Tokyo Vice: a Western reporter on the police beat in Japan
About this ebook
From the only American journalist ever to have been admitted to the insular Tokyo Metropolitan Police Press Club, here is a unique, firsthand, revelatory look at Japanese culture from the underbelly up.
At the age of nineteen, Jake Adelstein went to Japan in search of peace and tranquillity. What he got was a life of crime … crime reporting, that is, at the prestigious Yomiuri Shimbun. For twelve years of eighty-hour work weeks, he covered the seedy side of Japan, where extortion, murder, human trafficking, and corruption are as familiar as ramen noodles and sake. But when his final scoop brought him face to face with Japan’s most infamous yakuza boss — and with the threat of death for him and his family — Adelstein decided to step down … momentarily. Then, he fought back.
In Tokyo Vice, Adelstein tells the riveting, often humorous tale of his transformation from an inexperienced cub reporter to a daring investigative journalist with a price on his head. With its vivid, visceral descriptions of crime in Japan and candid exploration of the world of modern-day yakuza that even few Japanese ever see, Tokyo Vice is a fascination, and an education, from first to last.
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About the author
Jake Adelstein has been an investigative journalist in Japan since 1993, writing in Japanese and English. He authored Tokyo Vice (now an HBO series), The Last Yakuza (2023), and Tokyo Noir (2024). He co-hosted the award-winning podcast The Evaporated: Gone with the Gods. A recognised expert on Japan’s organised crime, he’s reported for The Daily Beast, Los Angeles Times, Tempura, and VICE. He is also a low-ranking Zen Buddhist priest, trying hard to be kinder and occasionally exorcising hungry ghosts. Adelstein frequently appears as a commentator on Japanese crime and culture, working as a writer and consultant.