‘Tokyo Junkie’: Robert Whiting recounts a lifelong addiction to his adopted city
The author and longtime Japan resident tackles his hardest writing project ever — “interviewing himself” for a memoir on his life, the changing urban landscape and, of course, baseball.
‘Under the Open Sky’: Harsh realities about ex-cons hit home
Koji Yakusho delivers a captivating performance as a former yakuza thug struggling to adjust to life after leaving prison in Miwa Nishikawa’s drama.
‘A Family’: This sentimental ode to yakuza life ignores reality
Michihito Fujii’s yakuza film waxes nostalgic about the old-school days of gangsterdom with soggy sentimentality.
E-money laundering in Japan nearly tripled in 2019, police say
The 3,913 cases reported by nonbank operators of funds transfer services during the year compare to 1,391 in 2018, according to the National Police Agency
Nonaffiliated gangs seek to exploit vacuum left by the yakuza’s declining influence
Violent gangs are starting to make their presence felt in western Japan, with incidents of armed robbery and violent crime clearly on the rise.
Crime syndicate puts brakes on fraudulent activities during pandemic
Gang leadership says it's wrong to “rob (elderly) individuals of the money they need to live.”
The authorities said their reasoning was that most such people are members of anti-social organizations such as organized crime syndicates.
Rats, bugs, crooks and trucks share media spotlight amid pandemic
With city dwellers around the world in lockdown, increasing reports have surfaced about wild animals infiltrating urban areas. Tokyo is no exception, although "wild" isn’t quite appropriate in this case. As a sanitation worker in Tokyo's Shinjuku Ward relates to Shukan Gendai (May 16), "From ...
Fukuoka aimed for the top in taking down Kudokai yakuza group
Arrest of a leader essentially put an end to the many crimes the syndicate had been suspected of being involved in since the late 1990s.
Japan's gangs find themselves in a losing battle to mark territory
Carrying a business card bearing a gang crest is "effectively a license to collect cash,” a former gang member says. “Without the crest, it’s just a sheet of paper.”
Counting the cost of postponing the Tokyo Olympics
Nearly a month before the decision was announced to postpone the 2020 Olympics, the media was already speculating over their fate. On Feb. 24, the headline in Nikkan Gendai read, “Relinquishing of the Tokyo Olympics would mean ¥20 trillion in economic losses.” Noting that a ...
'First Love': A heartfelt throwback to the golden age of yakuza flicks
Masataka Kubota plays a doomed boxer who takes on the yazuka in Takashi Miike's newest film.
