• Tue. Mar 19th, 2024

Japan Subculture Research Center

A guide to the Japanese underworld, Japanese pop-culture, yakuza and everything dark under the sun.

Tokyo Vice

  • Home
  • The Evaporated: 神隠し(かみかくし)Gone with the Gods –On Air now

The Evaporated: 神隠し(かみかくし)Gone with the Gods –On Air now

People have a habit of vanishing in Japan---even hundreds of years ago, it happened often enough that myths were created to explain these sudden disappearances. 神隠し (kamikakushi)--to be hidden by…

Lessons Learned From Encounters With Clickbait Journalists

In the yakuza world they say, “As soon as you get to the top, someone will try to kick you down.” The world of journalism is, sadly, surprisingly “If you’re…

What I’ve Learned In The 30 Years Since I Became A Reporter: The 12 Rules Of Being A Good Journalist In Japan

Share your data. The internet is a vast and endless storage hub. If you’ve written something the world should know--put up supporting data and documents on the web, maybe in…

Tokyo Private Eye (東京探偵) the sequel to Tokyo Vice was published on March 28th 2023, with Marchialy (France). English version next year!

Clients say they want to know, but they don't They want you to tell them what they want to hear But that's not the job My job is to deliver…

Comment gagner un combat perdu d’avance contre les auteurs de pièges à clics?

S’il y a une maxime de connue chez les yakuza, c’est bien « Dès que tu arriveras au sommet, quelqu’un essaiera de t’en faire tomber. » L’univers du journalisme est,…

Response to The Hollywood Reporter Article

Any competent journalist here knows that the civil servant laws here (公務員法) and the State Secrets Law make it a crime for government officials to divulge confidential information to third…

安倍総理の”辞任劇”の真相。勇退ではなく訴追からの逃亡

し安倍総理がなんらかのレガシーを残したとしたら、それは数々の評判の悪い法案を成立させ、それが今や地雷のように存在していて、いつの日か日本のはかない民主主義を吹き飛ばしかねないということだ。その中にはSF映画の『マイノリティ・リポート』から抜け出してきたかのような共謀罪法、報道と内部告発者を弾圧して黙らせるための、ジョージ・オーウェルの世界を思わせる秘密保護法、そして表向きは平和主義的な日本が戦争を遂行できるようにする安保関連法がある。

Bloodshed, Firecrackers and Tears–The Best Japanese Movies Of The Heisei

Yakuza. Samurai. Monsters. NoFace. Lost face. Here's a guide to take you through the most memorable movies (including the bad, the good and the ugly) that adorned the Heisei era…

The Past Present

I have anxiety about sleeping. I never know what time of my life I’ll wake up in. The persistence of the past both helps and hinders my relationships in the…

Meditations on long-form journalism, Japan, Bitcoin and Justice

When you write about Japan, you have to assume that many readers aren't following your story---or they may know little about the country and culture. . They may be coming…