Examining the motives behind mass murder in Japan
Japan is for the most part a safe country. Gun-control laws are so strict in this East Asian nation of more than 120 million that fatalities remained in single digits last year. And yet we still feel a palpable sense of relief when we make ...
Giving visitors to Japan something they can dance to
Is this a case of deja vu on the dancefloor? In 2012, police in Osaka started raiding clubs for violating the adult entertainment business law, popularly known as fūeihō. The law forbids dancing after midnight. When pressed on the matter, police officials said they were simply ...
Can Hirokazu Kore-eda's success with 'Shoplifters' shed some light on poverty in Japan?
Director Hirokazu Kore-eda recently won the Palme d'Or at Cannes for "Shoplifters," a critically acclaimed family drama that was partially inspired by real-life events. It attempts to depict a slice of life in which people are struggling to make ends meet, a set of circumstances ...
In Japan, a high-profile former gangster struggles to go straight
Everyone loves a tale of redemption. Unfortunately, this isn't going to be one of them. In a previous column, I introduced a man who had gone from being a greedy, violent, self-centered boss of an organized crime syndicate to become a compassionate male nurse. It's ...
'The Outsider' scores a few hits among the misses
Netflix last month released a yakuza film starring Jared Leto titled "The Outsider" to critical disdain. And as much as I expected to hate the movie, I didn't. It's portrayal of the world of organized crime in Japan after World War II is not ...
Criminals in Japan are profiting from the public's fear of prosecutors
A new type of transfer fraud in which perpetrators take advantage of their victims' fear of prosecution has sparked concern among law enforcement officials in recent weeks. The Public Prosecutor's Office and the Metropolitan Police Department have issued a statement warning people about a "wire ...
Scrutiny on initial coin offerings rises in wake of Coincheck theft
Crime involving cryptocurrencies appears to be on the rise at a time when the total number of reported crimes in Japan is falling. The theft of 523 million NEM coins from Tokyo-based cryptocurrency exchange Coincheck Inc. on Jan. 26 has brought this issue to a ...
Giving former gangsters in Japan a chance can reap rewards
Fuji Television screened a popular TV series in 2009 called "Ninkyo Herupa" ("Yakuza Helper") that focused on the life of a former gangster who landed a job at a nursing facility for the elderly. Over the course of the series, he learned to follow the ...
Life as a gangster in Japan just isn't as fun as it used to be
A number of theories have been put forward on the reasons behind the 2015 split of the country's largest crime syndicate, the Yamaguchi-gumi. Some say the factions that left the organization and formed a group called the Kobe Yamaguchi-gumi were egged on by the police, ...
Japan's crime syndicates are shooting themselves in the foot
Japan's organized crime syndicates appear to be embroiled in something of a power struggle. Yoshinori Oda, who heads a splinter group that left the Yamaguchi-gumi called the Ninkyo Yamaguchi-gumi, was attacked as he left his house in Kobe on Sept. 12. Oda's bodyguard, Yuhiro Kusumoto, ...
Gangsters prefer to do things by the book
Japan's gangsters esteem tradition and prefer to do things by the book. As a result, they appear to love manuals — they have manuals for committing certain crimes as well as guides on how to avoid punishment for carrying out those crimes. Lately, however, ...
Bitcoin exchange operator arrested amid new questions about Mt. Gox theft
Ever since Tokyo-based bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox filed for bankruptcy in February 2014, investigators have been puzzled by the disappearance of virtual currency worth hundreds of millions of dollars from its digital vaults. Mt. Gox, which claimed it once hosted around 80 percent of bitcoin ...
