Illustration by Mari Kurisato (www.marikurisato.com)

Interview by Jean Ren and Jake Adelstein

JSRC: Even someone with little knowledge of Japanese culture who has never heard of host clubs before can watch this film and pick out several universal elements from it. The girls use the hosts as sources of entertainment, comfort, pleasure, and scapegoats with no reservations. It doesn’t seem like a far stretch from situations everyone finds themselves in at one point or another in real-life relationships. Do you think that this makes the film’s subjects and their experiences more relatable to a diverse demographic?

Jake Clannel: People like to extrapolate stuff about relationships from [the film], but people already make a lot of deep films about relationships. I think there’s a lot to be said about the deeper emotional implications of what people truly think or feel about those relationships. So I don’t think the film stands out because of that. The film stands out (to me) because it’s kind of a joke on the audience in a way. Everybody in that film knows what the film is about, and everybody that’s in a host club knows what it is—so when it comes time to comment on “What is your experience in a host club like?” everybody already knows the rap. There’s a sort of set of clichés that goes along with that environment. It’s like you walk into a strip club as a man in America—you know it’s a strip club—you become temporarily absorbed in the entertainment of it, which is what you’re paying for, right? And when you watch a television show the reason you sit through commercials is because you want to watch the next episode of Cheers or whatever.

I see what you’re saying. Everybody should know what the deal is.

Exactly, everybody SHOULD know what the deal is. But what you’re paying for is to not know what the deal is. You’re paying to be temporarily relieved of that faculty. I think that we’re talking about (one of?) the most extreme case(s) here. I think that for most people—for most women its an opportunity for them to go somewhere where they can get drunk, they’re not going to get raped, and they’ll be taken care of by an institution that’s set up to take care of them. It’s focused on giving these women an entertainment experience—so be it an extremely labor intensive one.

A good host is somebody who is actually talented with people, which not everybody is. The same goes for a hostess. A bunch of guys go to a hostess club and suddenly there is a whole bunch of girls being very nice to them and everybody knows what the deal is. That’s not to say that something real can’t come out of it, but you don’t walk into a hostess bar and think that it’s not one—you walk in and it’s quite clear when you get the bill what the situation is. It’s explicit in the process. If I go to a theater and I buy a ticket and somebody does something on the stage, even though for that moment—if that actor is good enough—I’m lost in the illusion, I still know that it’s a staged and scripted show. Which is what you would hope for. That’s actually the best-case scenario.

Many host/hostess clubs are notorious for being exclusive to Japanese only. Was it hard to gain the trust of the Rakkyo employees, and to get permission to do a feature length documentary? What made Issei and the guys at Rakkyo in particular trust you?

I think for Issei it was really more about us being from the outside. So his perspective on it was probably, “Why are these people interested in this? Why would you be interested? What’s your take?” I think those guys are quite famous. They get a lot of press and television exposure. Issei is very famous in his own universe.

Issei admits to sometimes getting so caught up in his host persona that he can’t even tell what his true personality is. Would you say that he, along with the other subjects, were slipping into a role and performing for the camera—acting as they felt hey were expected to—instead of being “real”?

Isn’t that what is implied by the setup? In the sense that if you shoot a great kabuki actor who has spent his life embracing and inhabiting a role, that along with that role comes the actor’s existential dilemma. And that existential dilemma is inherent in the seductive nature of theater.

But did you want them to perform for the camera, or did you want to catch them off guard. Were you aiming to capture the moments where they forgot that the camera was there?

No! no. the camera was right in everybody’s face the whole time. I’m not hiding anything. I was very surprised by the frankness. [For instance] I had no idea what those girls do for a living. I just didn’t know. For me, it came as a surprise.

So you don’t think the fact that some of the participants were blatantly lying to the camera and using their interview as a means to personal gain detracts from the objective merit of the film?

[Those guys] weren’t strangers to publicity and I think from all the host media that’s out there everyone is quite familiar with the role that is inherent in the film— that it is in some way roguish. That’s what it is to be a host, right? You are famous for being extremely charming and attractive to women and not for being anything else—there is no other component. In the first half of the film they are giving the party line: we are providing entertainment for these women, we’re making them happy. At some point every host documentary draws the same conclusions. That to me is what is interesting. If a viewer gets caught up in the plot or the idea that the contradictions presented in the film are real, then that person has missed the point. The film is designed in a way to make people get caught up the contradictions, and then reexamine their biases. Ultimately, if they digest the film for long enough, they’ arrive at a different conclusion.

So you’re saying that everyone involved—even the girl, Saori, who most dramatically proclaimed her love and devotion to Issei– was playing along with the illusion?

Yeah she’s just playing. Totally playing! Host clubs have their own media, websites, videos, ads. Everybody knows the game. When you go to a host club you are engaged in an Andy Warhol-esque 15 minutes of fame, which you are taking part in, in a very very modern world. I go to Disneyland to get my photo taken with Mickey—I am in the Disney fantasy/reality. If I’m a middle management guy in a golf magazine, I’m engaged in that set of imitations within the time and media landscape. So when you go into a host club, there are performances/photographs/menus—it’s simply inherent in the illusion is the media. In order to be a host you have to be backed up by a certain amount of media. You have to be number 1 or your photo has to be there—your reputation is validated only if you appear in some form of media somewhere—this is particularly true in Japanese culture. Why is one host more famous than another? Only because of the media that surrounds them whether its self created, microcosmic or not.

How do the guys get started it the host club business anyway? Do they rack up debts at hostess clubs and soaplands? Do they lack an education for more stable employment opportunities? Or are they drawn to hosting because it sounded cool? What’s the motivation here?

One thing that I found out, through another film that was made on the same group of guys, was that actually a lot of these guys don’t necessarily come from money. The reason they need to make a lot of it is often to support somebody in their family that needs it. And that’s not what my film’s about though. My film is not about the reality of these people’s lives, it’s about the role-playing they are involved in within this tiny realm.

And this space is the so-called Great Happiness Space?

Yes, it’s an artificial universe. Like I said the reality of people’s lives is that you don’t get the backstories.

One guy in particular was really helping out his disabled mother, and another was sending the money home. That’s actually what they were doing. That’s the tragic truth. And as I’ve said in the past there is a sort of sense in it that… (pause) that it forces you to examine capitalist priorities in a way that you might not be able to look at your own life. It’s quite easy for you to look at someone else’s life, someone who is involved in something that pushes your buttons morally, so you immediately you create a sense of otherness because your moral line has been crossed. But really, aren’t we all involved in that? How many of us could not say we don’t do things that we’d rather not do for money?

It’s a system that we all know and love. You work, the things you buy in shops my not necessarily be benefitting some child that sewed it together in China or something. But it’s difficult to observe the own contradictions in your own capitalistic systems and work out a way to take action from it whereas in the film— in the film it is very easy from the POV of somebody who is outraged or confused to draw moral conclusions about these people. Which I think is naïve. And I say that because of an absolute unequivocal level of respect, truly, for the fact that these people are involved in such an intricate celebration of something.

So the guys have financial and familial obligations that they need to tend to that require crossing a few moral lines—fine. On the job though, you get a feeling that most guys are certainly taking advantage of some of the girls. How is the viewer to reconcile what seems like a display of moral depravity?

I think anyone would tell you that there’s a real difference between fucking for money and kyabakura. That’s not to say that people aren’t human and people haven’t married their hostess or something. But I think that’s separate, that’s something else, that’s something that goes on, that’s the real world. But a host club is not the real world—it’s a theater, and I don’t think that young drunk men and women don’t occasionally do what young drunk men and women do—(laughs)

They do! Right? So I think that that’s okay, but I don’t think that that’s really interesting. It’s just an inevitable part of what it is to be human.

But this kind of system operates on the open acceptance of the notion that in addition to sexual and physical services, abstract feelings like love, happiness, the intricacies of a relationship (even if they are just illusions) are products that one can buy as well. For people, particularly Westerners, who are accustomed to putting love and affection on a pedestal, this idea might be unsettling.

Because I’m a Westerner and I really don’t know much about Japanese society—I can’t tell one person apart from another on the street in terms of social class or lifestyle—I can’t claim to have had enough foresight in the field to understand how delicate and interesting it was as a piece of psychological projection. I didn’t quite get that at the time, but intuitively I felt that this was not about morality or relationships, this is about a story that people are telling again and again. It’s set up and you go through a set of stages again and again, and that’s what it is.

Were any of your personal morals challenged in this situation?

Oh, fuck me. What kind of line is that?! That’s bullshit—does anyone over the age of 16 actually take that seriously? That’s the drama that everybody knows! It’s a prerequisite for this dilemma to be possible. But if I suspend my belief for just a moment and think a pretty young girl is actually interested, then I’m getting my money’s worth. If I don’t suspend my disbelief, I’ll go back to my ex-wife. (laughs)

Do you keep in touch with Issei and the others?

No I’ve been working in the theater for a long time, and I’m currently making a film about breastfeeding. I just finished a film abut Alaska. I spent the last 6 months of my life in the slums of Bombay. One of the beautiful things about my job, which is primarily documentation, is just moving from one amazing situation to another. I don’t think it’s [my relationship with these people after the filming]…I mean it’s irrelevant. I don’t know about their lives, I don’t know those people you know? I mean, I respect them immensely and I’m extremely grateful that I was allowed to take part in [the experience]—it gave me a lot of food for thought about what it is to address a situation that might be a bit bleak. And have created out of it something that is so mysteriously entertaining.

There’s a scene in the movie that shows a “champagne call” which is basically an activity in which the hosts are made to drink up to 10 bottles of champagne in a night in order to cater to the competitive nature of their jealous female customers. I think for many viewers, this is the point where one realizes that these guys really are hard workers.

Yeah! Nobody works harder than those guys!! No one does. They just don’t know how hard they work because they’re young. They might know, but you’re indestructible until you’re like what, 27?

So in some senses this film is really about a form of dinner theatre where everyone, the actors and the audience are playing their assigned role?

You got it! You scored—you understood it. But yes, to me that’s interesting. Some people might not think that. It’s kind of a one trick pony. It’s not exactly Shakespeare.

From my standpoint as a director, I hope there’s a point at which you stop being caught up in the battle of the sexes, and you start moving into an area where you begin to look at it as something that might actually be a little bit more charming.

The ones that were working in the sex industry were very upfront about it. But you see, the point is that the film is structured to manipulate the audience’s biases. It’s girls versus boys. If you watch it with your significant other, between the two of you there’s a point where your respective sympathies swing. So I can claim that as authorship. Of course it can only be objective to a certain degree, but my form of objectivity as a filmmaker was to embrace the theater in the business.

The story so far: Needing a new kidney, doctor Toshinobu Horiuchi initially paid Sumiyoshi-kai member Kazuhisa Takino 10 million yen to find a donor, with plans to have the surgery last June at Sakamoto Chuo General Hospital in Tokyo. When the yakuza asked for more money, however, Horiuchi couldn’t deliver, and he was forced to cancel the surgery. The doctor then went to his long-time friend, Sakamaki, and asked him to not only mediate the dispute but to also find a new donor. Horiuchi paid an additional 9 million yen–1 million yen as a show of gratitude to Sakamaki, 1 million as “transportation money” to the negotiator, and 7 million in reparations to Takino. In the end the negotiations fell through, and the 7 million yen was returned to Horiuchi.

Not to be defeated when his life is at stake, Horiuchi then asked Sakamaki to find another donor. Through the medical consulting company he operates, Sakamaki found a young man who was several thousands of yen in debt to an employee, and arranged to have the debt erased if the man became a kidney donor. Police say the man, 21-year-old Tatsuya Ishikawa, had been promised 1 million yen for the kidney as a means of writing off his debt.

Additionally, Horiuchi reportedly paid Sakamaki 8 million yen in gratitude for the organ, and police believe a portion of the money was sent to the Sumiyoshi-kai headquarters. Police are trying to discover where Horiuchi got all the cash from.

Police recently revealed that Tokushukai Group, who operate the hospital, had actually consulted Sakamaki after hecame to them saying his friend needed and organ transplant and he was looking for a recommendation. Sakamaki had known the director of the group for around 14 years and the director knew of his yakuza affiliation for around two to three years. Sakamaki himself had received a recommendation for a hospital four years earlier when he began to have heart problems. The staff member who consulted Sakamaki reportedly did not know he was a member of the yakuza.

The director of the group says they were only out to help a patient in trouble. Shuichiro Matsumoto, the doctor who performed the surgery on the donor, claims no knowledge of the organ being illegally obtained, but Horiuchi’s wife has testified that they told him what was happening, and paid him 300,000 yen to keep quiet.

The whereabouts of the kidney donor, Tatsuya Ishikawa, are as of yet unknown. In order to comply with ethics guidelines set down by The Japan Society for Transplantation, which state live donors must be family members, Horiuchi and his wife adopted Ishikawa in June of last year, before his kidney was removed.  At the hospital, Horiuchi told doctors Ishikawa was just like his real son, and Ishikawa submitted a written letter saying Horiuchi had looked after him just like a natural father would. Police say, however, Horiuchi’s wife had said to her husband of Ishikawa, “After the surgery, he’s got nothing to do with us.” The transplant was a success, but afterwards Ishikawa reportedly disappeared, leaving Horiuchi’s home and ceasing communications with Sakamaki. It’s believed the man received almost none of the promised money.

Polaris Project visits trainees in Fukui prefecture (Courtesy of Polaris Project Japan)

Just two months after Japan got burned in the US State Department’s 2010 Human Rights Report, a new paper pins the country’s foreign trainee program as being almost as close as you can get to state-sanctioned labor trafficking.

According to the 2011 Trafficking in Persons report, the Industrial Trainee and Technical Internship Program run by JITCO, provides no protection against “debt bondage, restrictions on movement, unpaid wages and overtime, fraud, and contracting workers out to different employers”. The report says that the majority of those who participate are from China, and in some cases pay fees of more than $1,400, and deposits of up to $4,000, to brokers in order to apply for the program. Minimum wage in China varies between US$100 and $200 per month.

The report cites a 2010 survey of Chinese trainees, saying that deposits are regularly seized by brokers if trainees report mistreatment or try to quit the program, and that some have reported having passports taken to prevent escape–the tell-tale signs of human trafficking that are often seen in sex trafficking cases.

JITCO trainees can be found in any industry, from farms and fisheries to textiles and apparel.

Criticism against the JITCO program are nothing new. Last year it was revealed that, in 2009, 35 Asian trainees on the program died–16 of “heart and brain ailments”, five in workplace accidents and one by suicide.

A previously-abandoned shack that is now used to house trainees in Fukui (Courtesy of Polaris Project Japan)

Another previously-abandoned shack used as a dormitory for trainees in Fukui (Courtesy of Polaris Project Japan)

Another Fukui company that places trainees in living quarters directly above the workshop (Courtesy of Polaris Project Japan)

In 2009, a member of Polaris Project Japan visited the Rights of Immigrants Network in Kansai and spoke to two Chinese women who had fled the companies they had joined under the JITCO trainee program. Both women had payed Chinese brokers expensive fees and deposits only to work excessive overtime for low pay and received little of the JITCO-promised training. Both had protested, requesting better working conditions.

According to the Polaris Project report, one woman had come to the shelter after being beaten by her employer and hospitalized. According to the worker, the company had prohibited trainees from possessing mobile phones, but she managed to persuade the president to allow trainees to have them after being with the company for a year and a half. The woman believes she was beaten because one day the company president saw her with a mobile, but refused to give him the number because it belonged to a friend.

The second woman had reportedly been working 16-hour days for low wages at a small electronics subcontractor. According to the report, she had to arrive at the company at 8.45am to clean the machines before a 9am start, then was given a 1.5 hour dinner break at 6pm before heading back for overtime. She had paid a Chinese broker US$7,000 to join the program, and the company threatened to send her back to China when she complained about working conditions.

The Polaris Project Japan member who visited the two women identified a number of fundamental problems with the program: a lack of regulation, a lack of monitoring, disallowing trainees to choose or change their place of employment, providing employment with small firms looking for cheap labor, giving trainees no cover under Japanese labor law for their first year, and providing no system for trainees to solve workplace disputes.

The report labels Japan as a “Tier 2″ country, as a nation that doesn’t meet the Trafficking Victims Protection Act‘s minimum standards, but are making efforts to become compliant.

But, the report says, although issues of human trafficking for sex have risen in profile within recent years, forcing the government to take some action, the Japanese government has yet to officially recognize the problem of forced labor, and have “made inadequate efforts to address abuses in the foreign trainee program despite credible reports of mistreatment of foreign workers.” The report cites a lack of law enforcement against forced labor crimes and says the government has yet to identify any victims of forced labor.

Japan nailed a Tier 2 status not only for its neglect of labor trafficking issues, but also for its handling of sex trafficking: ”Japan’s victim protection structure for forced prostitution remains weak given the lack of services dedicated specifically to victims of trafficking.”

A head clerk at the Ministry of Agriculture, Forest and Fisheries was arrested June 19 for groping a woman on a train while riding the Kawagoe Line in Saitama. Over a period of about 10 minutes, the man reportedly touched the left breast of an 18-year-old woman sitting next to him. A man sitting across from the pair noticed what was happening, and succeeded in restraining the suspect when he attempted to run. The man denies the accusation and says he was just sleeping.

An employee at a tax office in Kanagawa was arrested June 20 for groping the breast of a female acquaintance while at an izakaya. The man denies having touched her on purpose, saying she came and leaned on him.

A grimmer tale: Police apprehended a 47-year-old elementary school teacher on June 19 for distribution of child pornography. Police say between March 16 and 19, a shared folder on the Aichi man’s computer, visible through eMule, contained a porn video with what appeared to be an elementary-aged girl in it. The man admits to the charges, saying he had shared the video so others would share files with him. The school district superintendent made a public apology to the town, and said it feels like the district has been betrayed.

In Wakayama, an ear, nose and throat doctor went to trial June 16 for charges of attempted indecent assault of a female office worker at the clinic. During the incident, which happened last July, the doctor is accused of molesting the woman during a staged tuberculosis examination.

In similar news, we occasionally hear of bad behavior in the SDF, but this one is grimace-worthy: A 22-year-old private in the Maritime Self Defence Force was arrested for public obscenity and assault in Kyoto prefecture after he reportedly flashed his man bits at a 55-year-old woman then splashed what police believe to be urine on her back. All this in a public library.

My husband run a hostess club illegally? Never!

Actress and talento Moe Yamaguchi was “really stunned” when she learned her husband, web entrepreneur Shigeo Ozeki, has been illegally running a posh hostess club without a license.

Ozeki and two other men were arrested May 26 for their suspected connection with “Birth Nishi-Azabu“, an exclusive but unlicensed hostess club hidden in a residential neighbourhood in Tokyo’s Minato ward. Opened in 2004, the cabaret club entertained an exclusive list of clientele with attractive young women such as models and students from famous universities. The club is said to have welcomed Tokyo politicians and celebrities, and pulled anywhere between 7 million and 8 million yen in profits per month.

Ozeki denies having anything to do with the club, saying he sold the goodwill to an acquaintance (who was also arrested) after opening it in 2004. Authorities are suspicious of monthly deposits from Birth into Ozeki’s bank account between 3 and 4 million yen, and believe he may have continued to directly manage the operation.

Police say Yamaguchi was present when they searched the couple’s Hiroo home. She released a statement Tuesday evening through her agency apologising for her husband’s behavior. “I was just really stunned when I heard the news,” she said.

Along with being married to his celebrity wife, Ozeki is known as the founder of the online shopping website EC Navi. The couple were married in 2002. According to Cyzo, Ozeki has often fancied himself a high-rolling businessman and bragged about his lavish lifestyle. In recent times, however, weekly magazines have carried rumors of embezzlements and dismissals from one of his own companies, along with stories of some rather conspicuous womanizing. Cyzo says that although Yamaguchi has been disturbed by the news, she still believes her husband.

Read the Japanese articles here, here and here.

While it looks like the entire country has decided to tackle head-on Japan’s infamous declining birth rate problem, the apparent boom in love hotels is less due to demand than it is to changes in the adult entertainment law that we reported on last December.

The 2011 revised adult entertainment law is aimed at regulating the operation of deai-kissa and gisou love hotels, or establishments registered as hotel or ryokan that are effectively operating as love hotels to get around legal restrictions on things like location. Gisou love hotels have managed to park themselves far beyond the borders limiting normal adult entertainment venues to certain areas. Some are even located within spitting distance of elementary schools and municipal buildings such as libraries, and many believe this may contribute to child prostitution, such as enjo kosai, despite the fact that people under 18 are not supposed to be allowed in.

The revisions have broadened the definition of love hotel, and closed many of the loopholes previously used by gisou love hotels. New hotels must, of course, be planned, constructed and registered according to regulations. The 2011 revisions contain a vested rights clause, however, allowing all existing gisou love hotels to be exempt from legal action if they formally registered as love hotels before January 31. Needless to say, many took advantage of the opportunity.

And residents are saying, what’s the point? The law, meant to keep love hotels away from things like schools and hospitals has instead given the go for thousands of the businesses to operate openly.

A representative from the “Rid Japan Of Gisou Love Hotels” party told Sankei News, “By allowing for vested rights, nothing changes, and now hotels that hide near schools before can operate out in the open.” Uh huh.

The owner of a love hotel argued against the accusation that gisou hotels can contribute to the rise in child prostitution, saying, “There’s been a big increase in ‘city hotels’ that are aimed towards couples, not just traditional love hotels.” With regards to minors using the facilities, he added, “We can’t ask everyone’s age. All we can do is post a sign saying under-18s aren’t allowed.”

Jake’s note: It turns out that the new love hotels are great earthquake shelters as well. Solidly built and once you’re in bed with your partner and you turn on the “body sonic” *–the earthquake tremors won’t bother you at all or become indistinguishable from other more intimate tremors. The earthquake has also resulted in a rise in marriages and hook-ups as the confrontation with mortality has made people realize the importance of carnality, and intimate relationships.)

Read the original article here.

Welcome to a joshi-kousei kengaku club.

As an evolution of the deai cafe and other fuzoku phenomenon, “high school girl viewing clubs” began appearing at the end of last year. The number of establishments has rapidly increased in Kanagawa and Tokyo prefectures, with many opening in locations such as Akihabara and Suidobashi.

Authorities investigated a club in Yokohama late last month under suspected violation of the Labor Standards Act. The venue, located amongst the restaurants and bars of the city’s Naka ward, has no sign, and those looking to visit must call ahead and get the location of the building.

Inside a club, bubbly Jpop music is piped into dark rooms and corridors. “You can relax and enjoy your time here because it’s not a brothel and it’s not illegal,” says a woman at the reception. Five small booths await paying customers with waiting times reaching far beyond an hour during busy periods.

Visitors choose between 3,000 yen for 30 minutes or 5,000 yen for 50. Upon paying, customers enter their booth, which is divided by a curtain, and look through a one-way mirror into the room full of young girls. For an extra 2,000 yen, a customer can select a girl to have sit directly in front of his booth for 10 minutes.

Because the booths are separated by curtains, customers are conscious of the men next to them. Inside the rooms there is nothing; no box of tissues, no garbage bin. A sign on the wall prohibits photos and videos.

Girls’ voices can be heard from outside. “After this let’s go get something to eat.” “I’m knackered today..” Dribs and drabs of daily life. Some chat, others read manga, but none show any sign of embarrassment at revealing their goods to the men on the other side. Some girls come in wearing normal clothing, and grab uniforms that the venue provides for them. They change, showing little sign they even know men are watching.

As the Sankei put it, “It’s like an aquarium with high school girls on display.”

The girls who populate the clubs see it less as a sexual service than just an easy way to make money. According to police, the girls get paid between 800 and 1,000 yen per hour at the club, and no sexual services are involved. About 40 girls in Kanagawa alone have registered for the job, and some girls reap up to 10,000 yen per day.

The shop advertises itself as offering enticing glimpses of real schoolgirls, and requires all potential “employees” to show their school ID to prove they’re in high school. Middle school students and girls over 18 aren’t allowed.

Police point out that, while the room is walled in one-way mirrors, the girls can still partially see the men, and have some idea of what they’re doing.

According to fuzoku journalist Yukio Murakami, the popularity of “high school girl viewing clubs” comes from how well they target a specific clientele. “Men are becoming more herbivorous,” he says. “I think ‘lite fuzoku’ that provides no actual sexual service kind of matches the generation.” Although herbivores are interested in girls, Murakami says, they’re also afraid of what might happen if they get caught looking on the street or in a train. Clubs give them a space to peep without fear.

Fuzoku writer Chuya Nakao says, “While there’s a lot of regular sex shops that have closed down because of the economy, ‘lite fuzoku’ has definitely taken off.” He predicts that fuzoku itself is certainly not going anywhere, as women learn they can have fun and make easy money through this kind of shop.

Police are attempting to target the clubs to curtail this new expansion into the fuzoku industry. Club “Yokohama Mambo” was investigated by police last month in an attempt to press child welfare laws against the venue, but because the girls are free to come and go as they please, the law wasn’t applicable. Authorities finally landed upon the Labor Standards Act, as it stipulates youth may not work in places that are hazardous from a hygienic or social welfare standpoint. They hope to investigate similar premises under the same law.

Read the original article here.

See the layout of Yokohama Mambo here.

Japanese stories here and here.

Nitta Tatsuo’s Shizukanaru Don (静かなるドン), translated into English as The Quiet Don, began publication in November 1988 in the men’s manga magazine Shukan Manga Sunday (Weekly Manga Sunday) and, at nearly 100 tankobon, is still running. This is a tale of a tough young yakuza boss who is head of the largest organization in Kanto, and of a mild-mannered salaryman who works in the design department of a lingerie company. The salaryman is the bottom man in his office—meek, picked on, yelled at. His incredibly slight size and habit of producing bungled designs don’t do him any favors either.

The contrast between these two is interesting because, in reality, they are one and the same person. Born into a high-ranking yakuza family, Shizuya Kondo wanted to distance himself from the life of his parents and walk in the light of day as an ordinary person. He created a life for himself as a designer at a lingerie company, but fate had something different in store for him. One day, after scolding him for another failed design, Shizuya’s boss turns on the office TV to watch a broadcast of the company’s new commercial. A news alert comes on: Isamiashi Kondo, the head of the Shinsengumi, has been shot by members of the Choshu-kai. After work Shizuya rushes to the hospital, only to find his father has just passed away.

At the funeral, the tension is thick between the major oyabun as they vie for the organization’s most prestigious seat. Shizuya’s mother explains that the only way to prevent a bloody internal struggle is for him to take command. He reluctantly does so on the condition that he keep his day job and carry out his role as a yakuza boss at other times. Comedy ensues as Shizuya works to balance the two sides of his life, and the two sides of his persona.

This is a story that will delight Japanophiles of all kinds. As seen above, the story contains characters and groups named after many famous foes from the Bakumatsu period of the mid 19th century.  On a more contemporary front, The Quiet Don began near the end of the bubble economy of the 1980s, giving readers a glimpse of a booming Japanese economy, the glitter and glam of hostess clubs included. We’re also taken to see small neighborhood eateries, middle ranking yakuza operating modest enterprises, and salarymen trying to do their job in a very competitive environment. Another interesting touch is Shizuka’s mother. She’s drawn in a dramatically different style that manga fans will identify as the high realism of Ryoichi Ikegami, a manga artist who has drawn yakuza manga such as the Sanctuary series.

The yakuza are portrayed as competitive, both between gangs and internally, trying to rise up the ranks. Shizuya Kondo comes off at first as eccentric and weak, but those around him soon start to realize just why his mother says he is most capable of leading the organization. There is in fact a beast lurking inside this mild office worker, one more than capable of handling the fiercest opponents, one-on-one or in a showdown against other bosses at a major event. But then, as a salaryman, he is also capable of dancing in his underwear to amuse drunken coworkers at a hot spring resort.

For all of the drama contained in The Quiet Don this is a gag manga filled with slapstick, very earthy humor, humorous situations, and great mix of 19th century history with late 20th century reality.

The English translation of the first two volumes is available in the US, and possibly other areas, as an app for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Each volume is broken up into four parts that are sold separately. It will also display on an iPad in a small window. There is a free app that gives a preview of the manga, so it’s easy to try out some of the early story.

The downside is that reading manga on handheld devices leaves plenty to be desired as you are basically doing it one frame at a time, making it hard to maintain a reading rhythm as you have to tap to go to the next image (or in the case of large frames, for the system to scan across). Also, don’t expect to pick up yakuza related vocabulary from this translation. The translation is rough with many terms in English that could have been left in Japanese. These days readers of English translated manga are used to Japanese terms left un-translated when there is no real English equivalent. One example of a word that could have been left untranslated is oyabun consistently translated as “father”.

All in all, the story of The Quiet Don is compelling, the characters full of depth, and it’s easy to understand how this continuing series has continued running for over 20 years. There have even been adaptations of the story, including an OVA (straight to video anime), a TV drama series and two movies, both of which have been released in subtitled versions through iTunes.

(Jake’s note: In addition, there is a long out of production computer game/interactive manga based on the book that in some ways may have been the model for Sega’s popular Yakuza series. I don’t know any yakuza with sons that went into the apparel business but I do know one mid-level yakuza enforcer who’s son became a hairdresser. He is not interested in taking over “the family business”, and his father seems very happy with that decision.)

In Ishinomaki, Miyagi prefecture, authorities report that recently groups called “West Japan Retail Association” and “West Japan Volunteer Club” have been seen distributing envelopes containing around 30,000 yen in cash to victims living in evacuation shelters. City officials who saw the groups feared residents who didn’t receive money would feel hostility towards those that did, and pleaded that the men contribute the money as a large donation, but were ignored. Similar groups have been sighted in Minami-sanriku. Authorities have investigated the groups, and believe them to be operated by the Yamaguchi-gumi Kodo-kai.

Police sources say they suspect yakuza groups are already involved in cleanup work in the disaster zone. They’re currently keeping careful watch over trash processing facilities and monitoring the purchase of construction equipment that will inevitably become necessary when rebuilding begins.

Just as they always do, police are trying to rally together cooperation in the industry to keep out the yakuza, amongst disaster-struck businesses, builders, landfill owners and the like. Authorities stress to disaster victims that it’s illegal to accept money from organized crime groups, or to use their services. Experts say, however, that as groups become more clever in the way they operate, it becomes increasingly difficult to differentiate between them and normal businesses.

The mob has always been on the lookout for business opportunities in desperate times, and the Yamaguchi-gumi is known to have profited off of cleanup work after the Great Hanshin Earthquake in 1995. Authorities say that “Piles of rubble are like mountains of treasure for organized crime groups.” One man’s trash, eh?