Whoot! What? Wut! German Fashion finds a home in Tokyo
Japan Subculture Research Center is going through puberty and heading towards adulthood. After a long discussion with the Japan Subculture Research Center team, we’ve decided to expand the blog to cover not just the underworld and subculture of Japan, but to Japanese pop culture, movies, and books. We’re also reworking the layout to bring you [...]
Death by Pufferfish: A short story by Mayumi Shimose Poe
Jake’s note: In a departure from our usual hard-boiled news about Japan, we’re honored to be republishing a fascinating short story that illustrates many cultural aspects of Japanese society and is simply an excellent piece of fiction. Pufferfish, part of the title of the story, is English for (河豚/fugu) which is a delicacy in Japan [...]
Moe Yamaguchi’s high-rolling husband arrested for running illegal hostess club
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 [...]
Lingerie designer by day, yakuza by night: Shizukanaru Don (The Quiet Don)
By Gilles Poitras Screenshots courtesy of Michelle A. Hoyle 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 [...]
Mind your f**ks and s**ts: Localizing Yakuza 1 龍が如く翻訳物語
By Demian ‘Ryu Ichinose’ Smith Ryu ga Gotoku, or Yakuza, as it was unfortunately titled for international distribution, was the first major localization project I was assigned to as a young proofreader and translator. As one could imagine, I was tremendously excited to work on a SEGA title, especially one about the seedy underbelly of [...]