5 ms·

Yeah, the first time I went to Tokyo I was excited to see that the train to/from the airport would be passing through Chiba. When we got there I thought: "Huh.

Yeah, the first time I went to Tokyo I was excited to see that the train to/from the airport would be passing through Chiba. When we got there I thought: "Huh. Not what I was expecting." There is a passage in the book with a potential explanation: “There were countless theories explaining why Chiba City tolerated the Ninsei enclave, but Case tended toward the idea that the Yakuza might be preserving the place as a kind of historical park, a reminder of humble origins.” But I've never been able to find a corroborated connection between Chiba and the Yakuza, though the extent of my looking has been nothing more than some desultory google searches.

thematrixturtle 4y ago
The yakuza are more active in southern Japan, particularly Kobe and Kyushu, than in Tokyo, although they can certainly still be found in the nightlife districts. In general, they're also far less powerful than breathless Western reporting (including Gibson's portrayal) tends to make them out to be, in part thanks to a persistent multi-decade police crackdown.
- afiori 4y ago
  if it is anything to go by (probably not), most Yakuza stories in mangas are about collapsed clans surviving or waning organizations trying to rebuild a mafia rule
- jinto36 4y ago
  They mostly run construction companies now, an industry where there's been a wild amount of corruption for a long time- in part why most rivers have completely unnecessary concrete banks, ostensibly for "flood control". See "Dogs and Demons" by Alex Kerr (http://alex-kerr.com/html/dogs___demons__english_.html http://alex-kerr.com/html/dogs___demons__english_.html). Anecdotally, I know someone who owned a house in Okazaki (a city outside of Nagoya). Someone decided they wanted the land for a construction project, so they resorted to threats to get him to move- such as smashing his car windows. No way that was a random punk smashing windows- when I lived in Okazaki, a defaced public bathroom would make the local news. Classic Yakuza tactic, and unfortunately he ended up moving because of it.
  - ehnto 4y ago
    That's fascinating, there was certainly no shortage of concrete in the places I visited in Japan. I got to wondering just how much concrete dust must be in the river sediment.
aa-jv 4y ago
I always felt like Gibson was describing Sega City or Odaiba instead of 'enclaves near Chiba' .. Odaiba in particular 'feels' more like what he intended for the neighborhood, and its kind of in the same direction, relative to Ginza and central Tokyo ..
- rasz 4y ago
  He wasnt describing anything, as he never saw those places until 1988. https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0752/7/1/9/htm https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0752/7/1/9/htm Transpacific Cyberpunk: Transgeneric Interactions between Prose, Cinema, and Manga "Chronologically speaking, the moment Gibson shifts emphasis from cyberspace to junkyard was noticed when he paid the first visit to Japan in the winter of 1988. Celebrating the completion of the Cyberspace Trilogy, we had a welcome party for him at an ethnic restaurant called Sunda located just in front of NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) in Jinnan, Shibuya ward, Tokyo" just like he didnt know anything about computers while writing about cyberspace https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/11/william-gibson-i-was-losing-a-sense-of-how-weird-the-real-world-was https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/11/william-gibson... “I was actually able to write Neuromancer because I didn’t know anything about computers,” he says. “I knew literally nothing. What I did was deconstruct the poetics of the language of people who were already working in the field. I’d stand in the hotel bar at the Seattle science fiction convention listening to these guys who were the first computer programmers I ever saw talk about their work. I had no idea what they were talking about, but that was the first time that I ever heard the word ‘interface’ used as a verb. And I swooned. Wow, that’s a verb. Seriously, poetically that was wonderful."
  - ethbr0 4y ago
    Gibson can be... flexible with history in interviews. Especially when it's a good PR blurb. E.g. the typewriter story that far outlived reality. The truth when he says "I didn't know anything about computers" is probably more akin to "I didn't personally use computers. I did conduct deep and comprehensive research on their characteristics and use by others." When he was blogging for All Tomorrow's Parties, the amount of esoterica and research he apparently read every day was staggering.

thematrixturtle 4y ago

The yakuza are more active in southern Japan, particularly Kobe and Kyushu, than in Tokyo, although they can certainly still be found in the nightlife districts. In general, they're also far less powerful than breathless Western reporting (including Gibson's portrayal) tends to make them out to be, in part thanks to a persistent multi-decade police crackdown.

afiori 4y ago
if it is anything to go by (probably not), most Yakuza stories in mangas are about collapsed clans surviving or waning organizations trying to rebuild a mafia rule
jinto36 4y ago
They mostly run construction companies now, an industry where there's been a wild amount of corruption for a long time- in part why most rivers have completely unnecessary concrete banks, ostensibly for "flood control". See "Dogs and Demons" by Alex Kerr (http://alex-kerr.com/html/dogs___demons__english_.html http://alex-kerr.com/html/dogs___demons__english_.html). Anecdotally, I know someone who owned a house in Okazaki (a city outside of Nagoya). Someone decided they wanted the land for a construction project, so they resorted to threats to get him to move- such as smashing his car windows. No way that was a random punk smashing windows- when I lived in Okazaki, a defaced public bathroom would make the local news. Classic Yakuza tactic, and unfortunately he ended up moving because of it.
- ehnto 4y ago
  That's fascinating, there was certainly no shortage of concrete in the places I visited in Japan. I got to wondering just how much concrete dust must be in the river sediment.

aa-jv 4y ago

I always felt like Gibson was describing Sega City or Odaiba instead of 'enclaves near Chiba' .. Odaiba in particular 'feels' more like what he intended for the neighborhood, and its kind of in the same direction, relative to Ginza and central Tokyo ..

rasz 4y ago
He wasnt describing anything, as he never saw those places until 1988. https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0752/7/1/9/htm https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0752/7/1/9/htm Transpacific Cyberpunk: Transgeneric Interactions between Prose, Cinema, and Manga "Chronologically speaking, the moment Gibson shifts emphasis from cyberspace to junkyard was noticed when he paid the first visit to Japan in the winter of 1988. Celebrating the completion of the Cyberspace Trilogy, we had a welcome party for him at an ethnic restaurant called Sunda located just in front of NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) in Jinnan, Shibuya ward, Tokyo" just like he didnt know anything about computers while writing about cyberspace https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/11/william-gibson-i-was-losing-a-sense-of-how-weird-the-real-world-was https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/11/william-gibson... “I was actually able to write Neuromancer because I didn’t know anything about computers,” he says. “I knew literally nothing. What I did was deconstruct the poetics of the language of people who were already working in the field. I’d stand in the hotel bar at the Seattle science fiction convention listening to these guys who were the first computer programmers I ever saw talk about their work. I had no idea what they were talking about, but that was the first time that I ever heard the word ‘interface’ used as a verb. And I swooned. Wow, that’s a verb. Seriously, poetically that was wonderful."
- ethbr0 4y ago
  Gibson can be... flexible with history in interviews. Especially when it's a good PR blurb. E.g. the typewriter story that far outlived reality. The truth when he says "I didn't know anything about computers" is probably more akin to "I didn't personally use computers. I did conduct deep and comprehensive research on their characteristics and use by others." When he was blogging for All Tomorrow's Parties, the amount of esoterica and research he apparently read every day was staggering.