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The world of Yakuza fan magazines (2009)
- xrd 3y agoThis is tangentially related but fascinating. A terrific movie called Minbo came out in Japan thirty or so years ago. It's about the Yakuza and not very flattering. The director was stabbed at the premier. Then, later, died of suicide in very suspicious circumstances. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minbo https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minbo All his movies were terrific.
- instagib 3y agoA former member of the Goto-gumi recounted the murder as follows: "We set it up to stage his murder as a suicide. We dragged him up to the rooftop and put a gun in his face. We gave him a choice: jump and you might live or stay and we'll blow your face off. He jumped. He didn't live." Looks like it’s available on justwatch which I’ve never heard of . 20-30+ year old movies are hard to find. https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/minbo-the-gentle-art-of-japanese-extortion https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/minbo-the-gentle-art-of-j...
- xrd 3y agoIt's really good. Good find.
- PyWoody 3y agoThe Criterion Channel is a treasure trove for old and obscure movies. It's the only streaming service I'll never cancel.
- pandemic_region 3y agoAs a European, I weep everytime Criterion channel is mentioned :-(
- dbspin 3y agoUse a VPN to set up an account. Then you can use EU wide without a VPN. Doesn't require US credit card. You're welcome :)
- pandemic_region 3y agoThat actually works? They don't detect and counter common VPN providers? What about the bandwidth, can you stream hd over it?
- spondyl 3y agoJustWatch isn't a streaming service to be clear. It's a directory of where you can stream any given movie/series in your region, if available at all.
- neurostimulant 3y agoSomeone uploaded it to archive.org: https://archive.org/search?query=minbo&and%5B%5D=mediatype%3A%22movies%22 https://archive.org/search?query=minbo&and%5B%5D=mediatype%3...
- realityloop 3y agoIt’s available on Archive.org https://archive.org/details/MinboOrTheGentleArtOfJapaneseExtortion https://archive.org/details/MinboOrTheGentleArtOfJapaneseExt...
- PyWoody 3y agoWow, he directed Tampopo. That's hard to mentally reconcile for me. I'll have to check it out. Thanks for the suggestion!
- heyoni 3y agoI know. That movie is kinda wholesome in comparison.
- saiya-jin 3y ago> It satirizes the yakuza, who retaliated for their portrayal in the film by killing the director. They did kill him, and even admitted that later.
- swayvil 3y ago>Myway Publishing is ceasing publication of Gekkan Jitsuwa Document, a monthly tabloid that covers (and caters to) Japan’s organized crime members. The last issue (May) will hit newsstands on March 29. (2017) So ya. I would have subscribed tho.
- IndrekR 3y ago(2009)
- dang 3y agoAdded. Thanks!
- andrewljohnson 3y agoYou can watch a fictional(ized?) series (Tokyo Vice) about and produced by the author Jake Adelstein on HBO. I’ve watched the first season, season 2 recently released.
- 15457345234 3y agoI have that book, it's interesting but it isn't a particularly enjoyable read.
- resolutebat 3y agoThat's not really an endorsement: to a first approximation, Adelstein is full of shit when it comes to all things Yakuza. He's made a career out of claiming they're super powerful and pulling strings across Japanese society, when all actual evidence indicates that they're weaker than ever and declining.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- banashark 3y agoI'd be interested in reading more about the evidence. I just watched the show and though I'm sure it's got quite a bit of embellishment, anything I've read in the past made the yakuza out to be about the level they're shown in the show (have some power within their local communities, but not much in government unless they can blackmail someone via prostitution or otherwise).
- zerocrates 3y agoThe Hollywood Reporter ran an article about it: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/tokyo-vice-problematic-source-material-1235135828/ https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/toky... Though he's disputed it. His problems with National Geographic are telling... the same year he's unable to produce any connections for their show, he's got close enough connections to "high-ranking gangster bosses" to write an article where he purportedly has them play and discuss the video game Yakuza 3: https://web.archive.org/web/20110214054056/https://boingboing.net/2010/08/10/yakuza-3-review.html https://web.archive.org/web/20110214054056/https://boingboin... (side note: this article describes him playing this game with these guys "one Thursday afternoon," having a teenager teach them to play a video game, having three separate people play this single-player game while discussing it, one of whom finishes it despite an average main story playtime of over 16 hours)
- Ajay-p 3y agoRelated, "Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan" by by Jake Adelstein is absolutely fascinating. So too is the drama produced by HBO based on the book, but I am partial to the book. Adelstein becomes friendly with the Yakuza and comes to understand them. Very eye opening.
- kurthr 3y agoJust recognize that it's highly fictionalized.
- gjkood 3y agoInteresting timing. Just watching 'Tokyo Vice'[1] on Amazon Prime now. There was an episode or two where Jake is chasing down a Yakusa Fan Magazine author to get intel on Tozawa. Amazing Show! Reminds me a bit of 'The Wire'. 1. https://www.amazon.com/Tokyo-Vice-Season-1/dp/B0B73QR4TM https://www.amazon.com/Tokyo-Vice-Season-1/dp/B0B73QR4TM
- echelon_musk 3y agoIf you haven't finished the show yet then it's still enjoyable. Personally, I was extremely frustrated by how much they stretched the episodes and for it to have ended with the possibility of another season. If they cut 2 episodes and concluded it as a single mini series then it could have been great.
- mdorazio 3y agoSeason 2 already started (episode 3 aired this week). I'm with you, though, thinking it's getting stretched out.
- Mphetbug 3y ago[flagged]
- hansonpeter 3y ago[dead]
- Beijinger 3y agoIchi the killer :-)
- itsthecourier 3y agoJake Adelstein, the author, just released his best book to date in my opinion: the last Yakuza https://a.co/d/gsAFYw8 https://a.co/d/gsAFYw8 Yakuza are disappearing, the government drowned them in forms, fines, imprisonment and attacked their supporters
- whacko_quacko 3y agoAs Lord Vetinari remarked so succinctly: > If you're going to have crime, it may as well be organised.
- Animats 3y agoThe real world version: Meyer Lansky.[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meyer_Lansky https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meyer_Lansky
- lukan 3y agoNot the same I think. In your example mobsters organized themself for more power. Terry Pretchets fictional Lord Vetinari formaly and officially organized the crime to tame them and have them under state control.
- zoklet-enjoyer 3y agoFEDS magazine is probably the closest US equivalent https://youtu.be/-KYMn8Pwygw https://youtu.be/-KYMn8Pwygw
- prettywoman 3y agoI really hate that people glorificate ilegal activity. I'm from Mexico and now we've a big problem with Cartels, people can't work because cartels extortion them, and now they commit terrorist acts to civilian towns with dronebombs. That's not cool, but in Mexico there are also Narco corridos, that glorificates narcotrafic. It sucks, there are no place for criminal in a civilized country. They have to be hated not loved. Also >evil foreign criminals Like who?
- beebeepka 3y agoWhile I can see your frustration, what if the government suddenly made something you do illegal. Ever considered that one? Maybe legalization would be better for society, though who's going to reap the profits appears to be the main driving factor.
- astrange 3y agoJapan is just about the least likely country to glorify illegal activity there is. I'm not sure they'd even understand the concept half the time. It's a problem for their soft power because it means they can't do any of the cool music genres. How can you have metal bands or rappers if none of them are allowed to do drugs or commit any crimes? (If there's a hint any musician knows what a marijuana leaf might look like they and all their work get instantly deleted entirely from society. Although they do let music producers sexually abuse all the talents they can get their hands on.)
- williamdclt 3y ago> How can you have metal bands or rappers if none of them are allowed to do drugs or commit any crimes? Drugs and crime aren't really in the metal imagery, I'm not convinced it's the explanation (also I don't think metal culture has ever really been significant soft power, always been too niche)
- astrange 3y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Norwegian_black_metal_scene#Church_arsons_and_attempts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Norwegian_black_metal_sc...
- galaxyLogic 3y ago[flagged]
- ptsneves 3y agoThank you for putting it eloquently. I never found where my extreme dislike came from, now I know. They are organisations whose purpose is to destroy the individual by violence to propel a hierarchy with a single individual at the top. Even the fake conservatism is there, which can also be visible in Mexican drug cartels. A pox on them all.
- kmeisthax 3y agoI mean, that's literally how Hitler got his start in politics. A disturbingly large number of criminal organizations form on racial lines and hold explicit racial supremacist views. There's white supremacists, black supremacists[0], MS-13, and so on. Religious divisions are also fertile soil for crime; that's how you get all the Islamofascist terrorists[1] like Al-Qaeda, ISIS, Boko Haram, and so on. We don't usually think of any of these groups actually becoming the government, but it's entirely possible for this to happen (e.g. with the Taliban). Going the other way you have police organizations like NYPD, LAPD, or LASD that are exercising sovereign power without oversight. They aren't explicitly racist, but are easily infiltrated by white supremacists who are part of gangs. In the case of the LASD, they have so many gangs in them there's a dedicated Wikipedia page for it[2]. It's easy to miss out on this because, for the most part, gangs are the Scary Other that your local white supremacist is using to make racial minorities look more threatening. That's because fascists have two kinds of enemies: their stated enemies - i.e. other races; and their de facto enemies - i.e. liberals who don't want a perpetual race war. Fascists will shout and scream about MS-13 or Islamists by day, while breaking bread with them by night. Because they are ultimately plotting the same thing: how to steal your money, your livelihood, your freedom, and your life. [0] I have a friend who calls Louis Farrakhan "Blitler". [1] Christofascist terrorism is not a matter of if, but when. [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_LASD_deputy_gangs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_LASD_deputy_gangs
- beebeepka 3y agoGreat post, though I am somewhat puzzled by the omission of self proclaimed "liberals" that somehow managed to infest much of the web. They are pretty much an exact replica of what we usually call fascists. It's likely that both groups are operated by the same forces.
- thriftwy 3y agoWe now know that mafias are endorsed by the (deep) state. This is after the situation in Salvador where the government has apparently jailed every single gang member and murder rates fell to average Latin American rates. If Japan wanted Yakuza to go they would just put all of them behind bars.
- astrange 3y agoJapan does want the yakuza to go and has plenty better ways to do it than imprisoning people.
- rishab1 3y agoTokyo vice is awesome!
- SapporoChris 3y agoThe article seems to glorify Yakuza. However, most sources indicate Yakuza are in decline. "but by 2022 it had only 11,400 members and 11,000 quasi-members." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakuza https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakuza and https://web.archive.org/web/20230329161113/https://www.npa.go.jp/sosikihanzai/R04sotaijousei/R4jousei.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20230329161113/https://www.npa.g... Can find plenty of other articles on internet showing the same trend. By way of comparison, https://www.insideprison.com/regional_gang_activity_county.asp?ID=1892 https://www.insideprison.com/regional_gang_activity_county.a... indicates about 20k gang members in NYC alone.
- adrianN 3y ago> A tasteful photo spread features Yamaguchi-gumi members making their first annual visit to a hatsumode, a Shinto shrine, and pounding rice cakes A hatsumode is not a Shinto shrine, but the first visit to a shrine on New Years. Getting this wrong makes me doubt the rest of this article.
- johnea 3y agoAs mentioned in several other comments, the numbers of yakuza members have reduced significantly in the 25 years since this article was published. An often unmentioned aspect of these gangs is that many people end up in them due to the ongoing discrimination against Japanese people of buraku descent: https://www.kcpinternational.com/2021/09/the-burakumin-of-japan/ https://www.kcpinternational.com/2021/09/the-burakumin-of-ja... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakuza#Burakumin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakuza#Burakumin The buraku are not genetically distinct from other yamato Japanese, they were just stigmatized due to buddhist concepts of "impurity", and an effort to replicate the "untouchable" practices of India while importing buddhism. As such, in the modern world, they often had little other opportunity in life outside of yakuza membership. Many yakuza practices are violent and abusive, and I don't want to offer any apologetics for those practices. But like a lot of discussion of crime, the root cause (mostly poverty) is often overlooked, and the elimination of poverty and lack of opportunity downplayed as a possible solution.