Books on Japan
Contemporary Culture
Dark Side of the Sun
Featured
Reviews
Tokyo Vice
Underground Economy
Yakuza
How The CIA Helped The Yakuza & The LDP Get Power & Promote Nuclear Power
Chapter 12: "We Ran It In A Different Way" is a must for anyone interested in the shadow history of Japan. It details how in post-war Japan, the CIA, using…
Notes On The Yakuza Lobby: How The Underworld Asserts Itself In The Political Sphere
Because of Japan's personal privacy protection laws, created by the LDP to discourage magazine reporters for writing about their scandals and organized crime ties, I'm limited in what I can…
Everything I Ever Needed To Know In Life I Learned From the Yakuza or The Cops That Kick Their Ass in 7 Lessons
The enemy of my enemy is my friend. You can tell more about a man by his enemies than you can by his friends. A man with no enemies is…
Little Mermaids & Little Fingers: An illustrated yakuza tale
The next time I ran into Shira she told me I shouldn't expect to see Shin again. He probably wasn't coming back. "Not coming back?" I asked puzzled. "You don't…
Yakuza Comix #2: The Buck Stops With The Boss
In 2008 revisions were made to the Organized Crime Countermeasures Law (暴力団対策法) which made it possible to hold organized crime bosses responsible for the actions of their underlings in civil…
It’s Not Easy Being a Yakuza Boss (Part 1)
These days the price of a standard civilian hit-job can run as high as $2 million. That’s not the price to get the job done―that’s the price if one of…
Yakuza Comix: An Illustrated Guide To The Front Company フロント企業図解
To give you an idea of the scale of organized crime front companies in Japan, in Tokyo alone, there were over 1,000 at the end of 2010. And those are…
New Anti-Yakuza Laws Pass; Instant Arrests Now Possible (Fast As Ramen?)
On July 26th 2012, the National Diet approved the revisions of the Organized Crime Group Countermeasures Law (改正暴力団対策法). Under the new laws, the police can specially designate organized crime groups…
Yakuza Big Boss Has Big Bail: 1.5 Billion Yen
Kiyoshi Takayama, the second most powerful gangster in Japan, and for years the de facto head of the Yamaguchi-gumi (39,000 members) will be released for the remainder of his extortion…
The Melting Sun: Japan’s Nuclear Follies
"They (the Japanese power companies including TEPCO) are also seeking to extend the shelf life of their plants to 60 years, double what experts thought prudent when they built the…