Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan

by Jake Adelstein (Goodreads Author)

3.87 of 5 stars 3.87 · rating details · 2,539 ratings · 392 reviews

From the only American journalist ever to have been admitted to the insular Tokyo Metropolitan Police press club: a unique, firsthand, revelatory look at Japanese culture from the underbelly up.

At nineteen, Jake Adelstein went to Japan in search of peace and tranquility. What he got was a life of crime . . . crime reporting, that is, at the prestigious Yomiuri Shinbun. Fo...more

Hardcover, 335 pages

Published October 13th 2009 by Pantheon

more details... edit details

Get a copy:

More…

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Lists with This Book

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

Best Books About Japan

2nd out of 193 books — 75 voters

The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino

Good books about Japan

1st out of 113 books — 26 voters

More lists with this book...

Community Reviews

(showing 1-30 of 3,000)

filter | sort: default (?) | rating details

Mar 03, 2010 Jake rated it 4 of 5 stars · (Review from the author)

Everything I ever learned that was important in my life I put in this book; it's almost the totality of what I have learned about Japan and right and wrong and the grey areas in between., Giving it four stars is probably a little like as they say in Japanese, 自画自賛 (jiga-jisan) "praising your own painting" which is terribly immodest and not Japanese like at all but there you are. It's not perfect but it's probably the best book I will ever write and I'm happy with that.
I've gotten some really ni...more

68 likes · like · see review

Feb 01, 2010 Erin rated it 5 of 5 stars

After reading Tokyo Vice I had to take some time to digest it, to let the incongruities of laws and bureaucracy in Japan try to somehow make sense, to remind myself again and again that the world is an ugly, ugly place behind the neon lights and the advertisements and the glare of a TV screen. The impact that Tokyo Vice left upon me was as wide as an eclipse and as deep as a crater.

If you are looking for characters to admire you'll only find a few between these covers, Jake being one of them. Do...more

6 likes · like · see review

Jake If I hadn't been up for twenty-four hours and if the part of my brain that usually tells me to shut up wasn't fast alseep, I don't think I'd be writin...more If I hadn't been up for twenty-four hours and if the part of my brain that usually tells me to shut up wasn't fast alseep, I don't think I'd be writing here. But I am too tired to care. So here goes.
Your review made me think a lot about last year. It's December so that's natural I suppose.

Yes, there is a lot of nastiness in the world. Sometimes it seems like a world of darkness, full of kidnappers, serial rapists, sadistic thugs, and serial killers coexists parallel to the normal everyday world in which most of us live--where the most stressful thing in our lives is getting only lukewarm syrup at Waffle House and people are generally pleasant, cheerful, and trustworthy.
However, if you keep crossing from world to world, the barriers seem to get eaten away and you find that the world of darkness seeps more quickly into the world of light and that the reverse is rarely true.
I like your review--I tried to keep sentiment and excess emotion out of the text.
This may be because I think I do lack emotion in real life. In tense situations, I don't freeze up, but become hypervigilant and result-focussed. I don't know how long I've been that way but when let's say someone trips and falls--before I'll express sympathy I'm liable to ask very coldly, "Well, how bad is it? Can I see the wound? Can you walk?".
There are times when emotional involvement is a luxury and an obstacle to helping a person--it clouds the mind and it makes for bad decisions. There are times when emotional expression and a display of sympathy are helpful--but I have a hard time doing that.
I suppose maybe I have some classic PTSD symptoms but I'm not really interested in treating them, not yet. Sometimes I think endurance is an important part of any penance. Not very fond of psychotropic drugs either.

Personally, there are two or three chapters that I can't read in the book without feeling really dizzy and shaky. If I thought it would be cathartic, I was wrong.

looking back on 2008--which was a really horrible year---there were some great moments and there were people who proved to be incredible friends and those little acts of heroism and offers of help reaffirmed that there are some people in this world you can trust, some friends on whom you can rely, and some people worth protecting.
And that makes a hell of a difference.

Of course, paying back the debts you owe is never easy. And until I've cleared the tables and taken care of a few people I owe--I don't think I can ever really leave Japan.

(less)
updated Dec 03, 2009 07:27pm

Mar 17, 2013 Alexander Polsky rated it 5 of 5 stars

A must-read, a crime story, a primer on Japanese culture, an expose on international human trafficking in the sex trade, a scandal about how UCLA surgeons provide organ transplants (with organs that seem to appear conveniently quickly) to yakuza for big bucks (laundered through Las Vegas casinos) and a bildungsroman. There are so many disparate elements at work in this book, it is sui generis.

The story of a young Jewish college kid who decides to take the Yomiuri Shinbun exam and gets hired on a...more A must-read, a crime story, a primer on Japanese culture, an expose on international human trafficking in the sex trade, a scandal about how UCLA surgeons provide organ transplants (with organs that seem to appear conveniently quickly) to yakuza for big bucks (laundered through Las Vegas casinos) and a bildungsroman. There are so many disparate elements at work in this book, it is sui generis.

The story of a young Jewish college kid who decides to take the Yomiuri Shinbun exam and gets hired on as a cub reporter, not understanding much about Japan, crime, or reporting is extraordinary; Adelstein-san has had quite a life and the reader's interest is balanced between the stories he's telling of the yakuza and their gun molls, of murderous dog kennel owners and hostess bars, of gang fights and repentant thugs are all worth the price of admission.

But wait: there's more. Adelstein is not only a guide to Japan's underworld, he's a guide to journalism and policing as practiced -- not in journalism school, but on the street. This is the best guide to "the leak" as practiced, who leaks to who and why. What the cops tell reporters, what they tell gangsters, its all here. I was reminded of Joseph Fouche's line: "A good policeman balances what he sees with what he does not see". I can't think of another book that so clearly defines the flow of information between cops, criminals, reporters, the government and the public. Its not just money and sex that are changing hands in this world, its information -- Adelstein sketches out the violence of information, just what kinds of questions and answers can get you killed.

An amazing book, filled with memorable characters: bereaved parents, hard boiled dicks, burnt out reporters, no neck yakuza tough guys, weddings, funerals (including a Shinto funeral -- very unusual, never heard a description of one before).

As a narrative the timeline stretches over some two decades, and at points that makes it a bit disjointed-- the fusion of a narrative with a memoir makes that inevitable. What Jake knows in 2009 is very different than what he knew in 1990.

Listening to Adelstein's interview on NPR's "Fresh Air", it appears that this book serves other purposes-- for example to ensure the author's own security against reprisals (which were explicitly threatened). So a careful reader may look at some of the blank spots, some of the names left out, and conjecture that there is an implication that under some circumstances they will be filled in. Another angle is the author's relationship with his wife, and other people in his life, as he pursues stories that put them in danger. One of the book's most compelling scenes is when an apparently well meaning yakuza takes him to task for being so foolish with other peoples' lives.

So what starts out looking like a straightforward book becomes a complex text to read, with many different agendas, some for a general readership, some perhaps intended for a few specific readers with bad intentions. Non-fiction about crime doesn't normally admit literary deconstruction, but its one of the many things that makes this interesting; you find yourself playing the "unreliable narrator" game, trying do decide which facts are double sourced major newspaper grade reportage, and which are part of some personal agenda.

The writing isn't as good as the story, but its good enough, and the story is like nothing else I've read in a long time.

Highly recommended

(less)

1 like · like · see review

Dec 14, 2009 Barrett Brown rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Journalists, Secret Agents

Recommended to Barrett by: NPR

Shelves: espionage, to-reread, reference, academia, biography, historical

Wow. Double Wow. Did I say, wow? Jake Adelstein is an amazing superhero and a total douchebag. This book made me realize how potently similar the profession of Intelligence Officer and Reporter are. The only real difference is that in Reporting you protect your sources and in espionage you burn them.

Adelstein protects his sources while putting his family and friends at risk. He knows three forms of martial arts, speaks several languages, and happens to have a Japan fetish. Whether he really is C...more

6 likes · like · see review

Jake Barret-san
Thanks for the awesome review. I'm not a superhero and not a total douchebag, but not even close to sainthood.

I am bad at three forms of ma...more
Dec 13, 2009 10:43pm

Barrett Brown Let me say, for the record, that if I thought this review would be seen by the author, I would have added many more compliments and removed a few over...more
Dec 14, 2009 09:29am

May 20, 2012 Patrick Sherriff rated it 5 of 5 stars

Our Man tidied up an old blog post of a review. It was written under the influence of 7-Eleven red, but still holds, er, water:

a) If you read Tokyo Vice and don't immediately want to down a bottle of Jack Daniels and run off to journo school to do battle with the forces of evil, please, please, please unfriend Our Man on Facebook, unfollow Our Man on Twitter and un-, er, just go, because Our Man has no time for you.
b) Tell you what. You want the narrative voice of Holden Caulfield, with the wit...more

2 likes · like · see review

Aug 14, 2011 Suzan rated it 4 of 5 stars

TOKYO Vice is three things: an outsider’s perspective on Japan in the ’90s and noughties; an insider’s view of the complex, quite often contradictory symbiotic relationship between that country’s press, police force and organised crime syndicates; and an example of the classic journalistic dilemma—how far a person is willing to compromise their own principles in search of a story. American Jake Adelstein goes to Japan as a college student, to learn the language and perhaps even become a Buddhist...more

1 like · like · see review

Jan 20, 2011 Jim rated it 5 of 5 stars

I saw this guy interviewed on The Daily Show and thought it was one of the worst interviews I'd seen in a long time. But, the book looked very interesting. I received it as a Christmas present and blasted through it in three days. I thought the book would be more about the yakuza, but it was more about the the way Japanese society is organized and his relationships with the yakuza, the cops and fellow reporters. The yakuza are real and very tattooed and much bigger than the Mafia in America. The...more

2 likes · like · see review

Dec 01, 2009 Courtney rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: adult-non-fiction, memoir

OK, to be completely honest, I'm a friend of the author, so I might be a bit biased in my assessment of this book. That being said, it's an awesome book. Jake manages to create a compelling and cohesive narrative out of his utterly insane experiences as a reporter in Japan. It works, and not just on the subject level. It works as literature too, and that might be its biggest triumph.

1 like · like · see review

Nov 29, 2012 Simon rated it 4 of 5 stars

Jake Adelstein, like his book, is unconventional, entertaining, intelligent and flawed. A Jewish American who acquired Japanese language skills sufficient to be recruited as the first foreigner ever to work for Japan’s top selling newspaper, the Yomiuri Shimbun (not to be confused with its English offshoot, the Daily Yomiuri), "Tokyo Vice" is the tale of Adelstein's unique experiences, including his near fatal run-in with one of Japan’s major crime bosses and his admirable exposure of an importa...more

2 likes · like · see review

Jan 25, 2012 Tim rated it 4 of 5 stars

Jake Adelstein shares his career working for the Yomiuri Shinbun, Japan's largest newspaper, on the crime beat. In a fast-paced memoir he delves into the Japanese underground and the major stories of his career.

Details: This book a must-read for modern Japanophiles. There are two main themes through the book - the craziness of being a gaijin working for the Yomiuri Shinbun and the danger of reporting on the yakuza. There is lots of cursing (didn't worry me), and Adelstein describes in a very ent...more

like · see review

Jan 08, 2012 Ms.pegasus rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: anyone interested in Japan; or human rights issues

Shelves: japan, memoir, nonfiction

I add this old review after having read Peter Hessler's profile of Jake Adelstein (NEW YORKER, 1/9/2012). The characterization of Adelstein as "flamboyant" was a surprise to me; the persona he assumes in TOKYO VICE is in fact quite the opposite, allowing for the fact that he is a reporter. Yet, the article forms an epilogue to the story Adelstein tells, and I encourage anyone interested in Japanese culture to read this book.

The allusion of TOKYO VICE to “Miami Vice” is inescapeable – a thriller...more I add this old review after having read Peter Hessler's profile of Jake Adelstein (NEW YORKER, 1/9/2012). The characterization of Adelstein as "flamboyant" was a surprise to me; the persona he assumes in TOKYO VICE is in fact quite the opposite, allowing for the fact that he is a reporter. Yet, the article forms an epilogue to the story Adelstein tells, and I encourage anyone interested in Japanese culture to read this book.

The allusion of TOKYO VICE to “Miami Vice” is inescapeable – a thriller featuring shadowy Yakuza figures in a backdrop of exotic seaminess. WRONG! This book is much better than that. Told in flashback, Adelstein relates a long and difficult route from cub reporter to accomplished crime journalist with a restraint that cannot be appreciated until the final chapters of this book. At that point, his intensity and passion become clear. The telling of this story is almost an act of contrition for the human costs of that apprenticeship though none is needed. His writing as well as his life choices have made a difference to the many victims of organized crime.

The story touches on the ambivalent status of the “gaijin” in Japan. In one background interview he asks about a suspect: “Was he a Yakuza or just some kind of bad ass?” The reply: “Nope. Worse. He was a foreigner.” In another anecdote, he relates the Japanese passion for manuals. The #1 best seller at that time gave tips on how to argue with Koreans who are critical of Japan. (#4 was “The Perfect Manual of Suicide”).

As a journalist at the Yomiura Shimbun, Jake must dedicate his evening hours to a strategic game of etiquette in order to cultivate police contacts. Remembering birthdays, inviting them out to baseball games (the money coming from out of pocket, not from the newspaper), insinuating himself into their social and family gatherings, visiting them when they are sick, are all part of this game. In between, he must also develop street contacts. A veteran reporter advises the fledglings: “If you want to be an excellent reporter you have to amputate your past life.” Gleaning judicious “leaks”, Adelstein scoops the competition while between protecting his sources. At the same time, each story is designed to sew the seeds to a follow-up story as criminals and police react to each new public disclosure.

TOKYO VICE is an impressive view of the contradictions that social expectations and personal ethics pose in this outwardly Westernized society. The effect of these contradictions are amply reflected in Hessler's NEW YORKER article, a portrait of a complicated and passionate man.
(less)

1 like · like · see review

Dec 09, 2011 Shawn Buckle rated it 3 of 5 stars

Japan today is a lot different from what the author portrays it as. The areas of Roppongi and Kabukicho have been cleaned up under Ishihara years ago, no longer filled with seediness and sleeze, although you can still find it if you look hard enough. It is much like the transition New York City went through.

It's difficult to understand the transformation of Tokyo when reading this book as I don't think Adelstein points to it enough. He should have, because it lends even more authenticity to his...more

1 like · like · see review

Oct 11, 2011 Zachary Rawlins rated it 3 of 5 stars

This was an interesting read, but a little strange. The broader experience, that of an American journalist working for a Japanese language newspaper, is fascinating, as is the look at the seamier side of Japanese culture. But the actual plot of the book revolves so narrowly around the main character, and starts to read a bit too much like an spy novel than nonfiction. While Adelstein may in fact be the heroic figure he casts himself as in the book, he does little to make this seem plausible, and...more

like · see review

Jul 22, 2011 Karen added it

This book doesn't get into how the author even ended up studying and working in Japan (although it is referenced on the Amazon blurbs). He writes about the process of becoming a reporter for the Yomiuri Shimbun, the corporate culture, and how you work your way through the ranks. The intro "teaser" chapter was of Adelstein receiving death threats should he go ahead with publishing a story involving Yakuza. Most of the corporate culture quirks mentioned in the book would be no surprise to any idio...more

like · see review

Mar 11, 2011 Melinda Elizabeth rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book left me feeling kinda angry. It started off as a frivolous read about a foreign country with strange practices (the used underwear vending machines! hilarious!) but the more I read, the less I liked Jake. His ambiguity and "information whorishness" really went above and beyond what a normal person would consider reasonable. But perhaps I'm saying that because I'm not a journalist. Maybe they are all like Jake. If so, maybe I don't have much respect for the media in general in that case...more

1 like · like · see review

Feb 25, 2011 Paul Pessolano rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The first thing I want to say about this book is that it is not for everyone. This book delves into the very seedy side of the Tokyo sex industry. There is graphic content that will not be suitable for some readers.

Jake Adelstein was living in Japan and was hired by the most popular newspaper in Tokyo. This was a great accomplishment in itself as the competition for these jobs is fierce. A newspaper reporter for the Yomiuri Shinbun must literally give up his life for the newspaper. There is litt...more

like · see review

Feb 12, 2011 Barry Graham rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is one of the most riveting books I've ever read. In fact, I'm writing this review after staying awake all night finishing reading it.

Adelstein isn't much of a writer. His prose is clumsy and frequently cliched, and he has sentences so awkward you can tell he's now more used to writing and speaking in Japanese than in his native English. But none of that matters. He's such a brilliant storyteller that it's easy to see how he was able to become a successful reporter for a Japanese newspaper...more

4 likes · like · see review

Jan 29, 2011 Angie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction

This was an interesting book on a topic I really knew nothing about. It was not something I would normally pick up, but since the author was coming to town I thought I would give it a try. I am glad I did because I feel like I learned a lot about the Japanese underworld both from the book and from Adelstein's talk at the library.

The book definitely illustrated how much I did not know about Japan, its culture or its people. It was very well written and very interesting. However, I think it would...more

like · see review

Jan 12, 2011 Artur Coelho rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Este não é um livro habitual sobre o Japão. Obras que se concentram no país do sol nascente normalmente abordam o papel do país na II Guerra mundial ou então olham para a contemporaneidade, traçando retratos quase caricatos de uma nação hipermoderna com uma cultura popular muito peculiar e um quase fanatismo por tecnologia.

Tokyo Vice retrata um Japão oculto através da experiência de vida de um jornalista americano a trabalhar para um dos maiores jornais japoneses. Integrado na cultura, torna-se...more

like · see review

Mar 09, 2010 Richard rated it 5 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. This is a stunning view into the inner workings of Japanese organized crime families (Yakuza) never widely reported on in or outside of Japan. The author literally risked his life and the lives of his family and contacts to gather the details for this book (which was rejected by all publishers in Japan for fear of violent reprisal by Yakuza); as an American it was a feat for Adelstein to become a writer with the national news section of the Yomiuri Shinbun, Japan's most widely respected daily ne...more

like · see review

Jan 06, 2010 Emily rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

Tokyo Vice was not what I expected.

I learned about Tokyo Vice from NPR's Planet Money and listened to the interview with Jake Adelstein about the economics of Yakuza crime in Japan. I was expecting something more like "Tokyo Underground" but with a more economics spin. What I got was a very interesting True Crime book about the seedier side of Tokyo and its outer suburbs.

Although the book didn't give me what I initially expected, it did dish up huge heaping servings of wonderful True Crime Noir....more

3 likes · like · see review

Jan 02, 2010 Suzie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction

Jake Adelstein's page turner of a memoir about being a police reporter at a large daily Japanese newspaper in the 90s. The material is fascinating, funny, scary and heartrending. The book is partly about the business side of crime in Japan and partly about what it's like to be a reporter in Japan. You also get that horrible gut churning feeling of knowing these 'characters' are all real people. The crimes have real victims. The toll of the job on Adelstein (and the people he loves) is significan...more

like · see review

Jan 01, 2010 Justin rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites, non-fiction

Tokyo Vice is the best piece of non-fiction I've read in a long time. It is 2:54 AM, Friday, January 1st, 2010. I purchased this book around noon on Wednesday, December 30th, 2009. And while I did not intend to spend my New Year's Eve reading an ex-journalist's account of how he pissed off the Yakuza, that's exactly what happened.

The stories of the underbelly of Japan, and of the author's own wounds from the years he spent at the Yoimuri Newspaper, are told exquisitely. He manages to cut what ar...more

like · see review

Jan 27, 2011 Josephine rated it 3 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

like · see review

Jan 24, 2011 Seth rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: crime, memoir

Adelstein's memoir, like many memoirs, is written very simply and is very easy-to-read, making it pretty breezy to get through. It rather effectively takes the steps from a young American reporter in Japan going the steps up the newspaper, first doing cub reporting, then reporting on organized crime, then covering vice in Tokyo's red light district, and finally what he got up to after that part of his life was over.

The stuff about the yakuza and organized crime in Japan is utterly fascinating, a...more

like · see review

Jan 13, 2011 Jennifer Lavoie rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction, person-library, crime, books-to-read-over-and-over, multicultural, japan

I debated giving this a 4 or 5 star rating, but ending up going with the 5 because my one little dislike couldn't outweigh everything else that impressed me with this book.

I can count on one hand the number of times I have been able to sit and read a nonfiction book straight through without putting it down and reading some fiction in between chapters. This is one of those books. It held my interest not just because it is about a country I am very interested in, but because the writing was excel...more I debated giving this a 4 or 5 star rating, but ending up going with the 5 because my one little dislike couldn't outweigh everything else that impressed me with this book.

I can count on one hand the number of times I have been able to sit and read a nonfiction book straight through without putting it down and reading some fiction in between chapters. This is one of those books. It held my interest not just because it is about a country I am very interested in, but because the writing was excellent. I felt as if I knew the author by the end of the book.

It was also incredibly valuable in terms of information not just on reporters and the process, but the Japanese subcultures and yakuza. Half the time I wondered if Adelstein was actually a cop posing as a reporter because of what he had to do to get his information. I had no idea being a reporter - at least in Japan - involved so much work! It was if the men and women were actually police on the side. The lengths they have to go to to get information is incredible. And despite everything that happens to them, they keep their sources safe.

There were also things I learned about the Japanese that both impressed and horrified me. I had read a book before on an older yakuza boss, and it seemed to me that while they were essentially criminals, they were still honorable people. It seems like that system of honor is changing, based on what I read here. However, there are still those that are good, as Adelstein says. I was also horrified with the way foreign women who were basically kidnapped and forced to work as sex slaves had no rights when it came to the Japanese police. Even though they were victims, they were treated as the ones at fault because they were breaking a law by "working withouth the proper visa." But they were forced into it! Unbelievable. What a horrifying situation for anyone to be in.

Despite all this, though, there were times when I cried, such as when Sekiguchi died, and Helena spoke of her ex-fiance's betrayal. I really felt for the author.

The one aspect of the book that I did not like was that it seemed to jump around in time, and it took me a while to realize when I was. At one point the author is in one place, and he starts the next section saying he has been married for three years. I was confused and thought I had missed something important. And while his daughter's birth was announced, his son seemed to be a sidenote later on. I wish it had been more clear as to when things were going on, but overall the book was an excellent read that kept my attention. (less)

like · see review

May 15, 2012 Tom Vater rated it 2 of 5 stars

Tokyo Vice – An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan is part journey into Japan’s corrupt underbelly where cops, media, gangsters and common psychopaths perform a slow, occasionally deadly dance of agreed mutual coexistence, set in stone by a complex set of rules and codes. The 2010 book is also part autobiography by a man who deftly appropriates the worst double standards of his adopted homeland he can get a handle on. In that sense, Tokyo Vice could be called True Crime Noir.

Fresh out...more Tokyo Vice – An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan is part journey into Japan’s corrupt underbelly where cops, media, gangsters and common psychopaths perform a slow, occasionally deadly dance of agreed mutual coexistence, set in stone by a complex set of rules and codes. The 2010 book is also part autobiography by a man who deftly appropriates the worst double standards of his adopted homeland he can get a handle on. In that sense, Tokyo Vice could be called True Crime Noir.

Fresh out of school, and possibly a young CIA recruit – this is merely alluded to at the end of the book – Jake Adelstein, a conservative, middle-class Jewish kid from Missouri, manages to get a job with Japan’s largest newspaper, the conservative Yomiuri, the official organ of the country’s Liberal Democrat Party. To his credit, Adelstein manages to become a genuine salary man – though given that the book is full of uncertainties and criminal contradictions, it is hard to trust the narrator – merely by being young and smart. Hence the first part of Tokyo Vice is a coming of age story in the Japanese media business. Adelstein learns the ropes of being a crime reporter which involves working 80 hours a week, sleeping in the office, drinking like a fish, getting blown by sex workers. The young cub reporter socializes with police and gangsters to such an extent that a clear and unsubtle conflict of interest between reporting what’s out there and reporting what he’s being given by his connections soon appears at the center of the young man’s entire existence.

Adelstein learns that the yakuza, Japan’s gigantic mafia entity with its tens of thousands of members and numerous sub-castes, is run like any other large corporation and that the Japanese police do little to combat organized crime, certainly not to a point where the established balance of law enforcement, gangsters and media is disturbed. After some years in the Tokyo suburbs, Adelstein starts to cover vice in Tokyo and readers get some insight into Japan’s exotically exuberant sex industry where everything but straightforward intercourse in legal and sought after.

Like the cops he works with, the young reporter soon becomes contaminated, but, as he has no moral compass to start with, it matters little that he sees Japanese sex workers as happy go lucky volunteers, routinely cheats his wife and only becomes reflective, artificially so, towards the end of the book as he begins to burn out while he stumbles across a human trafficking story involving women from the former Soviet Union. Up to this point, the author, as he sees himself, could be a character in a Jim Thompson novel, your friendly neighborhood sociopath on a violent spiral into hell.

Then suddenly Tokyo Vice starts to disappoint. Unlike their Japanese counterparts these foreign women are slaves, the readers are told, though Adelstein does concede that many Japanese sex workers are only in the industry because they owe vast amounts of money to loan sharks. Despite or perhaps because of the sudden appearance of righteousness, the chapter on trafficking makes the author look sleazier than the gangsters he shares his life with. That’s fine, the little detour into indignation could be forgiven if the author only realized that his Noirish journey into a world without empathy is complete by this stage in the page count. He has become the insider who can no longer see out.

For the rest of the book, Adelstein’s desire to come out as a good guy is and remains a difficult trick to perform after rolling round in a decade and a half of muck. Several times he acts as stool pigeon, ostensibly to further his own career and get an all important scoop. He furnishes police and yakuza with information that leads directly to the arrest or disappearance of individuals. He is fascinated by the complex code of honor amongst cops and robbers, hacks and hookers. Again and again the lone foreign salary man intones how important this code is and how pivotal the protection of sources is in his business. But in the end, this code too is compromised and becomes just one more aspect of the author’s inability to do anything but chase the story.

Eventually, the journalist almost falls in love with a foreign sex worker and uses her to gather information for yet another important scoop. The woman makes some inquiries with yakuza on his behalf and is never heard of again, possibly tortured and killed.

Adelstein ponders this, and apparently threatened by his gangster connections for his sudden bouts of righteousness, he gives up his media career to work for the US State Department on a report on human trafficking in Japan, and eventually proudly publishes a story about his adopted country being a dangerous trap for trafficked foreign sex workers, a victory so hollow it beggars belief.

By the end of his story, Jake Adelstein is burnt out on Japan, and hands his information to the FBI and other parts of the US security apparatus, in a sense continuing what he has done since leaving university – working in the murky twilight of secretive law enforcement agencies that are part of the suspicious balance of cops, robbers and reporters, that we have been exposed to for 300 pages, albeit in a different country.

Jake Adelstein does not tell us whether he is aware of being part of this co-opting process, nor does he seem particularly troubled that people have almost certainly died because of his actions. Whether this is careerism, naivety, a lack of empathy for fellow humans, brutal take-it-or-leave-it Republican-style honesty or just the love of the game is left for the reader to ponder. Despite, or perhaps because of all its guiltless and deviant excesses and institutionalized inhumanity, Japan comes off better than its American observer.

Noir indeed.

If you enjoyed this review, or even if you did not, check out my blog on all things Noir and Pulp, The Devil's Road. my link text (less)

like · see review

Jun 06, 2011 Nia rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

I felt that this book said more about the author himself than the issues he was attempting to tackle through the publishing of this book. By constantly trying to endear himself to the reader (whether consciously or not) by referring to himself as the goofy gaijin who didn't know any better, he led the entire story to a climax wherein you forget to think of the yakuza as bad people and more like the lions he threw his friends to. They were a constant force throughout the novel whose actions were...more

like · see review

Jan 20, 2011 Ken rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: true-crime, non-fiction

I've always been fascinated with the Japanese culture and this book has given me an unprecedented look inside the dark underbelly of Tokyo. When people talk about Japan, they usually associates with technology, robotics, anime or manga but rarely do they think about the sick twisted things that happen every night to the foreign workers forced into the sex trade.

Jake does a good job explaining the Japanese way in this book, and takes us from his early days as a homicide journalist and to his latt...more

1 like · like · see review

Apr 21, 2010 Tia rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: detective-noir, memoirs, non-fiction

Jake Adelstein's recounts his time on the biggest Japanese Newspaper, Yomiuri Shinbun. This book promises yakuza, coverups, prostitution and...vice. However, Adelstein breaks the cardinal rule: your subject is interesting, not your experiences of them. No one wants to read about a journalist's experience, they just want to read about the story.

Unfortunately, we get a lot of anecdotes about his early days on the paper, vaguely interesting cases told without any setup or suspense, and updates abo...more

5 likes · like · see review

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … 99 100 next »

Cultural > Japan

101 users

Mystery > Crime

53 users

Autobiography > Memoir

31 users

Writing > Journalism

26 users

Biography

20 users

Cultural > Asia

18 users

Crime > True Crime

16 users

Asian Literature > Japanese Literature

16 users

Travel

14 users

See top shelves...

Readers also enjoyed similar books

Books by Jake Adelstein

Reconstructing 3/11: Earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown - how Japan's future depends on its understanding of the 2011 triple disaster

2:46: Aftershocks: Stories from the Japan Earthquake

More…

Share This Book

Facebook Twitter Your website

Trivia About Tokyo Vice

No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »

Quotes from Tokyo Vice: An America...

“You develop a kind of admiration for criminal genius and ruthless efficiency, and you forget that the criminal empire is built on human pain and suffering.” — 3 people liked it

More quotes…

title link	preview: Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan
avg rating	preview: Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan Goodreads rating: 3.87 (2539 ratings)
small image	preview: click here [close]
med image	preview: click here [close]
BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6658129-tokyo-vice?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320453731l/6658129.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6658129-tokyo-vice?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan by Jake Adelstein[/url]

Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan

Friend Reviews

Lists with This Book

Community Reviews

new topic
Discuss This Book

combine
Other Editions (12)

Genres

Readers also enjoyed similar books

Books by Jake Adelstein

Share This Book

Share This Book on Your Website

Trivia About Tokyo Vice

Quotes from Tokyo Vice: An America...