Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan

A friend of mine who likes Yakuza stories refered me to an article Jake Adelstein had written for either Maxim or FHM on the organized crime figures of Japan. Finding it somewhat interesting I did a google search on him and found He had written a book about to be published and now have finally gotten around to reading it. While the book has blurbs from the likes of Roberto Saviano and other investigators into criminal activities I was kind of startled by the actual book itself which plays more with Adelstein's accomplisments becoming the first American reporter for the all Japanese edition of the Yoimiuri Shobun, one of the most prestigious papers in the country. The book does begin with a meeting between him and a group of Yakuza dispatched to frighten him into leaving the country the even that ended his career with Yoimiuri before begining the story of his endeavour to get a job as a writer.What follows plays out showing parts of the Japanese society as Adelstein first learns the ins and outs of the Japanese news system. The first half of the novel detailing this seems almost anecdotal in as a Adelstein endears himself with his co-workers and earns a contact within the local police force through a ritual which is highly involving for reporters to keep up their contacts. And truthfully a lot of this section was just as fascinating to me as the later parts of the books discussing Japans love of Manuals and how Adelstein was recruited to write against one detailing the perfect ways to commit suicide, or how Adelstein grew to befriend the family of officer Sekiguchi who became his main source fo information in writing on the crime beat.The second half of the book involves the more criminal elements as Adelstein transferred learns the ins and outs of the sex trade in Japan which I found interesting to a degree that was tempered a bit with a final story involving Adelstein investigating a sex slave trade specializing in white women who were basically lied to come to Japan, forced to do whatever was asked of them, had their money stolen, and couldn't seek help from Japanese police who were unable to help them by law since they were seen more as illegal workers. Summarizing this section isn't easy but Adelstein admits it strained even him in a way.The last section details the major part of the story where details of Adelstein's fight against the Yakuza group that threatened his life. The main Yakuza Tadamasa Goto, head of a powerful family used resources to force the FBI into letting him into the country to gain a liver transplant. Seeking to write a story on this was what put Adelstein's life in danger, who returned to write a book after a friend investigating the group disappears. Theres alot of information covered including a bit about Juzo Itami, a director who dared to challenge Goto and allegedly commited suicide and the unfortunate death of Sekiguchi to cancer.Adelstein has a deft touch in telling his story to western audiences never over embellishing things though I did admit his choice of nicknames for certain characters was odd. Still though He writes with a simple thouroughness that I like for writers of this type of work. He gives you the facts but never in a boring way and keeps it in line with the story Hes telling in the chapter. Like I said a fascinating story and a book well worth reading.

Or, in Jake Adelstein's case, it doesn't -- thankfully, because American readers now finally have access to a book that chronicles the real Japan, free of stereotypes and even more well-rounded and nuanced as any of the 'foreigner abroad' books we are accustomed to reading from Americans who head off to the more culturally-familiar terrain of Europe.Full disclosure: I lived in Tokyo for parts of early 80s before finally leaving in 1985, before Adelstein arrived to study at Sophia University. Like him, I began my journalistic career there, although it was as a copy editor at the English-language Japan Times rather than as a reporter for a Japanese daily. Even in 1985, being a 'gaijin' (foreigner) and a female would have put paid to any such plans, even if my decidedly unfluent Japanese hadn't. Adelstein, however, benefited from the passage of time, his language skills and his gender and landed a job at the Yomiuri newspaper, one of the country's largest. Automatically an unusual person in Japan's extraordinarily homogenous society (at the time I lived there, at least, there was no space on a driver's license for hair or eye color -- because it was assumed that all would be the same...), Adelstein ended up covering another kind group of misfits in Japan: the country's yakuza, or organized criminals.It's a fascinating world, part of Japanese popular culture as much as the Mafia is here, and yet virtually unrecognized outside of the country. Along with writing about the yakuza, Adelstein does a fabulous job of raising the curtain on the lives of ordinary Japanese, finally debunking all the stereotypes. Japanese men gawk at the pictures in Madonna's "Sex"; the male reporters openly read porn magazines in the workspace. Social life revolves around getting drunk; the job of a police reporter like Adelstein includes paying evening calls to the homes of his detective friends. Adelstein shows how phenomena like the hostess clubs are fueled by "alienation, boredom and loneliness."That said, this is a very uneven book. The first half, in particular, seems to be the story of a foreigner who gets himself a job at a Japanese newspaper, thinks to himself, "wow, this is cool and different and maybe I'll write a book about it, too, because not many people have done what I've done." The glimpse behind the scenes of a Japanese newspaper were interesting enough, but after a while the long paragraphs, one after another, of people talking became wearying. So did Adelstein's self-congratulatory air: Getting words of praise from a colleague is "a good feeling"; another story is "a nice little scoop", or "our investigative reporting had the gratifying result of spurring the Saitama police into arresting the people responsible for the bank failure." Yawn. And I could have done without the insights into his sex life, as when he leaves his 'girlfriend' hanging on in the love hotel room they have rented by the hour in order to deal with an editor. "Honorable me, I knew I owed her. So I turned my beeper off for the first time in months." At times, he sounds almost smug.And yet, just as I was about to give up on the book, it took off and turned into an extraordinary chronicle, revealing in the process an entirely different narrator, someone passionate and thoughtful enough about the world he sees around him to be willing to stand up and be counted. He becomes the nail that sticks up and must be hammered down, in the Japanese saying used of people who place their independent thoughts above smooth social relationships. And the people who wanted to do the hammering were Japan's yakuza, as Adelstein's beat takes him into an investigation of sexual slavery and abuse in Japan's hostess bars, 'soaplands' and brothels. What had been almost flippant before (see Jake Adelstein as a male host!) becomes deadly serious, and I ended up reading late into the night to discover what happened, just as I would have done with a great thriller. The catch, of course, is that the crimes and abuses committed by the yakuza, for which the police are unable or unwilling to prosecute them, were and remain real. Adelstein points out the difficulty of prosecuting human trafficking offenses in a country where the victims are promptly deported -- and then the police and law enforcement officials point out that they have no complaining witnesses! He points to the impact of the casual racism and sexism on law enforcement, from attitudes to Koreans of Japanese descent to the women who arrive in Japan to work as hostesses. And ultimately, he puts his life on the line -- literally -- in an effort to expose some of these abuses.The heroes of Adelstein's book come from across the board -- this is not smart gaijin hero versus thick-witted racist Japanese, or evil Yakuza versus courageous journalists. Some of the most poignant and heartfelt parts of this ultimately very moving book are those devoted to one of his closest friends, a Japanese police detective, and to an Australian bar girl who becomes a friend of sorts. And ultimately Adelstein sheds that self-satisfied foreigner abroad persona, recognizing that his all-too-human failures as a person and a reporter meant that "I'd endangered every person I cared about, liked, loved, or simply knew. (They had become) potential leverage for (the yakuza target of his investigations) who had no qualms about using people like cannon fodder." It's a cry from the heart, and the story of Adelstein's investigations and efforts to get his worked published make this book a 'must read'.I'd like to think that the Japanese fascination with what other nations think about them would mean that this book will be translated into Japanese and have a wide audience there. Given the difficulty Adelstein had in finding a Japanese publisher for his journalistic scoops about the yakuza's worst crimes, I'm not sure it will happen. Moreover, the home truths that Adelstein tells -- from a position inside Japanese society, not from the usual gaijin perspective of having one foot in Tokyo's expat community -- about everything from the ugly realities underlying the hostess bar culture and the treatment of a female fellow reporter and friend at the Yomiuri, to the horrors of human trafficking, may prove hard for them to digest. In any event, it's a fascinating read that I'd recommend to anyone with an interest in Japan or thinking of going to live or work there.A few other recommendations: For more insight into the dysfunctional part of Japanese society (if not the criminal element), try  Shutting Out the Sun: How Japan Created Its Own Lost Generation (Vintage Departures)  or Alex Kerr's  Dogs and Demons: Tales from the Dark Side of Japan . Some dark comedy and brilliant film-making comes from Juzo Itami, who, it appears, may have been murdered by yakuza rather than committing suicide. Many probably are familiar with Tampopo; just as good, IMO, is  A Taxing Woman ; the sequel, A Taxing Woman's Return, is still available only on VHS. Both are great and hilarious examples of a crusading tax inspector battling her own bureaucracy and the criminal elements who happen to be evading their taxes. I can't recommend either film strongly enough.

It’s cliché to say it, but the book is so much better than the series. The written story isn’t just the mundane good versus evil. It is a philosophical evolution and a comparison of doctrine. It isn’t judgmental, it is about reporting the facts, unrepentantly. But facts are seen through the lens of culture. Sometimes it takes an outsider to see the truth.A great read.

Having watched the HBO series I decided to read the book. The series did not strictly follow the chronology of the book so it was interesting to compare the book with the story lines in the series. The book covers a longer time period, so the story lines make more sense when you read the book. I enjoyed Adelstein's writing style as it kept the book moving. I would recommend this to anyone who is interested in organized crime stories and/or is interested in the less known aspects of Japanese society.

Você acha que sabe muito sobre Yakuza e cultura japonesa em geral? É porque você ainda não leu este livro. As informações trazidas em primeira mão por Jake Adelstein, judeu americano que virou jornalista no Japão na década de 90 e início dos anos 2000, você não vê em nenhum outro lugar.Mesmo sendo um "weeb", absorvi várias coisas aqui. Foram desde informações mais aleatórias, como o uso de ternos pretos sendo só para funerais (nunca tinha notado que japoneses não usam ternos pretos no dia, só os Yakuza), até coisas mais específicas, como o fato de os policiais se referirem a membros da Yakuza como "corretores", tão grande é a participação da máfia nesse segmento.A escrita é boa. O senso de humor ácido também gera boas risadas. É também bem violento e gráfico; Adelstein não tem papas na língua, logo, não sendo recomendado para menores.Há uma série de TV em desenvolvimento, com atores famosos no elenco, e eu estou ansioso para assistir.O livro só é um pouco desatualizado porque a Yakuza está morrendo. Na época dele, o número de membros continuava estável havia décadas, mas diminui hoje em dia, bem como a influência da máfia não é a mesma de antes.Mesmo assim, recomendadíssimo.

Sehr spannend !

Interesting tale of a variety of crime in Japan in the 1990s

J'avais commencé par Tokyo détective (en français) que j'ai trouvé un peu moyen.J'ai ensuite commencé celui là, et il est vraiment génial. Adelstein raconte son parcours au sein de la rédaction du grand journal national japonais Yomiuri. On a l'impression d'être dans ses bottes. Il raconte son expérience d'étranger dans un milieu qui en compte peu. L'histoire est convaincante et très certainement authentique.Je suis enthousiaste.