Confessions of a Yakuza

Author: Dr. Junichi Saga
Publisher: Kodansha USA
ISBN: 4770050097
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 197

Book Description
This is the true story, as told to the doctor who looked after him just before he died, of the life of one of the last traditional yakuza in Japan. It wasn’t a "good" life, in either sense of the word, but it was an adventurous one; and the tale he has to tell presents an honest and oddly attractive picture of an insider in that separate, unofficial world. In his low, hoarse voice, he describes the random events that led the son of a prosperous country shopkeeper to become a member, and ultimately the leader, of a gang organizing illegal dice games in Tokyo's liveliest entertainment area. He talks about his first police raid, and the brutal interrogation and imprisonment that followed it. He remembers his first love affair, and the girl he ran away with, and the weeks they spent wandering about the countryside together. Briefly, and matter-of-factly, he describes how he cut off the little finger of his left hand as a ritual gesture of apology. He explains how the games were run and the profits spent; why the ties between members of "the brotherhood" were so important; and how he came to kill a man who worked for him. What emerges is a contradictory personality: tough but not unsentimental; stubborn yet willing to take life more or less as it comes; impulsive but careful to observe the rules of the business he had joined. And in the end, when his tale is finished, you feel you would probably have liked him if you'd met him in person. Fortunately, Dr. Saga's record of his long conversations with him provides a wonderful substitute for that meeting.

Yakuza

Author: David E. Kaplan
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520215610
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 438

Book Description
"A fascinating study of how criminal enterprise can infect the very heart of modern capitalism. Here is the backstage world of political influence and organized crime in the world's second largest economy... by far the most detailed and even-handed study of this important and neglected subject."—John W. Dower, author of Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II Reviews of original edition: "A superb study of Japan's underworld that is both entertaining and revealing. The authors miss none of the color and curious detail of the yakuza style, but at the same time go far beyond surface observations."—Far Eastern Economic Review "The book is laden with fascinating information, some of it heretofore unavailable in English."—Washington Post "Blend the Mafia with the Masons. Let them simmer a while, then fold in the Ku Klux Klan and you'll have the yakuza…. Important and timely…Yakuza will serve for years as the source document on Japanese organized crime."—San Jose Mercury News "State-of-the-art investigative reporting…must reading for those who consider themselves already highly conversant with yakuza activities…disturbing."—Journal of Asian Studies

Yakuza Moon

Author: Shoko Tendo
Publisher: Kodansha USA
ISBN: 4770050062
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 183

Book Description
Yakuza Moon is the shocking, yet intensely moving memoir of 37-yearold Shoko Tendo, who grew up the daughter of a yakuza boss. Tendo lived her life in luxury until the age of six, when her father was sent to prison, and her family fell into terrible debt. Bullied by classmates who called her "the yakuza girl," and terrorized at home by a father who became a drunken, violent monster after his release from prison, Tendo rebelled. A regular visitor to nightclubs at the age of 12, she soon became a drug addict and a member of a girl gang. By the age of 15 she found herself sentenced to eight months in a juvenile detention center. Adulthood brought big bucks and glamour when Tendo started working as a bar hostess during Japan’s booming bubble economy of the nineteen- eighties. But among her many rich and loyal patrons there were also abusive clients, one of whom beat her so badly that her face was left permanently scarred. When her mother died, Tendo plunged into such a deep depression that she tried to commit suicide twice. Tendo takes us through the bad times with warmth and candor, and gives a moving and inspiring account of how she overcame a lifetime of discrimination and hardship. Getting tattooed, from the base of her neck to the tips of her toes, with a design centered on a geisha with a dagger in her mouth, was an act that empowered her to start making changes in her life. She quit her job as a hostess. On her last day at the bar she looked up at the full moon, a sight she never forgot. The moon became a symbol of her struggle to become whole, and the title of the book she wrote as an epitaph for herself and her family.

Memories of Silk and Straw

Author: Junichi Saga
Publisher: Kodansha Amer Incorporated
ISBN: 9780870119880
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 258

Book Description
Over 50 reminiscences of pre-modern Japan. This book presents an illustrationf a way of life that has virtually disappeared.

Star

Author: Yukio Mishima
Publisher: ببلومانيا للنشر والتوزيع
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 80

Book Description
All eyes are upon Rikio. And he likes it, mostly. His fans cheer from a roped-off section, screaming and yelling to attract his attention—they would kill for a moment alone with him. Finally the director sets up the shot, the camera begins to roll, someone yells “action”; Rikio, for a moment, transforms into another being, a hardened young yakuza, but as soon as the shot is finished, he slumps back into his own anxieties and obsessions. Being a star, constantly performing, being watched and scrutinized as if under a microscope, is often a drag. But so is life. Written shortly after Yukio Mishima himself had acted in the film “Afraid to Die,” this novella is a rich and unflinching psychological portrait of a celebrity coming apart at the seams. With exquisite, vivid prose, Star begs the question: is there any escape from how we are seen by others?

Toppamono

Author: Miyazaki Manabu
Publisher: Tuttle Publishing
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 490

Book Description
Shot, stabbed, and beaten, Miyazaki Manabu somehow emerged intact from his first fifty years to put his astonishing life story down on paper. Born the son of a yakuza boss in 1945, he grew up in a household of gang members and social misfits before his conversion to Marxism launched him into the violent world of 1960s student radicalism. After dropping out of university and spending a brief sojourn in South America, he became a reporter on a fast-rising weekly magazine. Called back home to Kyoto to take over the family demolition business, he was plunged into a maelstrom of bankruptcy and debt, forcing him to raise funds however he could. Along the way, he became the chief suspect in one of Japan's most sensational criminal cases----still unsolved----before getting caught up in the crazy years of Japan's bubble economy, when land speculators tipped their favorite bar hostesses millions of yen and Dom Perignon flowed like water. More than just one man's incredible story, unflinchingly told, Toppamono is a sophisticated analysis of Japan's postwar half-century that will astound and enlighten. Devastatingly critical of banks and bureaucrats, questioning of Japan's understanding of democracy, and cogent on the role played by the yakuza in Japanese society, this underground best-seller, first published in 1996, will keep you enthralled until the very last page. toppamono n: a person with a devil-may-care attitude, who pushes ahead regardless.

Ruffians, Yakuza, Nationalists

Author: Eiko Maruko Siniawer
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 0801454360
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 415

Book Description
Violence and democracy may seem fundamentally incompatible, but the two have often been intimately and inextricably linked. In Ruffians, Yakuza, Nationalists, Eiko Maruko Siniawer argues that violence has been embedded in the practice of modern Japanese politics from the very inception of the country's experiment with democracy. As soon as the parliament opened its doors in 1890, brawls, fistfights, vandalism, threats, and intimidation quickly became a fixture in Japanese politics, from campaigns and elections to legislative debates. Most of this physical force was wielded by what Siniawer calls "violence specialists": ruffians and yakuza. Their systemic and enduring political violence-in the streets, in the halls of parliament, during popular protests, and amid labor strife-ultimately compromised party politics in Japan and contributed to the rise of militarism in the 1930s. For the post-World War II years, Siniawer illustrates how the Japanese developed a preference for money over violence as a political tool of choice. This change in tactics signaled a political shift, but not necessarily an evolution, as corruption and bribery were in some ways more insidious, exclusionary, and undemocratic than violence. Siniawer demonstrates that the practice of politics in Japan has been dangerous, chaotic, and far more violent than previously thought. Additionally, crime has been more political. Throughout the book, Siniawer makes clear that certain yakuza groups were ideological in nature, contrary to the common understanding of organized crime as nonideological. Ruffians, Yakuza, Nationalists is essential reading for anyone wanting to comprehend the role of violence in the formation of modern nation-states and its place in both democratic and fascist movements.

Yakuza Diary

Author: Christopher Seymour
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780871136046
Category : Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 212

Book Description
A writer who infiltrated the Yakuza, the Japanese organized crime syndicate, reveals their wealth and power, four-hundred-year-old code of conduct, and a cast of characters including bosses and underlings

Yakuza

Author: David E. Kaplan
Publisher: Sphere
ISBN: 9780708835739
Category : Organized crime
Languages : en
Pages : 414

Book Description

Mafia Organizations

Author: Maurizio Catino
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108750931
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 359

Book Description
How do mafias work? How do they recruit people, control members, conduct legal and illegal business, and use violence? Why do they establish such a complex mix of rituals, rules, and codes of conduct? And how do they differ? Why do some mafias commit many more murders than others? This book makes sense of mafias as organizations, via a collative analysis of historical accounts, official data, investigative sources, and interviews. Catino presents a comparative study of seven mafias around the world, from three Italian mafias to the American Cosa Nostra, Japanese Yakuza, Chinese Triads, and Russian mafia. He identifies the organizational architecture that characterizes these criminal groups, and relates different organizational models to the use of violence. Furthermore, he advances a theory on the specific functionality of mafia rules and discusses the major organizational dilemmas that mafias face. This book shows that understanding the organizational logic of mafias is an indispensable step in confronting them.