Jake Adelstein's Blog, page 8

From the pioneer of J-Pop to serial predator: Johnny Kitagawa’s legacy of exploitation and control

East Asian popular culture is on the rise, spearheaded by the global phenomenon of the Hallyu wave. K-pop idol music has played a critical part in this: it’s experienced a slow and steady rise since its conception in the 80’s, and its expansion to the international market has been a strategic and intentional one. Today, Korean idols and idol groups are luxury global brand ambassadors, they have photo spreads in the glossy pages of every country’s Vogue – and sometimes they’re even invited to speak at the UN. 

Japan has had its own long history of idol groups, predating Korean idols in their modern iteration, but with one major difference: fame for Japanese idols is remarkably domestic. 

Some argue it is because the Japanese media executives and marketing strategists are failing to move with the times, or because the J-pop landscape is profitable and self-sufficient enough as is within Japan. But the history of Japanese idol groups itself might be the reason for J-pop staying within the borders, particularly that history surrounding the despotic idol industry titan Johnny Kitagawa. 

In 1962, Kitagawa founded the idol management and training company Johnny’s and Associates, and debuted his first idol group, simply called Johnny’s, soon after. Over the next 60 years (Johnny’s later iterations remain an entertainment industry mainstay today) Johnny’s and Associates would crank out hit after hit, star after star. 

Armed with the massive success of his Johnnies, as the male idols are called, Kitagawa was able to exert monopolistic control over the male idol entertainment industry, with his influence extending to independent media. It was simple: the public couldn’t get enough of the Johnnies, and if the networks and magazines were on the outs with Kitagawa, they’d be blacklisted from ever working with the idols. They couldn’t risk that loss. 

In 1999, the extent of Kitagawa’s media manipulation abilities were demonstrated when the weekly magazine Shukan Bunshun broke what should have been a career, not to mention industry, destroying story. Johnny Kitagawa had been sexually abusing his performers, most of whom had entered his company at a very young age. Accusations ranged from power harassment to undressing and bathing trainees to rape. There were credible testimonies and multiple victims. 

This should have been a massive story across all news outlets. The founding father of the J-pop idol system as the country knew it was a sexual predator and a pedophile. The Johnny’s empire was how Kitagawa was able to establish proximity to and authority over children who were entirely at his mercy in this heavily competitive industry.

Despite this, the company was able to file a libel lawsuit against the magazine and won an 8.8 million compensation from the magazine, albeit temporarily. In 2003, the Tokyo court reversed the decision due to the overwhelming evidence against Kitagawa and his company. But Kitagawa had such a tight grasp over Japanese news media that even after all of the court proceedings, scandal, and damning evidence, no news outlet published anything about the case. 

Not to mention, the only use of the evidence against Kitagawa was to exonerate the Shukan Bunshun of libel charges. In all the following years up until his death in 2019, Kitagawa himself was never charged with any of the crimes detailed in the testimonies. 

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Kitagawa, though notoriously private and strict when it came to reporters, was brazen in the casual sexualization of his performers. In 1996, an American producer and songwriter had tried to explain to Kitagawa the connotations associated with the English-stylized name of the company’s upcoming group, KinKi Kids. 

As told to former Billboard bureau chief and JSRC contributor Steve McClure by the songwriter, “I told him that ‘kinky’ means sexually abnormal in English slang. ‘Oh, that’s great!,’ Johnny said.” 

KinKi Kids remains one of the most popular music acts in Japan. They hold the Guiness World Record for most consecutive #1 singles since their debut in 1997. In fact, Kitagawa revolutionized the way music was marketed in Japan, and to this day Johnny’s groups are popular in Japan. It is a tragedy that such a significant part of music history is credited to a predator who never saw accountability in his lifetime, and whose legacy is still not being challenged by the Japanese news media who are still under the Johnny’s and Associates influence. 

Kitagawa has been shrouded in self-imposed mystery and rightful controversy, but is also on the receiving end of admiration by those who are fans of Johnny’s idols. However, there is some indication that the Kitagawa’s legacy will be corrected to include the power harassment and sexual abuse for which there are countless testimonies of him committing. Last month, the BBC released a documentary on Johnny Kitagawa called Predator. Filmmakers interviewed those who came forward about the abuse they faced at the company, perpetrated by Kitagawa and enabled by those working under him.

And just this week, Kauan Okamoto, a musician and former member of Johnny’s Jr, also came forward as a victim of sexual assault by Kitagawa. He had been invited to stay at Kitagawa’s home numerous times, and on the evening after his junior high school graduation, Kitagawa allegedly went into Okamoto’s room and performed oral sex on him while Okamoto pretended to be asleep. The next day, Kitagawa gave him 10,000 yen (around 100 dollars) without explanation.

The abuse continued for four years.

It was open knowledge among the Johnny’s Jr members that Kitagawa was a serial predator and pedophile. Okamoto believes that as many as 100 boys who had stayed over at Kitagawa’s home were also sexually assaulted.

Okamoto is not taking legal action, but instead hopes that coming forward publicly might encourage those who have remained anonymous or those who have not come forward at all to do the same.

Taste Testing Blue Muffins for the World’s Largest Nutrition Study

Blue Muffin BreakfastThis article is cross posted on the blogs Freely Magazine, & Ana V’s Tokyo Rewind .

A merciless curiosity to taste mysterious blue muffins led me to volunteer for the world’s largest nutrition study, Predict 2. 

One summer night, alone at the gym and trying to ignore the buzzing of Planet Fitness treadmills, I was trying to listen to one of the ultimate foodie podcasts, “Gastropod”, produced by an East coast startup about the science behind food.

The two passionate co-hosts were raving about flavorless, nausea-inducing blue muffins they force-fed themselves as participants of the world’s largest nutrition study. The muffins were made up of different macros, some with more sugar than anyone should eat in a day, some very high in fat, so researchers could have a baseline to measure participant blood sugar responses. Participants ate blue muffins for breakfast for about 8 days, recording blood sugar levels and the amount of daily exercise, took blood samples and stool samples, and followed up with a Quest diagnostics appointment for even more blood samples. Additionally, any food passing through their lips during the 8-day challenge had to be timed, measured, photographed, and recorded in an app. Even the smallest bit of fish oil in a stir fry needs recording. At the end of the study participants received results about how their bodies react to carbohydrates, fats, and proteins and what they should eat more or less of to avoid heightening their risk of obesity, to keep their gut bacteria (microbiome) optimal, and to hopefully maximize their years on earth.

While the results have the potential to be extremely valuable, the hosts of Gastropod emphatically highlighted the rigor of participating in the study, saying it wasn’t for the faint-hearted as excessively weighing their food gave them food anxiety, and they had problems cooking, eating, and living normally throughout the week and a half the study took place.

I jumped off the treadmill and pounded the word “Predict 2 study” into Google.

Predict 2 is currently the world’s largest ongoing nutrition study, run by Stanford University, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Zoe a UK/USA based nutrition technology company. The original “Predict” study collaborated with Zoe, Mass General, and King’s College of London in 2018 with results released in 2019.

The two studies were largely the same, both measuring roughly 1,100 different people for 10-14 days to uncover each individual’s nutritional responses to food.

What are the global consequences for this kind of study and what is it that the King’s College of London and Stanford Medicine are trying to achieve?

The study combines efforts of UK creator Tim Spector and business experts Jonathan Wolf and George Hadjigeorgiou to create individualized nutrition profiles for people around the world. Spector conducted a 25-year study called the UK Twin registry, measuring about 14,000 twins living in similar environments who ate different foods with varying nutritional compositions according to their unique food preferences. Afterward, Spector made a revolutionary finding. He discovered that even identical twins can have individual responses to a food’s nutritional makeup which meant that there is no single “right way to eat” and it is impossible for global nutrition guidelines to be suitable for all kinds of people.

Of global importance, Spector’s findings can contribute to research suggesting that genes are not the biggest predictor of obesity. Anywhere from 40 to 70 percent of a person’s risk for obesity is attributed to genes. The rest results from the person’s unique makeup of their gut microbiome. The gut microbiome was widely studied by the “father of human microbiome research,” Jeff Gordon, a researcher based in St. Louis. Tim Spector felt motivated by Gordon’s research to develop the Predict study based on his work. Spector is so adamant about the importance of the gut microbiome because although humans share about 99% of the same genetic makeup, in contrast, our microbes, even with identical twins, share only about 37% similarity.

If the secret of obesity’s relationship to our gut microbiome versus our genes is uncovered, then global obesity can be managed. It’s important that science works towards understanding which genes indicate higher predispositions for weight gain, and which gut bacteria controls a person’s risk for obesity. Obesity and the concept of overnutrition link to wide reaching societal issues, especially for higher income countries. Food insecurity affects 10 percent of the global population which means about every one in nine, or about 820 million people, are suffering from hunger. Hunger affects those in developing nations in various devastating ways, but it does lower the risk of obesity. In high income countries, hunger can lead to poor quality nutrition and over-nutrition. Overnutrition, simply means we are eating too much food, and remaining under nourished. We remain under nourished through consuming too many of the high calorie, high fat, highly satiable foods more readily available, which in turn raises the risk of obesity. The study of nutrition and the way it reacts with our genes called nutrigenomics, is a relatively new scientific and medical field but the Predict study is so far the largest research study working to peel away more layers of complexity within food and how we react to it.

My own experience

Eventually, the study aims to develop personalized nutrition in an affordable, highly accessible smartphone app. As a participant in the Predict study, I was able to test the app prototype. Through the app, I had the ability to communicate with the research team, follow the directions for the study, log exercise, foods, and the times of day I ate, how much the food weighed, and even post the photos of the food into the app. It was a comprehensive application that I hope is developed for the mass market in the near future.

I confess, the main reason I first joined the Predict 2 study by Zoe was to get to try those mysterious blue muffins. I now miss their oozing artificial glucosity and the subtle oiliness that I scooped out of the aluminum muffin cups. I was greedy for more because it’d be the only food I was allowed to eat for four hours at a time before a fasting period. The study oscillated between fasting and eating periods so that I could accurately measure what a particular food did to my body. Oddly enough I don’t remember the exit of the blue muffins and worry they still might be lost somewhere in my organs or maybe they permanently dyed my insides blue –just like what happens when you drink too much Gatorade. 

The researchers advised me to eat as normal as possible and eat what I would on any given day. I ate my favorites such as sweet potatoes, pumpkin, bread, vegetables of all different kinds, peanut butter, dark chocolate, beans, tofu, tsurimi, miso soup, and coffee with soy milk. I tried to test controversial foods such as artificial sugar, diet beverages, cheese, dairy, eggs, and soy. I even went out of my normal diet to see if we could measure what a shake shack burger did to my body. Until that moment, I had never had a Shake Shack burger but this was the time to check what meat would do to me.

Shake Shack burger for the first and last time

An interesting reaction I had after the study was the intrinsic positive reinforcement I got from taking photos of all my food. It gave me a vantage point to analyze my eating. For me, I realized that my diet was living up to my expectations. It also helped me to find more structure in eating habits. For example, I liked having to fast overnight for about 12 hours because I knew when it was time to eat and when I needed to end eating for the day. I also enjoyed the periods in between meals because I knew what I could and could not have. For example, I could only drink water, black coffee or tea with no added sugar or milk. After four hours, I was free to eat something for only 30 minutes, then back to fasting for two to four hours. It was only after breakfast when I needed to fast for four hours, but other meals needed spacing for at least two hours. 

There were difficult moments in the study. One day I had to take three blood samples by myself. I had never pricked my fingers, but they gave me a small kit to stab my finger, blot the blood sheet and were kind enough to include bandaids in the kit. I even had extra blotting paper in case I missed dropping my blood in the right places.

I still feel a little pain at the sides of my middle finger where I had to prick for blood testing. On some days, before eating the muffins, I was required to take a fasting blood glucose blood sample. In the morning, there is minimal circulation in your hands so I ran my hands under warm water and swung them all around. However, I still didn’t bleed enough so I ran my finger under running water only to make a river of thin blood, too diluted with water to use. I started sweating from the pressure to accurately dot a blood spot on the blood absorbent card, and with only a centimeter thick circle to fill with concentrated blood, it was a challenge I had not anticipated. I missed the round circles four times in a row, after squeezing my shaking fingers over the paper. My completely white bathroom temporarily looked like a murder scene. 

splotches for blood samples

While not as challenging, it was interesting to use the blood glucose monitor I inserted into my arm. The number of stares I got when people saw my blood sugar monitor was staggering. For example, I walked into an office once, had a meeting, and then upon exiting the advisor’s eyes darted to my left arm and I could see the curiosity and concern shadow her face. I reminded myself these kinds of experiences are typical for some suffering with Type 2 Diabetes.

I made many other mistakes and it’s a wonder I was not kicked out of the research cohort. Once, I forgot to remove my activity tracker before entering the shower and got it wet, something they emphasized I was not to do. I also continuously forgot a card I needed for every food photo whenever I left my house. I had to improvise with business cards o that the researchers could judge my meal portions. I haphazardly created each meal, keeping a list on my phone of the ingredients, the weight in grams, and then snapped a photo of the finished plate, but several times the researchers asked me to confirm what was in the photo. If I wanted seconds, I had to measure, snap a photo, and document all of this information in my cellphone’s app.

I was rewarded only with the intuitive sensation that I had accomplished the challenge, contributed to nutrition research, and tried the miraculous blue muffins. My data will be available for me in 2020, so until then I have to almost keep guessing what I believe to be healthy for my body by following certain guidelines provided to me from nutrition classes and general buzz I hear from health communities. It would be a lot less convoluted to have an app like the Predict app, to exactly inform me how my particular genomic makeup reacts to an egg versus oatmeal for my breakfast.

If the challenge sounds intimidating, it was. However, I urge the reader not to shy away from applying to join Predict 2. The friendly research team screens you based on your health history only, not on ethnicity, nationality, or any other metric (although at the moment, participants in the United States are the only ones accepted). Equally, as unfortunate, my guess is they want people who have no allergies, are not taking medication, and are both medically and physically healthy people (healthy BMI, weight, not anorexic, bulimic, pregnant, taking steroids, drugs). You are alerted within a few business days whether you are accepted as a participant. And you never know, the study might change your life and the way you eat, helping you become a healthier culinary explorer, fearless, empowered with extra knowledge about your individual body.

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

Today on April 15th marks 30 years since I started as a journalist in Japan. Many of those years were spent reporting on Japan’s anti-social forces and crime, but I hope I’ve evolved.

I still love my job. I’m happy to have moved on from primarily covering yakuza to Japanese politics, although the transition wasn’t hard. Japan is a one-party democracy and the ruling party, the Liberal Democrat Party (a misleading name) was founded with yakuza money by war criminals Kodama Yoshio and Kishi Nobusuke. The latter of the war criminals deserves an honorable mention for being Shinzo Abe’s grandpa.

I’ve spent more time than I wished covering the yakuza. These days I cover politics, crimes, social issues, culture, religion, whisky, Zen Buddhism, pole-dancing, books, missing people and travel. I’m trying to be well-rounded. Because I’ve been doing this 30 years now, please permit me to talk about what that meant.

Someone told me derisively once , “You must think you’re the biggest fucking yakuza expert in the world.” Nope. First of all, I don’t think I ever said I was the world or even Tokyo’s leading expert on anti-social forces aka yakuza aka boryokudan. And if I did, I must have been really drunk. But show me where I did say that. I’ll repent. 

In a live interview, I think I once said I was a police reporter for 12 years instead of saying I was a crime reporter for most of my 12.5 years at the Yomiuri. I get tongue-tied now and then. Sue me, man. 

If you actually read Tokyo Vice, The Last Of The Yakuza, or Tokyo Detective, my career trajectory isn’t too hard to follow. 

I believe that knowledge is best shared so I’ve posted on-line a huge amount of materials I’ve used in my writing.

The Tokyo Vice and Tokyo Detective Source Material Big Ass Database

I’ve been very careful to redact some things in there to protect sources as I have done in my books. In writing books, I make it very clear that names and dates may be altered to protect sources. Japanese newspapers are also full of unnamed sources. For good reason.

In Japan, the civil servants laws make sharing confidential information by a public official a crime. That’s why newspapers like the Mainichi, routinely use euphemisms like “捜査関係者によると“(according to police sources). Cops say something on the record when they shouldn’t, they can get fired or go to jail. A yakuza? He may lose more than his finger.

I spent from 1993 to 1999 in Saitama covering a variety of subjects but to the best of my recollection and documentation from 1994 to 1996, I covered The Saitama Prefectural Police Department Organized Crime Countermeasures Division 1 & 2.  (埼玉県警暴力団対策1・2課). I continued to cover that beat while at the Omiya bureau which was unusual but I liked covering OC.  Even when covering prefectural politics, yakuza stuff came up. 

I should say that there’s a downside in working for a Japanese newspaper. As a general rule, you don’t get a byline. The Yomiuri in particular rarely had a name attached to article on the National News page or regional newspaper. I think that’s also to protect the reporter and the newspaper from being sued, but also so you can’t make a name for yourself and defect to another paper.

From 1999 to 2000, I covered the 4th district of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police ward. That includes Kabukicho which is Japan’s largest red light district. During my time in the National News Department I spent a year covering IT, which quickly turned into covering IT and crime. I worked on two Yomiuri long-running feature series on organized crime and emerging crimes called Safety Meltdown and the slightly repetitious Restoring Law and Order series. Safety Meltdown was turned into a book called Organized Crime in which I am credited. 

From 2003 to 2004, I was assigned to the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department Headquarters. I was one of the reporters in charge of the relatively newly formed Organized Crime Control Bureau (組織犯罪対策部). I covered everything, including crimes by foreigners, but that job was principally the work of OCCB Division 2 reporters.

Me on the other hand, I spent most of my time in charge of OCCB Division 5, which dealt with guns and drugs, classic yakuza revenue generating crimes. I assisted the year long reportage on the Emperor of Loan Sharks, a yakuza boss from the Yamaguchi-gumi, and his billion dollar cross border operations. I also was in charge of the neglected OCCB Special Squad which dealt with credit card fraud. I had one scoop about yakuza operating credit card fraud internationally that I was quite proud of. 

Even after leaving my post at the Police Press Club, I continued to assist coverage of drug related crimes by my colleagues on the beat. During my period covering the drug problems in Tokyo, I had a good working relationship with the NCIS as well. 

From 2006 to 2008, I did a study of human trafficking in Japan commissioned by the US State Department. It was a cash cow for organized crime and I was asked to dig deeply into the relation between the slavers, the politicians, immigration and the yakuza. The redacted report is still available on-line. If there are some typos—-apologies. I wasn’t given the final draft for review.  Click the link to download the report: DEMAND: A comparative examination of sex trafficking and tourism in Jamaica, Japan, The Netherlands and The United States

Warning: the report contains violence, sexual assault and other disturbing materials.

In 2009, Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter On The Police Beat was published, with surprising success for a hard to classify book. I did a lot of book tours and was still doing due diligence. My Dad says that after the book was published I briefly turned into “an arrogant dick”. Well, I had a wake-up call.

In 2011, an earthquake, a tsunami, and a nuclear disaster that could have been avoided woke me up. Come to think of it, I could have also avoided liver cancer but I loved those clove cigarettes and heavy drinking too much. But with the aftershocks, I returned to journalism.

I knew now that there were worse things than the yakuza. And that was Tokyo Electric Power Company and the Liberal Democratic Party, my least favorite yakuza-like group. The two of them paved the way for the terrible crime of criminal negligence resulting in injury and death that the Fukushima disaster.

I started write for The Daily Beast and from 2015 to 2016, I was a special correspondent for the LA Times— until they run out of money. I’m still writing for The Daily Beast but been on hiatus to do a podcast.

I spent all of 2022 working with some amazing people to do a nine-part podcast series on missing people in Japan—and the story behind them.

The Evaporated: 神隠し(かみかくし）Gone with the Gods –On Air now is something I’m proud to have been part of and helped make happen.

The Lonely Yakuza Reporter Life

It’s kind of tough when your area of expertise becomes increasingly unimportant. But like an anthropologist studying a vanishing tribe, I still stick with it.

There are many journalists who are well-versed in organized crime in Japan more than myself. A few outstanding individuals come to mind. Isano Masakatsu (磯野正勝) who was first a police reporter than a yakuza reporter. Noboru Hirosue aka “Professor Yakuza.” Atsushi Mizoguchi. Tomohiko Suzuki. Masami Kimura (Farewell Yamaguchi-gumi: The Half-Life of Tadamasa Goto). And of course, the legendary and perhaps first reporter on the yakuza yakuza reporter (reporter on the yakuza) Reikichi Sumiya (RIP).

However, becoming an expert on the yakuza (a misleading term for the 23+ organized crime groups in Japan with different emblems, revenue streams, bosses, and history) actually also involves a certain amount of academic study and collecting materials as well. Over the years, I’ve obtained about 40 videos of succession ceremonies and funerals which kindly often name the yakuza on the screen. I’ve read over 200 books. I’ve spent hundreds of hours with organized crime cops, yakuza (who were yakuza at the time) and retired yakuza. I’ve made databases of their front companies and organizations. I’ve kept 14 years worth of yakuza fanzines– all of which I’ve read. 

In fact, I was once weirdly written up and praised for my fair coverage in a yakuza fanzine, the best of the monthlies, Jitsuwa Document.  I love that magazine. Great photos, lovely haiku, and always a section of tattooed men and women showing off their colors. 

So, in short, yes I know a lot about the yakuza and have covered them, written about them, made friends with some, dealt with them, been threatened by some, and avoided going head to head with them whenever possible for decades. And they were a huge part of what I covered while I was at the Yomiuri, from my Saitama days and even after. 

Sometimes, I meet a wise ass who wants to dispute my entire career and I feel like saying: do I need to chop off a pinkie for you to recognize that I might know my subject matter? 

I have taken breaks from journalism. I spent 2006 to 2008 working on a study of human trafficking commissioned by the US State Department, which of course, involved looking into how organized crime profited from it and who they paid off and chummed around with to get away with it. Not surprisingly Shinzo Abe was one name that certainly came up. But that’s another story. You can read the report. 

Not all yakuza are bad people but in general they’re bad for society. The average age of a yakuza is now about 51. Their numbers have been declining steadily since October 1st 2011. On this date, the organized crime exclusionary ordinances—which forbid doing business with the yakuza– went into effect nationwide.   

We’re fading out together. I write about them less and less. In my fourth book, Tokyo Detective, published in France the day after my 54th birthday, In the book, I try to explain why the Japanese mob is doomed and how it happened. 

I’m thinking of opening a Yakuza Museum someday. Gotta do something with 14 years of yakuza fanzines and several hundred books. Yikes.

LESSONS LEARNED

When I was just starting as a reporter in 1992, a veteran reporter at the Yomiuri Shimbun gave me some valuable advice on being a good journalist, specifically being a good investigative journalist. I’ve never forgotten it but in the 30 years since then, times have changed. This is the first revision I’ve ever done of the rules. Think of this as the 2023 edition, a three decade late update.

The job is hard but often rewarding.

One thing that hasn’t changed in Japan are the laws related to civil servants.

The laws here in Japan basically state that if a public official (police officer, bureaucrat etc) shares confidential information with a third party, they are committing a crime. They can be fired or prosecuted. This happens. If it’s a state secret they may be sentenced to five years or more in jail.  This is why newspaper articles in Japan abound with anonymous sources dressed up with phrases like, “according to someone close to the investigation” or “government sources”.  Japan’s press freedom ranking in 2010 was 11th in the world, now 66th out of 180 countries. Protecting sources gets harder all the time.

So keeping that in mind, here’s the list again with three new rules and here’s a little background. 

I interned at the Yomiuri Newspaper briefly in 1992 before starting as a regular staff reporter in 1993. When I was visiting legendary crime reporter, Inoue Ansei at the police press club, took me up to the coffee shop, ordered us some green tea, and asked what I wanted to do at the Yomiuri.

“Well,” I said, “I’m interested in investigative journalism and the side of Japan I don’t know much about. The seamy side. The underworld.” I told him that my father was a country coroner and that crime and the police beat had always interested me.

He recommended I shoot for Shakaibu (社会部), the national news section, which was responsible for covering crime, social problems, and national news. 

Inoue put it this way: “It’s the soul of the newspaper. Everything else is just flesh on the bones. Real journalism, journalism that can change the world, that’s what we do.”

I asked him for some advice as a reporter. 

“Newspaper reporting isn’t rocket science,” he said. “The pattern is set. You remember the patterns and build from there. It’s like martial arts. You have kata [the form] that you memorize and repeat, and that’s how you learn the basic moves. It’s the same here. There are about three or four basic ways to write up a violent crime, so you have to be able to remember the style, fill in the blanks, and get the facts straight. The rest will come.

“There are eight rules of being a good reporter, Jake.

Let me tell you kid. There are eight rules you gotta know to be a good reporter in this town (1992)

One. Don’t ever burn your sources. If you can’t protect your sources, no one will trust you. All scoops are based on the understanding that you will protect the person who gave you the information. That’s the alpha and omega of reporting. Your source is your friend, your lover, your wife, and your soul. Betray your source and you betray yourself. If you don’t protect your source, you’re not a journalist. You’re not even a man.

Two. Finish a story as soon as possible. The life of news is short. Miss the chance and the story is dead or the scoop is gone.

Three. Never believe anyone. People lie, police lie, even your fellow reporters lie. Assume that you are being lied to and proceed with caution.

Four. Take any information you can get. People are good and bad. Information is not. Information is what it is, and it doesn’t matter who gives it to you or where you steal it. The quality, the truth of the information, is what’s important.

Five. Remember and persist. Stories that people forget come back to haunt them. What may seem like an insignificant case can later turn into a major story. Keep paying attention to an unfolding investigation and see where it goes. Don’t let the constant flow of breaking news make you forget about the unfinished news.

Six. Triangulate your stories, especially if they aren’t an official announcement from the authorities. If you can verify information from three different sources, odds are good that the information is good.

Seven. Write everything in a reverse pyramid. Editors cut from the bottom up. The important stuff goes on top, the trivial details go to the bottom. If you want your story to make it to the final edition, make it easy to cut.

Eight. Never put your personal opinions into a story; let someone else do it. That’s why experts and commentators exist. Objectivity is a subjective thing.

And that was it. I haven’t grown much wiser over the years but as the media landscape and technology have changed, I think it’s time to add three more rules.

“But 30 years later, in 2022, I think we need three more rules in addition to the big 8.”

And here they are:

Nine: 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 a dropbox file that anyone can access. Use hyperlinks. Knowledge empowers everyone. Be sure not to reveal sources but share the intel you have;  some of your readers may even return the favor. 

Ten: Seek information. Learn every means possible of ferreting information from the web and from public sources. Social media can be a cesspool but it can also be a wonderful way to find information, collaborators and whistleblowers. Ask questions. Post your query and post a way to contact you, and welcome what comes.

Eleven: Protect Your Sources–And Protect Yourself.  In the modern world, when people don’t like the message, they attack the messenger. This wasn’t the case back in 1992 when Yomiuri reporters didn’t get bylines. Individual reporters were rarely attacked because no one knew who wrote the stories. Now they do. You will make enemies because of this.  To paraphrase a detective I admired, “An investigative journalist without enemies, isn’t investigating hard enough”. 

You’ll find that enemies (people who wish you harm) include people who don’t like what you’ve written, or what you are going to write, and sadly,  other journalists who are professionally jealous or hold a grudge.  Protect your reputation.  It’s not just a matter of your big fat ego: if people don’t feel you’re credible,  the good work you do won’t be read or won’t be taken seriously. 

When you know someone is gunning for you, be proactive. The person on the defensive always looks guilty. Anticipate attacks, undercut them, and prepare your rebuttal.

Twelve: Never Write Your Headline First and Try To Make The Facts Fit

If you’re a freelancer, you have to pitch your articles and hope your editors will bite. So sometimes, you may start with an assumption, sell the article on that premise and when you really look—-discover you were wrong. And at that point, it’s hard to bail out. Because if you do, you don’t get paid.

But when you know you’re wrong, time to fold up the tent and move on.

But if you’re an asshole, you’ll just ignore everything that doesn’t support your headline (thesis) and cherry pick the facts. This is very easy to do if you’re smearing a celebrity or a public figure who talks too much. Make material omissions. Bombard them with questions and give them very little time to answer, only report the questions they can’t answer and talk to people you know have a grudge against them. Don’t question the motives of the people you’re talking to but let them say the nasty shit, and then you can avoid liability, by just saying, “I’m only reporting what they said.”

It’s a shitty thing to do. And there’s always a karmic bite back. So don’t do that.

Keep an open mind before you make a conclusion and verify the information you have and question the motives of the people speaking to you. You’re supposed to be an agent of the truth, not a servant of sociopathic liars with a grudge. Be the good guy.

A few footnotes and some final advice. 

There are many interesting ways to share data and also learn to collect information more efficiently. Please have a look at the Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) website. “IRE is a grassroots nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the quality of journalism”–they say and they’re worth joining. The AAJA (Asian American Journalists Association) also offers valuable training and advice.  Another great source for learning how to get your message out and get read by many people is The Journalists’ Resource, which has a self-explanatory name. 

And some final advice. There are many types of journalism in the world: sports journalism, entertainment journalism, gaming journalism and they’re all valid forms of the art and wonderful vocations. Investigative journalism, by its very nature, involves writing things that the powers that be don’t want written. This will make people angry. You can’t avoid it. You should always try and weigh the public’s right to know something versus the damage that it will do to the life of an individual. If you’re not a full-time staffer, who’s assigned to cover this or that story, then you have the ability to decide what is and what is not worth writing. So choose wisely but if it’s important, write it.

Hidetoshi Kiyotake, my former supervisor at the Yomiuri, gave me some good advice which I will share with you. 

If you’re going to be an investigative journalist here, you have to make up your mind and be ready [for what comes]. You must endure unreasonable criticism, and continue to fight. 

In Japan, reporters who reveal their sources are scorned and cannot continue to do proper and decent reporting. That’s why you must keep your important sources anonymous. This often leads to investigative journalists having to go it alone, feeling isolated. You just have to believe in yourself and your friends and hang in there.

****

(調査報道記者として不公平に叩かれる宿命について）腹を据えて、理由のない批判に耐え、戦わなければならない。日本では情報源を明かすような記者は軽蔑され、まともな取材を続けられない。だから、重要な情報源は匿名にならざるを得ないのだ。そのために調査報道にあたる記者はしばしば孤立する傾向にある。自分や友人を信じて、頑張るしかないよ。

Thank you to everyone who’s been my source, my friend, my editor and my reader these last 30 years. 感謝しております。

Johnny Be Bad: A rare interview with Japan’s boy Idol-maker and pederast

(special contribution from Steve McClure)

This out of print book allegedly details the sexual abuse committed by Idol-Maker Johnny Kitagawa towards the young men in his stable and beyond.

Editor’s note: Japan’s most beloved pederast (a male who sexually assaults young men) , Johnny Kitagawa, died last week. He was an idol maker, the brains behind such super male idol bands as SMAP, Kinki Kids, and an entertainment legend. He was also so powerful that the seedy and dark side of his life was swept under the table even after his death.

There were some in the media that dared challenge the sleazy smooth Svengali. Weekly magazine, Shukan Bunshun ran a series of well-researched articles in 1999 describing how Kitagawa systematically abused young boys. Kitagawa then sued the publisher for libel but despite the testimony of alleged rape victims interviewed for the piece, the Tokyo District Court ruled in his favor. They ordered the publisher to pay 8.8 million yen in damages to Kitagawa and his company in 2002.

However, The Tokyo High Court overturned this decision in July 2003. They concluded that the allegations were true. “The agency failed to discredit the allegations in the detailed testimony of his young victims,” ruled the presiding Judge Hidekazu Yazaki. The case stood. The story was barely a blip in the Japanese media horizon. In an entertainment world where Johny’s stable of young boys was a prerequisite to ratings success, his ‘indulgences’ weren’t deemed worthy of reporting.

Johny granted few interviews–here is the story of one of them:

My interview with Johnny

By Steve McClure

It was only after I’d interviewed Johnny Kitagawa that I realized I’d scored a bit of a scoop.

“You interviewed Johnny? That’s amazing – he never does interviews,” my Japanese media and music-biz colleagues said. “How on earth did you manage to do that?”

It was 1996 and I was Billboard magazine’s Japan bureau chief. I was hanging out with an American producer/songwriter who had written several hit tunes for acts managed by Kitagawa’s agency, Johnny’s Jimusho. 

“Want to hear a funny story about Johnny?” Bob (not his real name) asked me. 

“Sure,” I said. 

“Well, the other day, Johnny told me he’d discovered a promising male vocal duo. I asked him what they were called.

“‘I’m going to call them the Kinki Kids,’ Johnny told me.

“I told him that ‘kinky’ means sexually abnormal in English slang.

“‘Oh, that’s great!,’ Johnny said. 

Bob and I laughed. 

“Say, Steve, would you like me to set up an interview with Johnny for you?” Bob asked. 

I told him that would be swell. 

Some days later I was informed that Kitagawa would grant me an audience at his private residence. I was enjoined not to reveal where the great man lived (it was Ark Hills in Akasaka, for the record).

I showed up at the appointed day and hour, and rang the doorbell of the condo high up in one of the Ark Hills towers. A browbeaten middle-aged woman answered the door. Evidently a domestic of some kind, she said I was expected and asked me to come in. She led me into a garishly decorated living room full of Greek statuary, Louis XV-style furniture and sundry examples of rococo frippery. There were no Ganymedean cup-bearers offering libations or any other signs of sybaritic excess.

I was ushered into the presence of the pop panjandrum. Johnny was sitting in an armchair beside a window with a stunning view of Tokyo. He was small, bespectacled and unprepossessing. If you saw him in the street, you’d never imagine he was the notorious and feared Svengali who had a stranglehold on the geinokai (芸能界/Japan’s entertainment world). 

After we exchanged pleasantries, I got down to business. I asked Johnny about his early life in Los Angeles. “My dad ran the local church,” he told me without elaboration in a quiet, rather high-pitched voice. I later found out that Kitagawa père had been the head of a Japanese American Buddhist congregation in L.A. 

Johnny was equally vague about when he first came to Japan. He reportedly arrived while serving as an interpreter for the U.S. military during the Korean War. 

This set the tone for the rest of the interview – it was hard to get a straight answer out of Johnny, at least when it came to his personal history. He was more interested in talking about all the boy bands he’d groomed and propelled to stardom during his long and extraordinarily successful career.

Johnny told me how he got his start in showbiz when he saw some boys playing baseball in a Tokyo park, and later molded them into a pop group called The Johnnies. That set the template for the rest of his career – scouting for boys and using them as raw material as his pop production line churned out an endless succession of unthreatening quasi-androgynous male idol groups. 

A classic showman, Johnny said he was more interested in live performances than records. He made his mark with coups de theatre like having ’80s male idol act Hikaru Genji do choreographed routines on roller skates. 

“Once you release a record, you have to sell that record,” Johnny said. “You have to push one song only. You can’t think of anything else. It’s not good for the artist.” The Johnny’s stable of acts has nonetheless racked up dozens of No.1 hits over the years. 

Johnny’s English, like that of many longterm expats, was quaintly fossilized. I could hear echoes of ’40s and ’50s America when he said things like “gee,” or “gosh” when answering my questions. 

Soon after the interview began, the browbeaten obasan put a steaming dish of katsu-curry in front of me. I begged off, explaining that I’d just eaten lunch. This didn’t prevent the arrival of another dish soon after: spaghetti and “hamburg” steak, as I recall. Hearty fare for starving young idol wannabes was my take on the menu chez Johnny. 

Having decided that “Are you or have you ever been a pederast?” might be somewhat too direct a question to put to the dear old chap, I lobbed a series of softball queries with the aim of establishing a friendly rapport. But even the most gently tossed questions elicited amiable but frustratingly vague answers from Johnny.

In the silences between his frequent hems and haws, the wind whined like a sotto voce banshee through the slightly opened window.

Johnny did tell me that he received 300 letters a day from guys wanting to sign up with his agency. I wasn’t sure if he was boasting or bored. 

The time came to leave, and Johnny accompanied me to the door. “Come back anytime,” he said with a friendly smile as he waved me goodbye. 

As I made my way down the hall to the elevators, I saw the finely chiseled profile of a young man peeking from around a corner, looking in my direction. He caught a glimpse of me and retreated. I resisted the temptation to tell him the katsu-curry was getting cold. 

Sadly, I didn’t take up Johnny on his kind offer to come up and see him sometime. 

Childhood Sexual Assault Survivors Call For Action and Policy Changes Ahead of Hiroshima G7 Summit

In a move considered well overdue, Japan is raising the national age of consent from 13 years old to 16. Japan has the lowest national age of consent among G7 countries, and has faced criticism for years, even being subject to a UN recommendation in 2008 that the penal codes should be revised.

It is worth noting that in most places in Japan, 13 years old is not the effective age of consent. There are overlapping laws, national and local, that make the actual age of consent higher in most of Japan. In Tokyo, for example, the Youth Protection Laws put the age of consent at 17. Other prefectures can determine their own ages for consent, usually around 16-18. National laws prohibit an adult to “cause a child to commit an obscene act,” with a child being defined as anyone under the age of 18. 

However, these laws can be vague in application. And age of consent laws are still not sufficient for protecting children or bringing justice to those who have experienced childhood sexual abuse (CSA). 

A March 2nd press conference hosted by the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan (FCCJ) was held with speakers currently advocating for CSA survivors. They have compiled recommendations to put forward for the upcoming G7 summit in Hiroshima this year – to amend the statute of limitations on sexual assault cases, and to establish a survivor council by 2025 to reflect survivors’ experience into Japanese government. 

Ikuko Ishida, the founder of Be Brave Japan, was groomed and sexually abused by her middle school teacher starting from when she was 15 years old. He had taken her out, told her that he was in love with her, and convinced her to start a relationship with him that continued until she was 19 years old. When she recognized it as childhood sexual abuse years later, she was met with little help from officials in her hometown of Sapporo.

The statute of limitations on sexual assault has been extended to 5 years in Japan, but it isn’t enough for cases of childhood sexual abuse. Robert Schilling, former Interpol head of the Crimes Against Children unit, co-founder of Brave Movement in the United States, and survivor of CSA, said “Based on the cases that I’ve investigated, victims come forward somewhere between the age of 28 and 32 years old because you’re trying to process what has happened to you, and you don’t even believe in yourself anymore.” 

It is common for survivors of CSA, like Ishida, to not recognize the experiences in their childhood as CSA for any number of reasons, and many are unable to seek help– or justice– until it is too late. 

This is why Ishida and members of Brave Japan are recommending that the statute of limitations for CSA should be at the very least extended, ideally to 30 years,  if not abolished altogether. 

Ishida faced pushback from the Sapporo authorities when she first sought help in her case. But she unexpectedly, she was also met with less than sympathetic responses from those closest to her, who believed that she couldn’t have been abused because it was a romantic relationship – despite her age and the age of the perpetrator.

The idea of sincere love between a child and an adult is ignorant of uneven power dynamics that come with such an age and developmental gap. Further, the positions that predators may take up to give them access to children – such as teaching or childcare – add yet another layer of inequality to their relationship.

Yet “sincere love” and “the self-determination of children” persist as a counterpoint even within the Japanese government. As recently as 2021, 56-year-old Representative Hiranao Honda (also of Sapporo) suggested that it would be “strange” if he were arrested for having a romantic and sexual relationship with a consenting 14-year-old child. 

It is clear that there is a disconnect between survivors’ lived experiences and the public perception of childhood sexual abuse and grooming cases. As Ishida noted, sexual assault is commonly viewed as something that is perpetrated by force by an adult man to an adult woman. Cases where the genders, scenarios, and ages are different are not so easily understood by those with a narrow understanding of sexual assault. 

The proposed survivor council aims to represent survivor perspectives in the lawmaking and regulatory process. Said Schilling, “They need to listen to what we need. Having a survivor’s council…that’s more helpful than the government telling us ‘This is what we’re going to do for you’”. 

The 49th G7 summit will be held in Hiroshima, Japan from May 19th to May 21st.

The mysterious beauty of Reylia Slaby’s World

SOLO EXHIBITION “THERE WAS JOY TOO”

Reylia Slaby, born in Japan and well-known for the mysterious and otherworldly vistas that dominate her photography, is having her first solo exhibition from March 25th. A perfect chance to see the art and meet the artist. Details below

Dates: 
MARCH 25th – APRIL 16th, 2023Image art from Tokyo Private Eye (Tokyo Detective) to be published on March 28th 2023 (Marchialy) photo by Reylia Slaby, limited © Jake Adelstein Location: 
CAPSULE GALLERYGallery Information:https://capsule-gallery.jp/東京都世田谷区池尻2-7-12 B1FB1F 2-7-12 Ikejiri, Setagaya-ku, Tokyo, Japan
Tel.03-6413-8055 (SUNDAY)

Japan Goes Up in Smoke

I hail from a family of smokers. My parents, their siblings, my cousins, my grandparents. New Years’ family get-togethers were marked by cramped living rooms dense with smoke, full ashtrays waiting to be emptied and rows of beer and sake bottles on low tables. In high school I would come home to find my mother on the couch, inhaling a Caster with her legs crossed and brow furrowed. In these moments she didn’t want to talk or hear about my day. She wanted to be left alone with a thin trail of smoke curling into the air; the unmistakable signal that she had pulled down the shutters and did not wish to be disturbed.

In 1989 when Japan became No.1 (go ahead and laugh) the smoking rate in Japan was around 31% which meant that just about one in three Japanese adults had a cigarette jammed in their mouth. That seems huge but not as much as the year 2000 when the smoking rate hit 33%.

In 2002 I was trying to quit smoking for maybe the third time in my life, meeting with mixed results. I didn’t particularly love the taste of cigarettes but everyone I knew had a pack stashed in pockets or in chic little backpacks. I was one of 11.3% of Japanese female smokers. For males, it was close to a whopping 48%. Overall, the smoking rate in Japan came up to nearly 28%, significantly less than two years ago — though you couldn’t really tell by all the smoking in public.

For many of us cigarettes were a mental prop or psychological crutch depending on how many packs you consumed in a day. In 2002 nearly 50% of Japanese male smokers reported that they went through just one pack a day, while women reported they got through a pack every three days. For me it was more like a pack a week, though I still couldn’t seem to wean myself off for good. One Sunday afternoon I was with friends in a bar in the San Francisco Mission and when I went outside for a smoke, the cute blonde guy behind the counter came out to do the same. We chatted and he invited me to a party that same night, both of us hiding our smiles behind the thin, elegant plumes of smoke that hovered briefly before trailing upwards into an overcast sky. Such incidents made it hard to quit cold turkey. What was I going to do when I wanted to realign or take a break from the conversation? How was I going to meet cute blonde guys working behind the bar?

2002 was also the year the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare introduced the Health Promotion Act, which stipulated among other items that smoking was harmful to one’s health and secondary smoke had links to cancer. It was a pretty ineffectual way to get people to discard their cigarette habit. Few paid attention to this Act (as opposed to a law) which was basically the Japanese government’s way of saying “okay, we realize smoking is bad and all that and yeah, we’re going to do something about it. But not today.”

Still, it was time to break up with nicotine. A year later in 2003 in Boston, a couple of weeks into a sizzling hot summer, the city announced the implementation of an indoor smoking ban. None of my friends believed it. The next night we went to this hipster club called Avalon and were shocked – shocked! – to see bouncers confiscating cigarettes at the doors.

Back in Tokyo, smokers were still free to do as they pleased, whether on the streets or at home with their kids. JT (Japan Tobacco) however, took it upon themselves to educate their customers on the perils of secondary smoke and to mind their cigarette manners in public places. Chiyoda ward was the first to ban smoking while walking on the streets and the other wards gradually fell in line. The major newspapers decried that the Japanese were far behind the west in dealing with health issues and released a slew of reports about cigarettes and cancer. I helped a reporter friend research and write some of the articles. While we pulled up the numbers and argued about findings, this friend had a Seven Star dangling from the corner of his mouth the whole time. It never occurred to me to point that out.

I was also hired by a cafe in Shibuya to design their matchbook covers. I put a temporary ban on my personal smoking ban and spent a lot of time in smoke-filled meetings. Matchbook cover design was a thing back then, and the cafe’s policy was to provide great coffee, great music and a chill ambience that suggested cool girls always chose matches over lighters.

In 2007 the cafe went bankrupt and was replaced by a convenience store where people bought coffee from the machine by the cash register and plastic, 100 yen lighters to light up their cigarettes. By this time there were far fewer smokers – only 24.5% of the populace. The media reported that it was the first time since WWII that the numbers were so low. On the streets the smokers were forced into tiny cubicle-like spaces. In cafes and restaurants, they were restricted to smoking areas. Actually, this met with a lot less resistance than expected. The hands that once held cigarettes were now clutching their cellphones, soon to be replaced by the new iPhone.

Thirteen years later in 2020, smoking in Japan was 20% and though the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare insisted that this was an all-time low, in 2017 the number came in even lower at 17%, according to privately conducted studies. Interestingly, 2017 is missing from government-issued reports on smoking. The MHLW has insisted that 20% is actually a good number since it’s the global median rate on smoking worldwide. More importantly, this number is below China and the US, which makes the country look good on the health and fitness front. Which is what the Health Promotion Act originally wanted to achieve in the first place: raise awareness about public health issues.

So far, so stable? But as with so many other things, COVID has thrown a wrench in the works. Because of the high levels of stress and anxiety during the first year of the pandemic, smokers have taken to smoking more than they used to. Several surveys indicate that many who had quit relapsed on their habits. The numbers are creeping up again, especially among men. As of 2021, 27% of Japanese men smoked, and that number didn’t include smokers under 18 years of age.

Now in 2023 I’m surrounded by smokers again. In Asakusa where I work during the day, smokers congregate in back alleys and street corners to chat and puff away. Coffee shops doubling as tobacconists are still doing business like it’s 1980. The smoking areas in heavy-duty train stations like Shimbashi and Shinjuku are packed with people of all genders sucking and puffing on tobacco products of all kinds.

Right now, heated tobacco products (HTPs) are trending, encouraged by JT (Japan Tobacco) that endorses HTPs as the ‘polite’ and ‘good-mannered’ way to smoke because of the near-zero secondary smoke. Before HTPs became the socially acceptable way to inhale tobacco, secondary smoke was deemed a leading carcinogen and in 2020, the MHLW upgraded the Passive Smoking Prevention Act from a ‘guideline’ to a ‘rule.’ This pressured offices and public spaces/venues to up their game on smoking bans; not so much for the benefit of the smokers’ health but for the well-being of non-smokers. But despite the fact that heated tobacco products may only be marginally less harmful as regular cigarettes to bystanders and smokers alike, they’ve been given special treatment by the Japanese government. You can see this in the way HTPs are treated and accepted as accessories, with non-smokers often standing right next to people sucking away at their little HTP cases. While we can assume harm reduction is the intended goal, one has to wonder if the health of Japan Tobacco is more important than the health of Japanese citizens.

Smoking doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon. It’s a highly emotional product and smokers smoke out of sentiment as much as for that hit of nicotine. Why else would people want to bond with a co-worker standing over an ashtray? I know some women who shun remote work just to be able to get out of the house so they can meet up with others in their office building, chatting inside small, crowded smoking spaces. As my friend Sachi said the other day, “Maybe I’ll even find love in a smoking room.”

Egoism and Love: Not mutually exclusive

Egoist. The title seemingly belies this love story. From the vantage point of today’s incessantly narcissistic and increasingly toxic dating/relationship culture, Egoist is the exact opposite of what it claims to be. Directed by Daishi Matsunaga and based on an autobiographical novel penned by author Makoto Takayama (who championed gay rights and same sex marriage) before his death in 2020, Egoist is a beautifully crafted tale with empathetic and highly sensual performances from veteran Ryohei Suzuki and the up-and-coming Hio Miyazawa. Together, they create a gay relationship that’s sexy, nurturing, endearing, supportive and all the other adjectives often missing from on-screen stories about heterosexual love. In Japan, hetero love stories are often cynical, snarky or curiously asexual. 

For the past 20 years or so, the Japanese film industry seemed to revel in convincing us that hetero love is destined to become abusive, fade out or end in disaster. That same industry though, is much kinder to gay lovers. Egoist is no exception. “I don’t know what love is,” confesses the protagonist in one scene and the mother of his boyfriend replies: “That doesn’t matter. My son and I both felt your love and that’s good enough for us.” 

Ryohei Suzuki, who has carved out a career playing imminently likable, stand-up kind of guys, takes on the role of gay fashion mag editor Kosuke. Kosuke loves designer clothes, good coffee, interior decor and retro diva music. He’s an unabashed hedonist who also knows exactly how attractive he looks. When he visits his childhood home in a small coastal town in Chiba prefecture, the boys that used to make fun of his “gayness” in junior high have turned into paunchy, middle-aged men while Kosuke gives every indication that he has just been transported from Paris Fashion Week. But a night out with his gay buddies convinces Kosuke that he needs to work on his body more and hires the highly recommended, 24-year old Ryuta (Miyazawa) as a personal trainer. The two connect from the get-go with Kosuke telling Ryuta what a beautiful face he has, and Ryuta returning the compliment with praises of the older man’s “wonderful physique.” Miyazawa’s performance here is playful and innocent while his pale skin and dewy eyes distract Kosuke from finishing his sit-ups. 

You know the pair are going to hook up (it happens after the second training session) and in no time they’re red hot lovers. But their relationship switches lanes from sheer pleasure to anxious-about-money. Ryuta has been supporting a sick mom (Sawako Agawa) for close to a decade now, dropping out of high school to work and bring home the miso. Kosuke for his part, lost his mom to illness when he was 14 and has been missing her ever since. “I’m so envious that you get to do things for your mom,” he says to Ryuta and after making passionate love in Kosuke’s tastefully decorated apartment, presents Ryuta with an expensive treat to bring home to his mother. 

So far, so devoted and charming. So we’re thrown when the relationship takes a nose dive and Ryuta tells his lover that “this is the last time I can see you.” Turns out Ryuta has been a sex worker as soon as he quit high school, to supplement whatever meager wages a teenager can make. Ryuta tells Kosuke that he has developed feelings for his lover that gets in the way of his professional sex work, so he has to end it. Kosuke is devastated. After cyberstalking Ryuta, Kosuke makes him an offer: he will pay a monthly 100,000 yen to be Ryuta’s exclusive client. It’s on Ryuta to make whatever extra money he needs to support his mother. 

Ironically, the 100,000 yen Kosuke intended to be an equalizer in their relationship tips the scales in a disastrous direction. To show his gratitude to Kosuke, Ryuta quits sex work and personal training for other gigs, like sorting industrial waste during the day and washing dishes at a restaurant by night. Ryuta is so tired that when he goes over to see Kosuke he falls asleep without having sex. His hands – once so soft and pale, become hard and scarred from all the manual labor. And then Ryuta’s mom collapses from back pains and is taken to the hospital. Kosuke steps in and promises to help again this time by buying a car for Ryuta so he can drive his mom to doctor’s appointments. 

Director Matsunaga guides the story through each tier of the Kosuke/Ryuta dynamic, lingering on and dissecting the crucial moments that mark all the things that could have been, but never came to pass. At times, these are so wrenching I had to avert my gaze from the screen and clutch at my hands. 

With its cold, often harsh lighting and unapologetic close-ups, Egoist feels like a documentary about the ties that bind and keep us together but how those same ties can destroy the very thing we cannot live without. Kosuke’s love for Ryuta was real and yet Egoist tells us how he pushed his young lover to the edge by pressuring him to adopt an over the top work ethic – all in the name of a maternal bond that he himself was missing. 

Takayama’s original novel addresses this issue head-on by having Kosuke suffer through bouts of self-doubt: does he really love Ryuta or is he a raging egoist? Or maybe the act of loving someone is just a way of loving oneself? Kosuke has plenty of time to stew in his angst. He’s always gazing in the mirror or selecting the shirt du jour from his splendid closet, just as obsessed about looking sharp as he is about showing some love for Ryuta and his mother. In the meantime, Ryuta is swabbing dishes, bent over a dirty sink. 

In the end though, you get the feeling that Kosuke is not nearly as egocentric as Ryuta’s own mom. The woman doesn’t lift a finger to help her son though she must know how tired he is. It’s also baffling that she never stopped her son from dropping out of high school or how unconcerned she was about Ryuta’s future when he was a teenager. That’s child abuse right there. 

Lovers shouldn’t be held responsible for one’s happiness and well-being. But parents are accountable for how their kids fare as adults. Ryuta’s mother, egoist that she is, refuses to even acknowledge that. 

For the hundredth time, it’s Suntory time

There’s no greater testament to the power of Japanese whisky than just sitting in Suntory Hall. The February 1st press conference celebrating the 100th year anniversary of Suntory whisky took place in what was supposedly the smaller event space, despite what the seemingly endless number of journalists in the room would indicate. Each attendee, including myself, was greeted with a bottle of water (Suntory water, of course), a few paper packets, a gift bag— and two small tasting glasses of Suntory Yamazaki 12 and Hakushu 25, neatly covered by little embossed plastic lids. 

Suntory is a Japanese institution in every sense of the word. It’s a household name, it’s a multinational giant, and it’s been a trailblazer in the field of Japanese alcohol culture for, you guessed it, 100 years. (Actually, if we consider their port wine genealogy dating back to 1899, it’s more than 100 years – but 100 years for whisky.)

While competitors might try their best to subvert this, when you think of Japanese whisky…well, Bill Murray may have said it best. It’s Suntory time. And the same goes for the ubiquitous highball. Ordering a highball at an izakaya conjures up usual images of cold, thick-handled glasses as well as the iconic yellow label design of Suntory Kakubin whisky. And this is no accident or lucky coincidence. 

A highball is very simple– it’s just whisky and soda water. It was one of the most popular drinks in Japan in the 1950s because it went well with Japanese bar foods and had a fashionable, cosmopolitan (and dare I say manly) air to it salarymen enjoyed. But over the years, the variety of alcohol served at izakayas and bars around Japan grew. That same appeal that the highballs and whisky in general had to that older male population led to a sharp drop in its public image to the younger crowd, which had more options and were thus free to distinguish themselves from the ojisan (Japanese old man) vogue. But between 2007 and 2009, highballs started to have a resurgence in popularity, and Suntory was the company that led this “highball boom”. 

To understand the boom, you need to understand drinking culture in Japan. You don’t drink at home with your friends, you go out to the bar and drink. You go from bar to bar on your first, second, third and possibly fourth dates. You go to the bar with your entire office after work. You go to the bar to close deals with business associates. You don’t want to get too drunk, but you also don’t want to be caught without a glass in hand. Enter the dilemma –  how do you go about drinking for hours with people you want to make a good impression on without getting so shit-faced that you jeopardize your professional, romantic, and public standing? 

It’s no surprise that draft beers between 4 and 5 percent alcohol are hugely popular to meet this demand. As are the endless varieties of chuhai (shochu and soda water, among other mixers). And Suntory realized that maybe the way to get Japanese people interested in whisky again wasn’t by pushing whisky itself but by pushing highballs as an option of a low-alcohol, low-calorie drink that people could drink for a good long time without embarrassing themselves in front of a cute girl or their office manager.

And, what singular drink can span the range of dirt-cheap to top shelf in quite the way that whisky highballs can? You can split any good whisky with soda water if you want to and price it accordingly. In the mid-2000s Suntory introduced Toki whisky, a new whisky blended specifically for highballs, to the global (particularly American) market. It was wildly popular, and distinguished Suntory as the leading authority on Japanese whisky and highballs simultaneously. It had a significant impact not only on their global marketing, but also was a plus for their domestic marketing aimed at younger drinkers. There’s nothing quite like international recognition to raise the national spirit (pun intended). Domestically, Suntory rebranded its Kakubin whisky to be the iconic yet affordable whiskey for highballs. They introduced highball dispensing machines to make a stupidly easy drink to make in the first place even easier for fast-paced izakayas to serve by the 100s per night. To get highballs out at an even greater scale, they started to distribute canned highballs, of which Suntory today makes 13 different types. 

And that’s soon to be 14. To celebrate the 100th anniversary of Suntory Whisky, the Hakushu canned highball goes on sale June 6th, 2023, for 600 yen a pop. 

And if you’re willing to fork over the cash, the special 100th anniversary edition bottles of Yamazaki and Hakushu, as well as the 12-year-aged versions of both, go on the market this April for a limited time. Be warned – as one attendee bravely noted, bottles from Suntory’s premium whisky lines are notoriously difficult and expensive to acquire, and I can’t imagine these will be any easier. 

That may be the lasting legacy of Suntory– a whisky for any occasion, for anyone. The highball is the everyman’s cocktail. Simple, delicious, and versatile. And when you drink one, something magical happens: you get more interested in the star of the cocktail. You start to look for the best whiskies, you start to build preferences. 

With the help of the humble highball, whisky culture flourishes. Suntory is free to go off and invent meticulously blended premium whiskies, ready to be received by a public with a newfound appreciation for the drink. And it helps that the quality of Suntory’s most accessible (read: cheapest) whiskies are still leagues above anything I’ve ever skimmed off my father’s emergency bourbon stash. Imagine how good the good stuff is.

Their premium whisky, painstakingly crafted with what the pamphlet describes as among the best water in Japan, using carefully selected malt, surrounded by dense, lush, forest, literally serenaded by birdsong (there’s a bird sanctuary at the Hakushu distillery where they feed the birds surplus grains)…I forgot where that sentence was going. That’s how good it is. 

Suntory celebrates its 100th anniversary this year. May many more follow.

Samurai play soccer and other fairy tales: Japan and the world cup

by Kaori Shoji

When the professional soccer league of Japan aka ‘J-League’ officially came into existence in 1993 it was a huge deal. Suddenly, everyone was talking about rules and bandying about phrases like ‘offside’ and ‘middle shoot.’ Suddenly, soccer players – from 13-year olds dutifully kicking the ball around on their school grounds during their extra-curriculars, to bona fide club players with their own harem of groupies (that’s what they were called back then) – were sizzling hot. Everyone it seems, wanted to be them, date them or use them for some kind of leverage. In the early naughts an older co-worker sidled up to me one afternoon in the company corridor and told me with a mix of swagger and sincerity that if I played my cards right, ie., slept with him–he was willing to take me to a J-league game. We could watch Kazuyoshi Miura who at the time, was playing for Vissel Kobe. I recall taking a full 2 minutes before coming to my senses and declining politely. What can I say, tickets for a J-League game were impossible to get and prohibitively expensive. Two minutes mulling it over was allowed, right? 

Kazuyoshi Miura’s name still strikes a chord with many Japanese regardless of their level of soccer passion. In our collective consciousness he was the first Japanese guy to leave these shores on his own and make a lasting, positive impact on the international pitch. 

Captain Tsubasa was the ideal Japanese soccer athlete in old Japan. “The ball is my friend.”

Now, more than 300 Japanese players are spread out over 57 nations across the globe. Seventy-four of them play for Europe’s most prestigious clubs. Nearly every one of them are English speakers and a sizable number can even give interviews. Not so in the 1990s when Miura was making his presence felt. Japanese men’s reputation overseas was dismal. They were deemed bad at communication, self-assertion, personal grooming. They hovered between bad and awful on the dating scale. Japanese soccer was dismal. The team seemed to have little strategy other than passing the ball around like a hot potato, waiting for something to give. It wasn’t until 1998 that Japan qualified to play in the World Cup. In 2002 when the host countries were Japan and South Korea, we made it to the knockout stage for the first time ever. 

Miura enjoyed being called ‘Kazu’ for most of his career but for the past decade he has insisted on the alias of ‘King Kazu.’ At 55, he’s the world’s oldest professional player and has a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records. Last year he scored a goal in a J-1 match, among players less than half his age. 

Miura was the first Japanese soccer player with guts and bravado and a mouth to match his outsized ego. At his favorite cafe in Omotesando, the baristas have strict orders to inscribe ‘King Kazu’ on his customized lattes and god forbid they should ever forget. He never had the suave sophistication of Cristiano Ronaldo but he knew what it meant to be assertive on the global stage, how being hot was almost the equivalent of having talent, on or off the pitch. Kazu was the first Japanese male to show us that the worth of a Japanese male didn’t have to be found in stupidly long working hours but having a good time and looking great. His message was electrifying and soccer fans or not, we were hooked. 

Fast forward to 2022 and the World Cup in Qatar. If you’re anything like me the World Cup takes over a huge chunk of your waking hours or in this case, the hours (12 midnight and 4AM specifically) when people are usually in their beds. The day after a Japan game, the people I met at work walked around like zombies, bumping into file cabinets and yawning behind their masks. We would rub our eyes, laugh together and share that special rush of adrenaline shared by soccer fans. We won! We won! 

Call it escapism, defeatism, a refusal to face my personal problems. Call it what the hell you like, just don’t come between me and my game. When it comes to soccer, my mindset is similar to Renton’s in  Trainspotting when he says “Whew! I haven’t felt that good since Archie Gimmell scored against Holland in 1978!” 

I only know Archie Gimmell from news archives but I feel the exact say way about Ritsu Doan who, on December 1st 2022, scored a goal against Spain that ultimately led Japan to the knock out stage. Spain! Let me repeat, that’s Spain, the country that won the World Cup in 2010 and owns the best club teams in the world. And before that, in the first game in the group league, Japan beat Germany in what can only be described as a miraculous wet dream come true. 

That kind of rush is rare though it’s just a thin trickle of joy compared to how Doan felt when he scored that goal. In a time-freeze, parallel, reincarnated universe (I have no idea what this means other than it sounds right) I am a 24-year old Japanese soccer player, beautiful and slender, with dyed blonde hair and no tattoos and impeccable locker room manners and a disarming, lopsided smile I reserve for my girlfriend and mom. 

I don’t see myself as a forward. No, I think I’m a center mid-fielder who shoots out like a star when the going gets tough and work my magic to turn the game around. I am there, in Qatar. Every single fiber of my body is concentrating on the ball and the geometry of connecting the passes to outwit the enemy, pushing the game to gain a little more distance and secure a little more space. I can feel every stride of my long legs as the ball jumps and rolls just a few feet away. I can hear the crowds scream and cheer in ecstasy. It’s in this moment that I know – there is nothing else than this and nothing else matters. I know, with a shock of unwavering certainty, that this is what I exist for and what I’m meant to do with my one wild and precious life. 

Of course I know it’s futile to try and coax non-soccer enthusiasts to enter this zone. Jake Adelstein, who owns and runs this site and who very, very reluctantly agreed to assign this essay, said: “Who cares about the World Cup? I think it’s a sham. You better hand this in before the year is out because in a few more weeks it will be a distant memory, if that.”  (Editor’s note: Did this happen in the same year as the 2020 Olympics? I can’t remember anymore)

But. And still. My retort is that if the World Cup is a sham, it’s a gorgeous one. Let me turn a blind eye to the white supremacist bullshit that reigns inside FIFA despite the fact that the majority of the most talented players are people of color. Or the fact that Qatar built its stadiums literally on the backs of imported slave laborers and has a financial vice-grip on some of Europe’s most revered club teams. Or that events like the World Cup and the Olympics are notorious for leaving behind a legacy of corrupted officials and ecological disasters. Football is a bad match with anything else. Any discussion other than the game and the players can lead to violence or destroyed relationships. 

As a Japanese, I’m privileged in that my country’s brand of soccer has been linked more to pop culture than politics. To the majority of Japanese over 15 and under 60, soccer will always be tied to the manga/anime series Captain Tsubasa penned by Yoichi Takahashi, in which the sweet, clear-eyed titular characters’s signature line is: “The ball is my friend!” After delivering this line Tsubasa runs onto a pitch that’s always green, under a sky that’s forever blue and cloudless. 

(Editor’s note: “The ball is my friend“? Only makes sense if Tsubasa had monorchism, or a terrbile soccer injury?)

Captain Tsubasa convinced generations of Japanese kids that playing soccer was a worthy life endeavor if not the only thing in their lives that will remain pure and unsullied well into adulthood. That’s a mirage in the desert but I know more than a few men who refer to  CTsubasa as the series is affectionately called, as the one manga that saved them in their darkest hours. 

With the World Cup in Qatar it was  Blue Lock, the definitive modern soccer manga now turned into an anime series, that so far has sold over 16 million copies. “Blue Lock” is much more attuned to today’s soccer and the World Cup than Captain Tsubasa–less innocent and more pragmatic. The author Muneyuki Kinjyo stresses that soccer calls for only one thing: victory. And for Japan to get past the knockout stage, the team must want that win and sacrifice everything to get it, even their personal integrity. This stuff moves me to tears, in much the same way that Maya Yoshida, captain of the Japan team, said in an interview after the win over Germany: “We’re here to win. That’s all we’re thinking about right now.” 

For many Japanese, soccer and soccer manga run together on the same pitch. The teams and players blur and blend into each other in a glorious, nerdy, pop-culture experience that has nothing to do with Hollywood and everything to do with growing up in Japan. This is ours. And we’ve finally come to a point where it’s okay to let it all hang out. 

https://blogs.loc.gov/catbird/2019/01/mary-olivers-wild-and-precious-life/https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/ブルーロックhttps://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/キャプテン翼