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#5 Platform: Tokyo Vice
Dec. 8th, 2012 01:53 amUnsurprisingly, there are quite a lot of them.
Book #48: Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan
Author: Jake Adelstein
Provenance: Bought from... uh... somewhere. Chapters Online, I think?
There's something to be said for firsts, even if the only thing to be said there is that you can probably get a book out of that first if it's notable enough. Fortunately, that's not all that Jake Adelstein has going for him in Tokyo Vice - the story itself is also quite good. Adelstein was the first white reporter for the Japanese edition of the Yomiuri Shimbun, the biggest and most prestigious newspaper in Japan. Adelstein takes us from his first moment of deciding to try to join the newspaper and the employment process, through learning to be a police reporter in Saitama, before moving into Tokyo and taking on life in the big city. There's a good amount in here in the early parts of people reacting to this white Jewish guy from Missouri showing up as a reporter, but as Adelstein gets more accustomed to his job, the stories of being a reporter and the more lurid side of Japan come forward more. And in the end, Adelstein ends up pursuing a story regarding the #1 yakuza in Japan at the time, and his work leads him to receive death threats. (Note: this is the prologue of the book, and thus not a spoiler.)
A lot of this sounds fairly typical of these sorts of guy-makes-the-beat-and-then-gets-in-over-his-head stories, I suppose, but it's really done well here, and there are a lot of details that make the story quite fascinating, at least if you're interested in Japan stuff. The workplace scenes at the newspaper at the beginning, as he learns about his coworkers and how things are done, how to build up contacts and what goes into keeping them are well-observed, and then later on, when we hear about life in the Tokyo red-light district, it's sobering and harsh, but presented clearly and with the viewpoint of the police contact telling Adelstein about it. I have to say, I really did quite like the writing. It had a lot of impact - funny when it was supposed to be, disturbing and horrifying on call, and then always clear. As I suppose befits a journalist.
It sounds odd to say, but I liked a lot of the characters (or real people) in the book, and particularly Adelstein's mentor, and the Alien Cop. But I really did like the way Adelstein himself slowly and subtly changed over the course of the book, from someone who was doing this because it seemed interesting and he wanted a job in Japan, but whose Japanese wasn't really that great and was clearly an outsider, to someone who knew lots of the connections in organized crime and became so part of Japan that he couldn't really go undercover as a foreigner anymore. And it helps, then, this dual inside/outside status, when he gets involved in investigations of human trafficking in the last parts of the book - the real, horrible record of it in Japan, and his connection to and feelings towards the women involved leading to breaking him down, and roughening his methods. It's all well done, and informative.
On the whole, Tokyo Vice was a fairly fast, engaging read, with a good amount of informative kick, and an interesting, ground-breaking lead to follow. It's definitely worth a read if you're into Japan stuff, or if you like newspaper or crime stories. There's a lot here to offer, and while it's not always enjoyable, I don't think you'd regret trying it.
Next up: Hmmm. A Terrible Splendor, perhaps. We'll see.
Book #48: Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan
Author: Jake Adelstein
Provenance: Bought from... uh... somewhere. Chapters Online, I think?
There's something to be said for firsts, even if the only thing to be said there is that you can probably get a book out of that first if it's notable enough. Fortunately, that's not all that Jake Adelstein has going for him in Tokyo Vice - the story itself is also quite good. Adelstein was the first white reporter for the Japanese edition of the Yomiuri Shimbun, the biggest and most prestigious newspaper in Japan. Adelstein takes us from his first moment of deciding to try to join the newspaper and the employment process, through learning to be a police reporter in Saitama, before moving into Tokyo and taking on life in the big city. There's a good amount in here in the early parts of people reacting to this white Jewish guy from Missouri showing up as a reporter, but as Adelstein gets more accustomed to his job, the stories of being a reporter and the more lurid side of Japan come forward more. And in the end, Adelstein ends up pursuing a story regarding the #1 yakuza in Japan at the time, and his work leads him to receive death threats. (Note: this is the prologue of the book, and thus not a spoiler.)
A lot of this sounds fairly typical of these sorts of guy-makes-the-beat-and-then-gets-in-over-his-head stories, I suppose, but it's really done well here, and there are a lot of details that make the story quite fascinating, at least if you're interested in Japan stuff. The workplace scenes at the newspaper at the beginning, as he learns about his coworkers and how things are done, how to build up contacts and what goes into keeping them are well-observed, and then later on, when we hear about life in the Tokyo red-light district, it's sobering and harsh, but presented clearly and with the viewpoint of the police contact telling Adelstein about it. I have to say, I really did quite like the writing. It had a lot of impact - funny when it was supposed to be, disturbing and horrifying on call, and then always clear. As I suppose befits a journalist.
It sounds odd to say, but I liked a lot of the characters (or real people) in the book, and particularly Adelstein's mentor, and the Alien Cop. But I really did like the way Adelstein himself slowly and subtly changed over the course of the book, from someone who was doing this because it seemed interesting and he wanted a job in Japan, but whose Japanese wasn't really that great and was clearly an outsider, to someone who knew lots of the connections in organized crime and became so part of Japan that he couldn't really go undercover as a foreigner anymore. And it helps, then, this dual inside/outside status, when he gets involved in investigations of human trafficking in the last parts of the book - the real, horrible record of it in Japan, and his connection to and feelings towards the women involved leading to breaking him down, and roughening his methods. It's all well done, and informative.
On the whole, Tokyo Vice was a fairly fast, engaging read, with a good amount of informative kick, and an interesting, ground-breaking lead to follow. It's definitely worth a read if you're into Japan stuff, or if you like newspaper or crime stories. There's a lot here to offer, and while it's not always enjoyable, I don't think you'd regret trying it.
Next up: Hmmm. A Terrible Splendor, perhaps. We'll see.
