Their website makes it appear that the audio files are only up for seven days, so don’t miss these as they come out!

Listen to Tokyo Vice on Radio 4′s Book of the Week.

According to the article, the trio drank and dined at a sophisticated restaurant run by a third-generation geisha in Tokyo’s Kagurazaka district on June 21, days after numerous wrestlers were ousted one by one as having participated in baseball gambling and it was announced that a special investigation committee would be set up to look into the scandal.

Over sumptuous Japanese food and sake, sources within the sumo world say that Musashigawa was likely attempting damage control, trying to find out the nitty gritty on the investigation committee.

Politician Takeshi Fukaya, who once held Nakai’s position, said about the meeting in an interview with Bunshun, “By around June 21, the background behind the entire gambling ordeal had already been revealed. The National Public Safety Commission Chairman obviously knows information that hadn’t been released to the public, and it’s unbelievable that he’s just go and have drinks with the chairman of the Sumo Association. Reason enough for him to be fired in my books.”

Earlier that day, Nakai had reportedly been in Miyazaki overseeing activities on prevention of foot & mouth disease. There, he had taken heat from locals after he twice misread the names of areas when talking to the press. Says Bunshun: One can only imagine that he was busy worrying about his plans for that evening. After he made his way back to Tokyo, Nakai stealthily evaded the media and made his way to Kagurazaka.

Nakai is well known for his “roadside kiss” with a hostess that made the news after being published in Shukan Shincho in March, causing a stir after it was discovered he had given the woman a key to his apartment in the Lower House dormitories.

Hidetoshi Tanaka too is well known–in the sumo world as a Nihon University board chairman who in the past has helped a number of promising wrestlers make it to the top. Bunshun says, though, that Tanaka’s connections have a dark side; ex-Nichidai wrestler Kise Oyakata was eventually demoted in May of this year after it was discovered he was selling sumo tickets to the Yamaguchi-gumi.

Tanaka has dubious connections himself. He was involved in the planning of a sumo hall in Osaka that was announced by Heo Young Joong (aka Eichu Kyo), the “emperor of crime” who was the main culpret in the Itoman scandal. Also, according to sources within the university, when Yamaken-gumi head Kaneyoshi Kuwata was hospitalized at Nihon University before his imprisonment for weapons possession, Tanaka had acted has his personal guarantor.

The day after he admitted to gambling on baseball, Kotomitsuki had reportedly gone to Tanaka for advice. Sources say that Kotomitsuki had said he was ready to take all the responsibility, but Tanaka admonished him not to. Afterwards, Tanaka was concerned the wrestler wouldn’t heed his advice, becoming even more worried when he called Kotomitsuki’s mobile phone numerous times but received no answer.

Tanaka had reportedly fallen sick at the end of May, right when the news of Kise Oyakata and Kotomitsuki’s illegal gambling had hit headlines. A source reported, “It wasn’t just Musashigawa that suffered when the gambling issue hit the mainstream. Tanaka shared that pain with him. About half of the wrestlers in the Musashigawa stables come from Nichidai, and the two knew each other well. It was because of that Tanaka pursued a meeting with the man in the know about police investigations–Nakai.”

Says Bunshun, Tanaka likely thought that his talk that Kotomitsuki would be the perfect chance to get Musashigawa and Nakai together.

The Kagurazaka restaurant is reportedly well-known by Tanaka, and often used by him for for meetings and celebrations. They were welcome guests, and their hosts reportedly kept the visit discreet and the meeting away from the prying eyes of other customers. Everything went off without a hitch, reports Bunshun, and Musashigawa was said to have acted with a reverence and kindness toward Nakai that that belies his fierce persona.

Just days after the meeting, on July 24 police arrested an ex-wrestler for blackmailing Kotomitsuki. Then on July 7, police began raiding stables looking for evidence.

Nakai himself had made curious statements. Says one police reporter, “At a July 1 press conference, National Police Agency cheif Takaharu Ando had gotten a question about whether or not the Nagoya tournament would be held, and he answered that he wasn’t the right person to ask. No one had asked Nakai anything at all, but he suddenly said, “I think it’s great that they’re running their own investigation seperate from the official investigation as an effort to stamp out organized crime.”

The comment was made just days after drinking with Musashigawa.

So what went on at the Kagurazaka meeting? Was information leaked?

Shukan Bunshun attempted to ask Nakai directly, but he unsurprisingly refused: “Bunshun? That rag constantly says bad things about me. No way I’m going to answer.”

Tanaka too ignored Bunshun reporters, and the Sumo Association had not replied as of the date the article was published.

The article ends questioning whether or not a reliable investigation can be done if headed by someone like Nakai.

For more information on sumo connections to the yakuza through Nihon University, check out this related article on Tokyo Reporter.

The Mainichi ran an article recently about how the the tournament has been affected, citing an increase of empty seats as just one of the issues facing his highly-monitored event. A great bit of flavor comes from an account of two fans who got into a fight because one offhandedly said the other looked like a yakuza:

「暴力団……」。２日目の取組終了後、黒いサングラスをつけていた愛知県安城市の男性（６２）が会場の外に出ようとしたところ、他の観客の男性からこうささやかれた。２人は口論になり、警察官が仲裁に入った。

サングラスの男性は「まさか自分が暴力団に間違われるとは。頭にくる。雰囲気が異常だった。名古屋場所は開催すべきではなかったのではないか」と憤った。

At the end of the second day of the tournament, a 62-year-old man from Aichi Prefecture who was wearing black sunglasses was exciting the arena when a fellow fan mumbled, “bouryokudan…” The two got into an argument that ended after security guards intervened.

The man with the glasses commented angrily, “How dare he mistake me for a gang member. It’s really insulting. The whole atmosphere here is really strange. Maybe they shouldn’t have held the tournament at all.”

The article goes on to report that a woman in charge of the information desk at the tournament says that they haven’t gotten even half the number of viewers they typically host and that there’s been a number of cancellations.

Comments from those who did attend the tournament seem to indicate a common sentiment that the entire thing has been blown out of proportion. One 60-year-old local said he thinks the punishment against Kotomitsuki  is too harsh for just gambling on baseball, while a middle school student commented that he wished the Sumo Association “would consider the fans.”

Other news reports tell tales of a large but still disappointing turnout on the first day. While 90% capacity is considered “full house” for the event, the July 11 opening reportedly saw 7,200 of the 8,100–or 89 percent–of the arena’s seats filled. This year was the first since 1985 that the tournament couldn’t roll out their “manin onrei banner,” signaling a full house. Reports of the second day, cite attendance numbers even lower at only around 4,500–800 fewer than last year.

A number of sponsors have also pulled out, leaving the tournament with around 80 percent fewer prizes than in past years. It was reported that on the second day of the event had only 12 gifts, the third 10, and according to the Mainichi, today saw only 11. Understandable that Japanese companies are pulling out sponsorship in the face of scandal (some of us probably remember the heat sponsors gave poor Tsuyoshi Kusanagi after his romp in Roppongi), but it certainly can’t be very encouraging for wrestlers who are already battling it out to a bunch of empty seats.

Jake has much to say on the subject, of course, and has offered his underworld knowledge to various media as they rush to cover what is looking to be a major turning point in Japan’s largest traditional sport.

From AFP:

Experts point to a shortage of money that has made sumo wrestlers and stables vulnerable to organized crime. Sumo’s popularity is falling as baseball and football have become the country’s most popular sports.

“The yakuza have always been huge supporters of sumo, financially and in other capacities,” said Jake Adelstein, author of Tokyo Vice and a specialist on organised crime in Japan.

“Many sumo wrestlers have yakuza ‘patrons’ who give them money under the table to supplement the sumo wrester’s meagre income and reward them for their victories or encourage them to train harder.”

Read Japan’s sumo bodyslammed by scandal.

And The Observer:

Jake Adelstein, author of Tokyo Vice and an authority on organised crime in Japan, said the scandal was connected with a fresh crackdown on a notoriously violent faction within the Yamaguchi-gumi that also had strong ties to the sumo world. “The media haven’t suddenly decided to expose the relationship between sumo and the yakuza,” Adelstein said. “The details were leaked to them by the police.

“Failed sumo wrestlers often end up as yakuza enforcers. The sumo world and the yakuza world have long been intertwined. Some ex-sumo wrestlers have even become yakuza bosses.”

Read Sumo threatened by scandal and crime.

Jake expounds on the topic:

The current scandals involving Japan’s organized crime groups, the yakuza, and the Sumo Association, and the sport of sumo itself shouldn’t be seen as an aberration in Japanese society or something that has never existed before–that would be missing the point. It simply is one battle in a war between Japan’s National Police Agency and Japan’s most powerful criminal organization, the Yamaguchi-gumi, that began in September of 2009. The damage inflicted on the image of sumo as Japan’s national sport and the careers of many wrestlers–they simply are casualties of war. And in the case of the Sumo Association, some of those wounds are also decidedly self-inflicted.

The story really began at last year’s Nagoya tournament when member of the Yamaguchi-gumi Kodokai were given front-row seats at the match and appeared in the NHK television broadcasts. This allegedly was to express solidarity with their jailed boss, Tsukasa Shinobu, who is serving time on fire-arm charges. (In prison, yakuza are allowed to watch sumo matches but not other sports events, and especially not boxing.) The expressed reasons for the yakuza presence may be true but in reality, yakuza often get the best seats at sumo matches and sports events, particularly at sumo matches. This is because they are often a source of revenue for the smaller sumo stables and yakuza and sumo ties have always been strong. In any event, the Kodo-kai members parading in front of the television cameras did not go unnoticed by the authorities. However, the Aichi Prefectural Police were aware of the special seating arrangements for Kodo-kai members since 2006 according to police sources; it simply wasn’t an issue for them.

In September of 2009, Ando Tokuharu, the head of Japan’s National Police Agency (NPA) declared war on the Yamaguchi-gumi Kodo-kai (4,000 members), the ruling faction of the Yamaguchi-gumi, Japan’s largest syndicate (36,000 members) and directed all police departments in Japan to devote their energies to arresting Kodo-kai members, crippling their businesses and front companies, destroying their revenue sources, removing their spheres of influence, and inflicting as much damage to the group as possible, by any means possible. The declaration partly has to deal with the Kodo-kai’s attempts to intimidate police officers and their refusal to honor the unwritten agreements of cooperation between law enforcement and organized crime that have existed for decades. From October of 2009, discussions began at the NPA level on how to expose the Kodo-kai and sumo world ties in a way that would do the maximum damage to the Kodo-kai’s reputation. The police have always known that sumo and the yakuza were connected. Now for the first time they were ready to make an issue of it.

In January of 2010, the Sumo Association agreed to ban yakuza from attending matches after immense pressure from the NPA, and they publicly proclaimed that they would do so. This helped set the stage for what was to come later. In May of 201o, the police leaked to the media that at the 2009 Nagoya Tournament a total of 55 Yamaguchi-gumi Kodo-kai members had been in front row or prime seats at the event. NHK, Japan’s version of the BBC, which televises the tournaments, “scooped” the story on May 25th of this year. (There are plausible rumors amongst other reporters that NHK was spoon-fed the story by the NPA, which also knew that NHK would have the footage, because of course, NHK were the same people who originally aired the matches). This forced the Sumo Association to conduct an internal investigation and more or less banish the Sumo Association executives who had arranged for the yakuza to receive the special reserved premium spots. Even though the Nagoya tournament incident predated the Sumo Association pledge to forbid yakuza from attending matches, in the public eye, it made the Sumo Association look hypocritical and it also tarnished the image of the Kodo-kai as well. In addition, the police leak of this information created dissent and chaos within the Sumo Association–a situation advantageous to the police who planned to play sides against each other in an attempt to expose the baseball gambling and yakuza connections.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department Organized Crime Control Bureau has been peripherally aware of Yamaguchi-gumi ties to the sumo world since the investigation of Suruga Corporation in late 2007-March 2008. Suruga Corporation, once listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, employed a Yamaguchi-gumi front company to consolidate real estate projects by scaring away tenants in areas ripe for real estate development. They also sold condominiums in Mongolia to Japanese businessmen and Asashoryu and other Mongolian sumo wrestlers functioned as salesmen/brokers in the operations. At Suruga Corporation sponsored parties to sell the condominiums, sumo wrestlers and yakuza fraternized with businessmen representing major Japanese corporations investing in Mongolia. In that investigation, other ties to the Yamaguchi-gumi and the sumo world were also noted. It should be noted that while the yakuza working for Suruga were arrested for violations of the lawyer laws, no one from Suruga Corporation was arrested or prosecuted for hiring them. This may have been because on the board of directors was a former NPA bureaucrat from the Organized Crime Control Bureau and a retired prosecutor. It may simply be that under current Japanese law asking an organized crime front company to settle land disputes itself is not necessarily a crime.

This year, the Mongolian born sumo wrestler Asashoryu assaulted a civilian and paid damages to keep it quiet, but the story was leaked to the media nevertheless. The resulting scandal forced him to retire. The “victim” in this case reportedly repeatedly provoked and poked and prodded Asashoryu until the point where Asashoryu lost his temper and punched him. The “victim” also allegedly had ties to the Yamaguchi-gumi  and other anti-social forces, including the Inagawakai, which is now very much under the Yamaguchi-gumi umbrella. What the authorities believe and so did other Mongolian Sumo wrestlers in the Sumo Association, was that Asashoryu was set up for a fall by a rival Japanese sumo wrestler faction in the organization which wanted to get rid of him and diminish the Mongolian faction influence. They supposedly did this by outsourcing the work to the Yamaguchi-gumi’s Kodo-kai. Whether that was the case or not, when Asashoryu was questioned by the police about the incident, he talked about a lot of things and aired a lot of grievances. As did the Sumo wrestlers who were kicked out for alleged use of marijuana. Note: I wouldn’t want to imply that Asashoryu was solely responsible for the baseball gambling investigation or the cause of the story to break or that he was the sole person talking to the police, that would put him in a rather precarious position.  He’s a piece of the puzzle. As early as January of this year, the National Police Agency had solid intelligence from both the Aichi Prefectural Police Department and the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department that a number of sumo wrestlers were socializing with the yakuza and gambling with them as well.

The “sumo wrestlers betting on baseball” story was leaked to Shukan Shincho by the police. Just as in October of 2008, the police leaked to the same magazine the story of how Japanese gang boss Goto had a lavish birthday party attended by celebrities, including famous enka singers. The mass media then picked up the story, the Shukan Shincho article turned out to be correct, and NHK banned the attending singers (Kobayashi Akira etc.) from appearing on television. Just as NHK is now not broadcasting the Sumo tournament. In Goto’s case, the scandal resulted in his fall from power. In the case of the Kodo-kai, top level executives will be forced to resign or be arrested for their part in the baseball betting operations. In fact, the arrest of yakuza crime boss, Mori Kenji, (Yamaguchi-gumi Tsukasa Kogyo), on gambling charges, several weeks ago may be part of the current investigation as well. In his hotel suite, where he held a traditional gambling session, sumo wrestlers, celebrities, and some corporate executives were also alleged to be in attendance. One part of the　sumo-yakuza-gambling scandal that may never come to light is that, not only were sumo wrestlers were participating in the gambling, so were some executives from the Japanese companies sponsoring the sumo tournaments. For those reasons, the investigation is likely to be cut off at a predetermined point before it becomes an international embarrassment. Established connections between gambling, yakuza, sumo and major Japanese corporations wouldn’t reflect well on the business image of Japan. There is already a proposal to “pin the crime” on low-level yakuza boss who died of natural causes last year, designating him the “puppet master” who ran the show. Dead men make the perfect fall guys and don’t say things they shouldn’t.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department is doing their job and doing it in the way they’ve probably always wanted to do it. Except now they are acting with the approval of the National Police Agency from the top down. When the curtain is pulled away, it will be revealed that the Yamaguchi-gumi was running most of the bookie operations, that they made the baseball betting possible and that the Yamaguchi-gumi and Sumo Association ties have been strong for several years. (Some of the bookie operations were run by different crime groups in different regions.) In the end, the NPA will achieve another victory in its war on the Yamaguchi-gumi Kodo-kai. Their biggest victory will be in terms of public relations. By showing that the yakuza have corrupted Japan’s national sport, they turn public opinion against the yakuza and create an atmosphere where stronger anti-organized crime laws are likely to be supported.

Ironically, the exposure of sumo wrestlers involved in high-stakes gambling operations run by the yakuza and Sumo Association executives giving special perks and favors to yakuza–these very issues also came to light because some Sumo Association members tried to use the yakuza to solve internal conflicts within the organization, and many Sumo wrestlers were happy to be on the organized crime dole.

All over Japan’s legislation on the local government level, there are laws which are pending which would make it a crime to pay money or offer rewards to the yakuza for any services performed. The new laws will in essence punish not just the yakuza for their crimes but the civilians who utilize them as well. A similar law is already on the books regarding racketeers (sokaiya) and it had a devastating effect on that as an illegal business.

However, all the law really does is put into legal code Japanese folk wisdom that has been around for years: “When you curse someone, dig two graves.” Or as some Japanese cops jokingly put it, “When you use the yakuza to get what you want, you’re sure to get something you don’t want as well.”

Update 07/11/2010

The article here, Ex-Sumo Wrestler Involved In Baseball Gambling Connected to Yamaguchi-gumi Kodo-kai is in  Japanese, from Sankei Newspaper, but it discusses the Yamaguchi-gumi Kodo-kai connection to the current scandal in explicit terms. In May of this year, Ando Tokuhara, the head of the National Police Agency, obliquely hinted at the Yamaguchi-gumi Kodo-kai and Sumo connections in his press release of instructions (kunji) to Japan’s police department heads,  which called for a crackdown on the Yamaguchi-gumi Kodo-kai, including their banishment from Japanese society and reduction of their spheres of influence, while explicitly mentioning the Sumo Association.

Also it’s worth mentioning that the excellent book, Sumo: A Thinking Fan’s Guide To The National Sport by David Benjamin, almost foretells the current troubles on pages 231-233, in an entry called “Cracks In the Facade.”  It starts off describing how powerful the Sumo Association has been in Japan for years, cozying up with major media, suppressing any scandal.  It notes that in recent years: “The weekly magazines had become so persistent, in accusations about matters like hazing, links to the Mob, and yaochozumo (fixed matches), that the Sumo Association could no longer keep such stories entirely out of the mainstream press.Two ex-rikishi, reportedly ready to spill the beans about yaocho, died mysteriously.”

I’d almost forgotten about those unfortunate two. It always struck me as a little odd that both whistle blowers should fall ill and die in the same hospital shortly after holding press conferences where they announced that they were ready to blow the lid off the dirty diaper bin of the sumo world. (Probably just a coincidence. Squealers and whistle blowers in the sumo world probably tend to feel so bad about betraying the sport, that they invariably get really sick and die, of the same illness, around the same time–which is why you only need to do one autopsy for every two mysteriously deceased wrestlers)

However, I think the two dead rikishi held one of their press conferences at the Foreign Correspondent’s Club of Japan, that means there should exist an audio recording of the conference or a transcript. Any enterprising reporter who’d like to “dig up” that story and is in good health, good luck.

Also check out  Tokyo Reporter’s summary of weekly magazine reporting on the dismal state of sumo affairs and organized crime links.  As usual, Brett does a stellar job of putting the popular press spin on events into context: Sumo worlds ties to gangsters baseball betting have long legacy.

The Nagoya Tournament, which NHK is not broadcasting, opened as planned. A reporter friend in Nagoya says the police presence there is immense.  It marks the first time that the Aichi Prefectural Police have posted organized crime control division detectives to guard the entrances and check for a yakuza presence. It isn’t just to keep the yakuza from watching the contest. The National Police Agency quietly fears that a sumo wrestler will be killed or have their “suicide” arranged by the Yamaguchi-gumi as a warning to others to keep their mouths shut.  It only takes one death or serious assault to make thirty people suddenly very quiet and forgetful. This makes investigations difficult.

However, the yakuza don’t always have to use direct brute force to get a point across. If I were a sumo wrestler who’d admitted to participating in gambling or had talked at length to the police, I’d be extremely careful when eating my chanko nabe; I’d probably insist on making my own, with no added secret ingredients.

Finally, Mori Kenji, a recently arrested Yamaguchi-gumi Kodokai member, was also reported to have attended Asashoryu’s birthday party last year.  By now, no one should be surprised that the yakuza and the sumo wrestlers associate with each other–the question is just how symbiotic the relationship really has become.  Recent reports suggest that many of the shops and businesses selling Sumo tickets are also run by the yakuza as well. What many fear is that when you remove the yakuza support and sponsorship of the Sumo wrestlers and the smaller Sumo stables, the whole thing will began to collapse under its own weight.

Update 07/12/2010 (corrections to previous posts are colored)

The Sumoforum.net has some very interesting posts on this subject, some poking holes in this article, some supporting it. In any event, most of it is rather intelligent discourse and polite–something quite rare for on-line forums about any subject.  I could be wrong, of course. I will point out that what I wrote in Tokyo Vice in 2008 about Goto-gumi, Goto Tadamasa’s links to Sokagakkai and powerful politicians and his liver transplant at UCLA were more or less confirmed with the publication of Goto’s memoirs in May of 2010 (this year). He’s donating all of his profits on the book to charity, which is very nice of him. Just wanted to say that I’m right some of the time.

Anyway, reading the posts which express reasonable doubts made me decide to add more source materials where possible (although not everything could be found in English).  Check out the forum yourself if you’re interested in following the story. I’m taking a break from it until the first arrests or  perhaps until the TMPD files papers on the dead yakuza boss. (It’s a classic way of solving a case–blame it on a dead guy, file charges with the prosecutors (shoruisoken) and then call it a day. Case closed).

For Polaris, the work of helping to catch abusers of children will continue, along with its battle against human trafficking. The organization sees the two crimes as linked.

“Child abuse can be physical abuse, sexual abuse or neglect, it happens anywhere,” Polaris Japan director Shihoko Fujiwara tells The Japan Times. “The kids (that are abused) are especially vulnerable though, because they don’t have anybody to protect them. I meet a lot of kids who survive by selling their body because that is how they have to survive. Those kids who are abused are easy targets for traffickers, whose aim is huge profit from sexual exploitation.”

Fujiwara says that the Japan branch of the organization, which is run by two full-time staff, a part-time worker and around 22 volunteers, helped around 35 to 40 victims escape sexual exploitation at the hands of traffickers last year. In addition to this, the organization helps to train employees in fields such as teaching, social work and law enforcement on the dangers and signs of trafficking.

Read the rest at A light of hope for abused children.

Ironically, the day before the above article was published, the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly killed an ambiguous bill that would prohibit the sale to minors of manga, anime and video games that depict children in sexualized situations. The idea doesn’t seem to hold much popularity with lawmakers or those involved in the industry, as illustrated by coverage at Anime News Network and The Japan Times.

Like most prefecture-level governments in Japan, Tokyo already has an existing Youth Healthy Development Ordinance to prohibit the sale of “harmful publications” to minors. The Tokyo Metropolian Government’s bill would specify that such “harmful publications” would include sexualized yet non-explicit materials that do not involve actual people. 1,421 manga creators, 10 publishing companies, the Japan Pen Club, the Japan Cartoonists Association, and the Writers Guild of Japan voiced their opposition to the bill.

(via Anime News Network)

The Japan Times quotes Meiji University associate professor Yukari Fujimoto as saying that hiding depictions of minors in sexual situations “can hamper the ability of children to develop a ‘healthy’ attitude about sex.” The proposed bill does stink of a conservative book-burning, but one would wonder what American study Fujimoto got her statistics from on exposure to sexual material and rates of sexual crimes. And while there are dozens if not more studies on the affect of pornography on children, why is the focus not more on keeping sexualized images of youth out of the hands of adults?

The article concludes with Fujimoto saying that the authorities should work harder on “preventing real children from being sexually attacked.” While this is true it could be said that the lightness with which sexualized images of youth are looked upon–from pornographic manga to junior idols, not to mention legalized possession of child pornography–is at the root of the problem and an excuse for police and authorities to remain slow-to-act when the few laws that do exist actually have been broken.

From the book "Illustrated Guide To The Underworld"

If child pornography and border-line materials didn’t bring so much money to so many people, it would have been made illegal a long time ago.

But fear not, fellow students, because there is a way in. 図解裏社会のカラクリ (Zukai Urashakai no Karakuri – Illustrated Guide to How the Underworld Works) documents the ABCs of the “anti-social” world in easy-to-manage two-page bites, one page covering a topic in relatively simple Japanese then summing up the key points with textbook-worthy illustrations on the facing page. The concept is simple and works for the broad range of topics available, from the down and dirty on yakuza traditions to how the ghouls and ghosts of the ura shakai have their fun.

The first chapter does indeed begin with Japanese organized crime groups, laying out simply the hierarchy of organizations, “A day in the life” of an underling and a kumi-cho, and how exactly that whole pinky finger thing works. I actually received this book after lamenting about seemingly archaic customs harboring unusual words like sakazuki and gobun kyodai. But there it is, laid out all nicely in the first section. Ever wondered what kind of duds an Armani-wearing yak might sport on the weekend? What the layout of a typical office might look like? Where gangsters get their guns? All covered in easy to understand brevity.

Zukai Urashakai no Karakuri goes even further in the section section, hitting up lesser-known but just as intriguing points under the surface of society, like the legal boundaries of private investigators, the difference between right wingers and left wingers, and the business cycle of peeping tom tosatsu videos. “Do assassins really exist?” the question is posed atop one of the illustrated pages. Yes, the book says, and they’re oftentimes foreigners who can escape penalties for the crime by returning to their home country.

Underworld entertainment–sex, drugs, rock n’ roll with a splash of gambling–is covered in the last section. The invasion of Japanese ladies into foreign streetwalkers’ territory, the affects of drug addiction, fake DVDs, even the Shinjuku gay district. Each entry is written very matter-of-factly, neither condoning nor criticising, and graciously avoids being as detailed as a “how to” book while still providing a decent explanation. The beauty is that Zukai covers not those nitty-gritty things one would normally feel apprehensive about asking a local, but actually things your average Taro would have no idea about. A quick flip through would do wonders for impressing your friends with intimate knowledge of underworld trivia–as long as you don’t mind coming off as a creep.

Admittedly, though, finding some of the vocab used here was a pain in the ass, both uncommon terms and slang. Even with a normal dictionary, Zukai isn’t exactly a book to read while relaxing in the park (especially if you’re self conscious about getting strange glances) and is best done with an Internet connection nearby. Although this certainly isn’t oriented towards an audience that would typically need it, a smear of furigana would have been appreciated here and there. What the book really needs is a quick-lookup glossary in the back with things like 破門回状 and マルチ商法. Small complaints, though, considering Zukai was written for native Japanese speakers with little to no knowledge of the underworld.

This is a book that, as you read it, you’d wish someone had made something just as fun to peruse for your own country. I’m waiting for a follow-up, perhaps some special editions that go into further detail about uyoku, the geino-kai, perhaps something about this ‘wave’ of foreign crime Japan seems to be constantly experiencing. Or perhaps, if Jake can pick up an illustrator, that will be our next project here at JSRC?

According to the National Police Agency, even more yakuza have been arrested in an Osaka drug ring selling fake Viagra to unsuspecting fun-seekers. Two members of the Yamaguchi-gumi were arrested again (see the original report here) and are being held in custody on charges of unauthorized sale of pharmaceuticals after they were caught last month illegally selling fake Viagra. A third Yamaguchi-gumi member was also arrested.

Police discovered 13,000 tablets of the fake Viagra in a Naniwa condo, what they believe is one of the ring’s bases for selling the erectile dysfunction medication. It’s thought that the proceeds from the business were directed back into the organization. The three are suspected of selling 120 tablets without a license to three men for a total of 39,000 yen between April 27 and May 5.

The “fake Viagra” the yakuza are selling, according to police, is about twice as potent as normal Viagra–essentially the active ingredient Sildenafil. An overdose of Viagra–very possible with this much Sildenafil–can cause a lot more than an overly persistent erection, occasionally resulting in heart attacks or death.

It seems like the yakuza’s lucky customers escaped such a fate, however. In his statement to the police, one of them allegedly complained,”It was relatively cheap and it worked. What’s the crime in that?”

In a move to put a stop to illegal deai-kei cafes, the National Police Agency announced they will tighten regulations regarding love hotels from January of next year. Although the businesses appear to be love hotels, they do not meet standards set by law and some are used as a location for enjo-kosai. Says the Mainichi Daily:

There are about 3,590 facilities that closely resemble love hotels but are not recognized as such because they do not meet the standards set by the current law, according to the NPA. About 80 percent of them are situated in areas where adult entertainment businesses are prohibited by law.

According to the Asahi, the new regulations will specify that love hotels are businesses that have “rest” and “stay” prices displayed in front of the building, have an entrance that is shrouded by curtains or some other obstruction, and may be used without seeing employees face-to-face. Those under 18 years of age must be prohibited from entering, and the business cannot be within 200 meters of a school.

Also from the Mainichi Daily (and a great AP article here), Japan has finally begun to respond to international pressure regarding child pornography, with the National Police Agency and other government ministries pressuring the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications to agree to ban access to websites dealing in child porn instead of simply demanding site owners delete them. Despite some concerns that the move may be an infringement of freedom of expression, most seem to welcome the plan. And it couldn’t come sooner, as the day after the announcement was made police reported that seven child pornography sites–five “ranking” sites and one run privately–had been discovered and the owners ordered to shut them down. Still waiting for them to get their act together on the junior idol stuff..

Back on the fuzoku topic, it was reported today that a Dentsu employee was arrested for running a nightclub in Kanagawa Prefecture that illegally employed Filipino waiters and hostesses. The man started the club in August 2006, reportedly trying to pay off debts he accumulated through “entertainment” and the purchase of a 43 million yen condo. To staff the pub, he started a fake web design company to get work visas for the Philippine nationals. As we learned earlier, Dentsu is known as being quite the harsh taiikukai-kei company, so you have to wonder where the entrepreneur found the time to run his other operation.

While the system to be used has yet to be decided, the JSDA is hoping to cut down an investigation process that used to take several days into a simple search that can be done instantly. Up until now, the NPA would cooperate with inquiries from the JSDA or individual securities companies, providing certian information on organized crime members. Police have yet to decide how to handle so-called junko seiin, or those who are not officially related to a specific yakuza group but are suspected of having connections.

Last September, banks changed their regulations–no longer allowing organized crime members to open or hold an account–but have yet to set up a database to search for members. Similarly, the JSDA plans to make it obligatory for companies to add such a clause in new and existing account contracts as of July. They too had plans to use a private database to enforce the regulations, but costs proved to be too high.

Says the Mainichi, anti-organized crime laws have made it increasingly difficult for gangs to reap great profits through securities, and a number of groups have begun conspiring with ex-employees of securities companies to do business. Some point to a higher amount of gang activity in emerging markets due to more lax listing standards.

(Info from the Yomiuri and the Mainichi)

The move by the NPA to share part of their undoubtedly broad wealth of information on the yakuza is a good first step. As was addressed at the FCCJ press conference for Fujitsu ex-president Kuniaki Nozoe, although companies are obligated to do research to ensure they are not involved with any “anti-social forces,” police refusal to give up the necessary information officially (as opposed to unofficially) makes the process time consuming and difficult. As regulations against organized crime groups get tighter, the least police could do is make compliance easier. Now there’s the question of what kind of privacy issues will erupt…

In Japan, corporate culture amongst established companies is not something that is organically developed or that reads from the pages of a self help book. Traditionally there have been two kinds of companies: 体育会系 (taiikukai-kei, sports-oriented) and 文化系 (bunka-kei, liberal arts-ish). From the definition it’s likely easy to grasp the general concept, and while bunka kei companies are more desirable for those calm, artsy types who enjoy having a life outside or work, taiikukai-kei are renowned for providing the motivated with high-energy, aggressive environments in which they can shoot for the stars–but often not, because unlike Western companies, until recently most traditional taiikukai-kei companies feature lifetime employment systems, 年功序列 (nenko joretsu, seniority by length of service) and all those other ultra-Japanese business practices that have gradually become archaic. Taiikukai-keihere) companies are also renowned for they way they treat employees, going beyond the typical forced overtime and into the realms of abusive language and behavior to subordinates and even reports of regulated haircuts for new hires. (Read more about company culture and how it’s begun to affect young people

For May, perhaps to give April’s new hires a belated heads up that they may have made a bad decision, magazine Zaiten has a special feature on “Real Job Hunting,” featuring a fantastic chart, translated below:

The chart lays out in four neat areas some of the country’s most well-known firms, as well as particular industries that are popular destinations for Japanese graduates.

Before we get into the chart, Zaiten has this to say about company culture in Japan. There are roughly six ways to group companies: cultish charisma-kei (カリスマ系), family-run dozoku-kei (同族系), strict infura-kei (インフラ系), foreign gaishi-kei (外資系), authoritarian chuoshuken-kei (中央集権系) and heavy industries-based jukochodai sangyo-kei (重厚長大産業系). Whew. Charisma-kei and dozoku-kei companies are similar in style, they say, in that both types put the company founder or president on a kind of pedistal, decorating offices and board rooms with his photo and adhering strictly to the guidelines these founding fathers have set down. The company goes through efforts to “brainwash” new hires, lest they get sick of kowtowing and quit.

One company Zaiten  cites as being the epitome of charisma-kei is manufacturer Kyosera, which half-forces employees to purchase books written by founder Kazuo Inamori on the “Kyosera philosophy.” Dozoku-kei companies like Lotte or the massive Takenaka Corporation have employees stand up and sing the company song every morning. The Yamazaki Baking corporation prides themselves on using the same recipe for their fluffy white bread as was used by the founding Iijima family–which contains carcinogenic potassium bromate despite the fact that it is banned in most of the world and other major Japanese producers have ceased its use. The article say that many of these companies are less about making extremely high profits than they are about preserving tradition, making them unsuitable for those who are aggressive and looking to succeed.

Gaishi-kei companies are easily recognizable as overseas firms in the Japanese marketplace. These performance-based workplaces are the antithesis of Japan’s lifetime employment (終身雇用 – shushin koyo) but share the same “top-down” hirearchtical traits of Japanese companies as, the article points out, superiors plainly downsize workers if the need arises. As a bonus, however, the world of service zangyo, or unpaid overtime, is almost unheard of.

Some of Japan’s biggest giants, at least those closest to the government, have an infura-kei culture. Typically transportation or utilities companies such as Japan Railways, Tokyo Gas or NTT, these groups unusual in that they often have little or no competition–making sales and work performance obsolete–and divide their employees up into career and non-career workers. Perhaps some of the most typical Japanese companies, seniority is decided by length of service and company hierarchy is ultimately respected. The article says that, according to one career-track NTT employee, promotions are decided by how well you get on with your boss and how neatly your documents are written. The company attitude towards those on a non-career employees follows that of taiikukai-kei, with reports of ground staff at ANA “being scolded until they cry” after having made mistakes.

In chuoshuken-kei companies, those overly focused on a particular part of their business, most typically R&D of a certain product, will pour much effort into particular departments while neglecting those in other divisions. The phenomenon can be seen in companies ranging from residential property developers to food makers, or any company where one portion of employees are skilled in the firm’s main business while the rest are not. Those who are not skilled are promised by their employer a chance to pursue a career on the production side of the business if only they first experience life “on the front lines.” Zaiten warns that this terminology typically means a new employee may be banished to an unpopular regional area to “gain experience” for the majority of their career with little opportunity to gain skills in a more desired field.

The article advises that, to a certain extent, looking at the business cycle of a company, from the beginning of a project to the end, is a good measure of what kind of company culture it will have. Age determines seniority in those companies with long business cycles, such as ones involved in the aerospace industry or nuclear power, because of the time it takes to experience work throughout the life of a project. On the other hand, IT companies that do systems integrations or install information systems have a relatively short business cycle and offer opportunities for younger employees to be more influential, making for a more level working environment.

Regardless of the type of company, a job hunter can generally determine where a potential employer falls on the chart above with two essential questions: “What happens if someone doesn’t make sales?” and “Does your department tend to go out drinking together a lot?”

If someone doesn’t hit their expected target at Nomura Securities, for example, bosses hound the employee, forcing him to try harder or admit defeat. Says one employee, “They’re really into seishin-ron (精神論 – mental training against adversity) here, and this is a place where ‘I couldn’t make quota’ just doesn’t cut it.” At Daiwa Securities, on the other hand, the atmosphere is more encouraging: “If someone says they can’t hit their sales mark, most bosses will reply with a ‘Well, let’s just try harder tomorrow!’ kind of thing,” explains a worker. Out of around 3,000 sales employees at the company in 2008, 1,068 had won the “President’s Award.”

Company drinking parties are a classic Japanese institution that are enjoyed by some yet grudgingly joined by most. Those companies that tend to encourage obligatory extracurricular activities, in this most traditional sense, are known as being “wet”–clingy and overly involved in employee’s lives. Today, along with the gaishi-kei group, a number of domestic ventures, start-ups, SMEs and even divisions in some major companies, employ a more “dry” type of management, with lines firmly drawn between professional and private.

So what about the chart? After analyzing various types of company culture, Zaiten organized the information on two axis (wet vs. dry and flat vs. hierarchical), creating four zones. Overseas companies tend to stray toward the right side, with firm boundaries between public and private, while the Japanese companies still uphold the “my job is my life” status quo on the left side (and most happen occupy the upper left corner, where the corporation takes up all employee’s time and beats them down for it).

Interesting to note are the companies with a “flat” structure in the lower regions of the chart. An IT company would be ideal for someone who wants to leave the office at 6pm and have a friendly relationship with their boss–something we tend to find normal in the West. For the right person, however, one of the companies on the lower right might not be a bad choice; is it coincidence that top beverage makers (read: beer) like Suntory and Kirin have more casual workplaces where people tend to spend a lot of time?

Zaiten advises job hunters: The days of being sheltered by your employer are over, and new hires have to realize the importance of maintaining a network outside of their company. Before taking a job, think carefully about whether you want to turn into a salaryman who lets drinking with the boss take up all of his time.

As a bonus for those who made it all the way to the bottom, here is a post from the guys at Mutantfrog Travelogue about Gyoza no Ohsho, a ramen restaurant with some unusually taiikukai-kei training for new employees.

Why does Gyoza no Ohsho need to brainwash its employees?