Category Archives: Tokyo Vice
The joys of having people wanting to kill you and other thoughts: ABC interview (Australia)
Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on The Police Beat In Japan was released in Australia this month with a wonderfully bizarre cover–dead fish in an icebox. The title was also changed from An American Reporter to A Western Reporter On The Police Beat In Japan. I imagine the Hebrew edition, if it comes out in [...]
Posted in Tokyo Vice 12 Comments
Everything I Ever Really Needed To Know I Learned From The Yakuza or The Cops
There are no small promises. You need to learn this now if you’re going to be a good reporter and if you’re going to walk in and out of our world. If you’re going to be a man. Trust is built on little promises and it can all be lost by failure to live up to them. All promises are important. Do you know the saying, 武士に二言はない--bushi ni nigon wa nai? *Literally—A samurai does not have a second word.
Also posted in Organized Crime, Yakuza 30 Comments
Thank You For The Kind Letters About TOKYO VICE (from Jake)
I’ve been heartened by a huge number of letters I’ve received in the last three weeks from people who read the book and were moved by it, inspired by it, appalled by it, and/or who felt they were wiser for reading it. I’ve tried to answer every letter I’ve gotten. If I haven’t answered yours, [...]
Also posted in Dark Side of the Sun 16 Comments
TOKYO VICE Reviewed In Japanese — Bloombergが東京ヴァイス （東京の性悪・米国人事件記者の警察回り体験記）を日本語で書評
Rocky Swift, a journalist at Bloomberg Tokyo, has posted a review of Tokyo Vice in both Japanese and English:
【書評】米国人元新聞記者がえぐり出す日本の闇社会
元読売新聞記者のジェイク・アデルスタイン氏の近著「トーキョー・バイス」は、居直ったヤクザから始末するぞと静かな脅しを掛かけられた著者が、たばこの煙をもくもくと上げながら取材戦略を練るシーンで始まる。
同書はアデルスタイン氏が警視庁記者クラブメンバーで唯一の米国人記者として連続殺人事件などを追いかけた12年間の取材の追想録で、ヤクザの中でも特に暴力的な勢力をかぎまわって窮地に陥るに至った経緯が描かれている。
「トーキョー･バイス」 に収められたのは、後藤忠正氏という病んだヤクザのボスと手下の３人がどうやって米当局のお膳立てで米国での肝臓移植手術にこぎつけたかを探ったアデルス タイン氏の調査報道の記録。今回の出版は結果的に、アデルスタイン氏の知名度を高め殺害を難しくしたため、この本は著者の救い主とも言える。
アデルスタイン氏は「ヤクザをムカつかせるようになる」前は上智大学の学生だった。ミズーリ州生まれの同氏はテレビ局や球団なども持つ日本の大手メディアの読売新聞の入社試験を気まぐれで受けたという。
Posted in Tokyo Vice 2 Comments
Upcoming event: Tokyo Vice book talk at Temple University