring that was able to set up a website selling DVDs by abusing the anonymity…

There is serious talk in the Tokyo Metropolitan Government of running the city managed subway systems Toei Chikatetsu（都営地下鉄) 24 hours a day when Haneda Airport opens to more international flights…

The Mainichi reported on Jan. 26 about an uproar (if it can be called that) in the sumo world after Sumiyoshi-kai members were spotted occupying ringside tomari-seki seats at the…

News of Ichiro Ozawa’s questioning by prosecutors in relation to the Rikuzan-kai campaign fund scandal has flooded the dailies and the news for much of the past few days as…

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…

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…

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…