• Fri. Apr 4th, 2025

Japan Subculture Research Center

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

Win a chance to see the premiere of Tokyo Vice!

A public service announcement.WOWOW will invite 100 people the special showing of the first episode of #TokyoVice on April 5The series is based on the book Tokyo Vice: An American…

Intimate Strangers: Mothers Without Sons—new suspense film explores the depths of human connection

Intimate Stranger is about a woman with a missing son, who connects with a 17-year old boy during a mask-clad, pandemic stricken winter in Tokyo. The woman works in a…

A Farewell To Japan’s King of Toxic Masculinity: Shintaro Ishihara

Ishihara hated outspoken women and liberal men; he had no kind feelings for the US and refused to be enthralled or intimidated by western culture. Ishihara reserved his most acidic…

Driving In Winter With Haruki Murakami… and Why We Still Need Him

Murakami's story is part of a compilation titled Men Without Women, a fate which, in the Murakami scheme of things is akin to death by torture. Men cannot exist without…

To End Global Warming: We Need Oil…To Be Left In The Ground

by Eddie Adelstein (special guest contributor) Scientists have abundantly proven that global warming is real and causing havoc on the planet.  CO2 levels are rising with Earth’s temperatures, but the…

Back To The Matrix: The 4th Time Is The Charm. ★★★★

BTW, there is only a smattering of the “bullet-time” that made the first film so ground-breaking, but for good reasons. It’s two and a half hours of B+ grade sci-fi…

International Idol Supergroup “KUROFUNECHAN” To Perform First and Final Concert On December 14

International Idols In Japan Assemble For a One Time Performance as Kurofune-chan. The Nick Fury of the group, Alice, is leaving Japan next years.

Live from the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Closing Ceremony

By Chihiro Kai (This article was completed 22:06) As I sit here in the Tokyo Olympic Stadium press section, the seats are vibrating from the music and bass blasting out…

My Brushes With the Yakuza – Reflections of Life in Akasaka, Tokyo

My first encounter with the ‘yakuza’ or the crooks and gangsters of Japan’s underworld, happened when I was 14 years old, on my way home from cram school. It was…

Lambda Is On The Lam In Japan

The Tokyo 2020 Olympics are over but they may leave a lasting legacy in Japan: the deadly COVID19 Lambda variant; it first arrived on July 20th, when a woman in…