The jury is in: Japan’s new jury system is a farce.

This news story slipped under my large nose in the last few days of earth-shaking quake related news. On March 30th (2011) the Tokyo High Court overturned the not-guilty verdict of a 60 year-old office worker accused of smuggling in meth-amphetamines and other crimes. He was the first person to be found completely innocent under [...]

TEPCO executives under investigation for charges of professional negligence resulting in death or injury. UPDATE（業務上過失致死傷容疑)

The Japanese police continue their investigation into TEPCO, the managing entity of the Fukushima Nuclear Reactor for charges of professional negligence resulting in death or injury. TEPCO announced on April 3rd that the bodies of two Fukushima workers had been found at Fukushima Reactor #1. The bodies were found on March 30th. The announcement came [...]

The high price of writing about the yakuza–and those who pay. 猪狩先生を弔う日々

By Jake Adelstein “In life, we only encounter the injustices we were meant to correct.” Igari Toshiro, ex-prosecutor, leading lawyer in the anti-organized crime movement in Japan. 1949-2010. Igari Toshiro, was my lawyer, my mentor, and my friend. In the sixteen years I’ve been covering organized crime in Japan, I’ve never met anyone more courageous [...]

Eikaiwa Underworld: Lessons Taught, Lessons Learned

By Jason Gray Early 2004. When teaching conversational English, at least in Japan, fascinating students are a rarity. This isn’t necessarily because there aren’t interesting people who want to learn English, but perhaps because they don’t reveal themselves as such (it should be noted that most English teachers don’t come across as fascinating either). It [...]

Yakuza and Pushing Their Buttons

I was going to visit a former yakuza boss in the hospital a few weeks ago. He was dying of lung cancer and the doctor had given him only a few weeks left to live.  I called up “Mr. Greenriver,” still a mid-level gang boss, and we agreed to go visit him together since we [...]