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Mar 03, 2010

Jake rated it:

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 gott More...

9 comments like (39 people liked it)

Feb 01, 2010

Erin rated it:

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 More...

1 comment like (6 people liked it)

Dec 14, 2009

Barrett rated it:

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 h More...

2 comments like (5 people liked it)

Jan 29, 2012

Suzan rated it:

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...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 20, 2011

Jim rated it:

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. More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 01, 2009

Courtney rated it:

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.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 25, 2012

Tim rated it:

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 More...

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Jan 08, 2012

Ms.pegasus rated it:

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 i More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 09, 2011

Shawn rated it:

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 authentici More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 11, 2011

Zachary rated it:

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...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 22, 2011

K 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 t More...

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Mar 11, 2011

Melinda rated it:

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 More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 25, 2011

Paul rated it:

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 newspape More...

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Feb 12, 2011

Barry rated it:

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 More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 29, 2011

Angie rated it:

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 More...

0 comments like

Jan 12, 2011

Artur rated it:

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, More...

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Mar 09, 2010

Richard rated it:

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0 comments like

Jan 06, 2010

Emily rated it:

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 se More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jan 02, 2010

Suzie rated it:

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...

0 comments like

Jan 01, 2010

Justin rated it:

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 manage More...

3 comments like

Jan 27, 2011

Josephine rated it:

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0 comments like

Jan 24, 2011

Seth rated it:

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 utterl More...

0 comments like

Jan 13, 2011

Jennifer rated it:

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 writi More...

0 comments like

Jun 06, 2011

Nia rated it:

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...

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Jan 20, 2011

Ken rated it:

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 t More...

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Apr 21, 2010

Tia rated it:

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, an More...

2 comments like (3 people liked it)

Apr 20, 2010

Kiesha rated it:

"A young Japanese-schooled Jewish-American who worked as a journalist at Tokyo newspaper Yomiuri Shinbun during the 1990s, debut author Adelstein began with a routine, but never dull, police beat; before long, he was notorious worldwide for engaging the dirtiest, top-most villains of Japan's organized criminal underworld, the yakuza."

How does a Jewish kid from the Midwest end up at a Jesuit college in the heart of Tokyo? Either I missed it or the author didn't give much ba More...

0 comments like

Mar 31, 2011

Elizabeth rated it:

If I could give this book 2 1/2 stars I would, but I can't justify bumping it up to 3 stars. Jake Adelstein is a jewish kid from Jersey living in the Japanese world. He becomes a journalist there on various police beats, including Tokyo and lays out his ascent to this position and the various (what I assume) are his most engaging and interesting stories. Since he's on the police beat, there's plenty of sex and mobsters about.

The things I didn't like include his dry and concise wri More...

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Jun 03, 2010

Chelsea rated it:

Adelstein is not the most sympathetic narrator: his occasional stabs at humility seem insincere. He also displays criminal neglect, if not outright cruelty, toward the English language. Some sections feel so ill-written and/or incongruous with the rest of the text that it made me wince.

But what the hell: it's an incredible story. Not only that, it gets at some really big issues that are very alive in Japan today. The kind of misogyny underlying the crimes that Adelstein has witnessed, More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 07, 2011

Sherri rated it:

I know people are going to think that I read this book because of the 21 years I spent in the newspaper business - but it is not. Sure, despite the fact that I've been out of the newspaper business since 2007 I still miss it. I still wish that newspapers could exist in our Internet world of today the way they existed 10 or 15 years ago, but honest, this had nothing to do with it. I was a geek in the newspaper business, not a reporter and this book has nothing to do with being a geek.

More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

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