Welcome to Black Tokyo!
Leo Lewis, Asia Business Correspondent reports, Japan’s powerful yakuza organised crime syndicates are mounting a widespread assault on the country’s financial markets that may have left hundreds of listed companies riddled with mob connections.
In a surprisingly stark admission, the National Police Agency (NPA) says that it is locked in a battle for [...]

Here is an interesting post from Japan Subculture:
I was knocking back drinks with a former bodyguard in the Yamaguchigumi, and it was raining outside.
He is about fifty years old, six feet five, and has arms that are bigger than my legs.
I was sitting on the tatami listening to the rain outside, and while he lit [...]

A very interesting case. I am surprised that the citizens stepped up. Will others across Japan follow suit?
FUKUOKA–About 600 residents in Kurume, Fukuoka Prefecture, filed a petition for a temporary injunction Monday at the Kurume branch of the Fukuoka District Court that will stop the Dojin-kai crime syndicate from using its headquarters in the city.
According [...]

My previous posts on the yakuza and certain illegal activities have received many hits on the blog and Google search. The interesting article below gives additional insight into one of Tokyo’s most popular nightspots, Roppongi:
TOKYO - Given Tokyo’s well-earned reputation as a metropolis of concrete, vacant lots typically do not stay empty for long. But the [...]

BT reader, Kikiandlala, informed me that the The Japan Times reported:
” U.S. federal prosecutors have charged a former Japanese citizen who is now a captain in the U.S. Army with conspiring to export military equipment to Japan without obtaining U.S. government approval.
Capt. Tomoaki Iishiba, 34, who served as an intelligence liaison officer at Fort Lewis in Washington [...]

Okay, the picture got your attention! This is a Japan promo shot for the movie Black Snake Moan. Although the movie and the two models in the picture have nothing to do with human trafficking in Japan, a picture is still worth a 1000 words.
Japan is a destination and transit country for men, women,   [...]

I have spent most of the past 15 years in the dark side of the rising sun. Until three years ago, I was a crime reporter for the Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan’s largest newspaper, and covered a roster of characters that included serial killers who doubled as pet breeders, child pornographers who abducted junior high-school girls, [...]

I had the pleasure to meet Ikue Shingu (Lecturer in Japanese, Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and Junko Hatanaka (Lecturer in Japanese, The University of Texas at Austin) at the American Council of Teacher’s of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) a few months ago. We discussed their website for learning the Kansai dialect of Japanese. As a linguist, [...]