Download or read book Confessions of a Yakuza written by Dr. Junichi Saga and published by Kodansha USA. This book was released on 2010-08-05 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the true story, as told to the doctor who looked after him just before he died, of the life of one of the last traditional yakuza in Japan. It wasn’t a "good" life, in either sense of the word, but it was an adventurous one; and the tale he has to tell presents an honest and oddly attractive picture of an insider in that separate, unofficial world. In his low, hoarse voice, he describes the random events that led the son of a prosperous country shopkeeper to become a member, and ultimately the leader, of a gang organizing illegal dice games in Tokyo's liveliest entertainment area. He talks about his first police raid, and the brutal interrogation and imprisonment that followed it. He remembers his first love affair, and the girl he ran away with, and the weeks they spent wandering about the countryside together. Briefly, and matter-of-factly, he describes how he cut off the little finger of his left hand as a ritual gesture of apology. He explains how the games were run and the profits spent; why the ties between members of "the brotherhood" were so important; and how he came to kill a man who worked for him. What emerges is a contradictory personality: tough but not unsentimental; stubborn yet willing to take life more or less as it comes; impulsive but careful to observe the rules of the business he had joined. And in the end, when his tale is finished, you feel you would probably have liked him if you'd met him in person. Fortunately, Dr. Saga's record of his long conversations with him provides a wonderful substitute for that meeting.
Download or read book Confessions of a Yakuza written by Junichi Saga and published by Kodansha International. This book was released on 1995 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Read the tale of murder and unexpected compassion which influenced Bobylan's 2001 song "Floater", this is a true-life saga of one of the lastraditional gang bosses in Japan.
Download or read book Yakuza written by David E. Kaplan and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2003-02 with total page 438 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A fascinating study of how criminal enterprise can infect the very heart of modern capitalism. Here is the backstage world of political influence and organized crime in the world's second largest economy... by far the most detailed and even-handed study of this important and neglected subject."—John W. Dower, author of Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II Reviews of original edition: "A superb study of Japan's underworld that is both entertaining and revealing. The authors miss none of the color and curious detail of the yakuza style, but at the same time go far beyond surface observations."—Far Eastern Economic Review "The book is laden with fascinating information, some of it heretofore unavailable in English."—Washington Post "Blend the Mafia with the Masons. Let them simmer a while, then fold in the Ku Klux Klan and you'll have the yakuza…. Important and timely…Yakuza will serve for years as the source document on Japanese organized crime."—San Jose Mercury News "State-of-the-art investigative reporting…must reading for those who consider themselves already highly conversant with yakuza activities…disturbing."—Journal of Asian Studies
Download or read book Yakuza Moon written by Shoko Tendo and published by Kodansha USA. This book was released on 2010-07-15 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Yakuza Moon is the shocking, yet intensely moving memoir of 37-yearold Shoko Tendo, who grew up the daughter of a yakuza boss. Tendo lived her life in luxury until the age of six, when her father was sent to prison, and her family fell into terrible debt. Bullied by classmates who called her "the yakuza girl," and terrorized at home by a father who became a drunken, violent monster after his release from prison, Tendo rebelled. A regular visitor to nightclubs at the age of 12, she soon became a drug addict and a member of a girl gang. By the age of 15 she found herself sentenced to eight months in a juvenile detention center. Adulthood brought big bucks and glamour when Tendo started working as a bar hostess during Japan’s booming bubble economy of the nineteen- eighties. But among her many rich and loyal patrons there were also abusive clients, one of whom beat her so badly that her face was left permanently scarred. When her mother died, Tendo plunged into such a deep depression that she tried to commit suicide twice. Tendo takes us through the bad times with warmth and candor, and gives a moving and inspiring account of how she overcame a lifetime of discrimination and hardship. Getting tattooed, from the base of her neck to the tips of her toes, with a design centered on a geisha with a dagger in her mouth, was an act that empowered her to start making changes in her life. She quit her job as a hostess. On her last day at the bar she looked up at the full moon, a sight she never forgot. The moon became a symbol of her struggle to become whole, and the title of the book she wrote as an epitaph for herself and her family.
Download or read book Memories of Silk and Straw written by Junichi Saga and published by Kodansha Amer Incorporated. This book was released on 1990 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over 50 reminiscences of pre-modern Japan. This book presents an illustrationf a way of life that has virtually disappeared.
Download or read book Confessions of a Yakuza written by and published by . This book was released on 1991 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Toppamono written by Miyazaki Manabu and published by Tuttle Publishing. This book was released on 2005-06-15 with total page 488 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shot, stabbed, and beaten, Miyazaki Manabu somehow emerged intact from his first fifty years to put his astonishing life story down on paper. Born the son of a yakuza boss in 1945, he grew up in a household of gang members and social misfits before his conversion to Marxism launched him into the violent world of 1960s student radicalism. After dropping out of university and spending a brief sojourn in South America, he became a reporter on a fast-rising weekly magazine. Called back home to Kyoto to take over the family demolition business, he was plunged into a maelstrom of bankruptcy and debt, forcing him to raise funds however he could. Along the way, he became the chief suspect in one of Japan's most sensational criminal cases----still unsolved----before getting caught up in the crazy years of Japan's bubble economy, when land speculators tipped their favorite bar hostesses millions of yen and Dom Perignon flowed like water. More than just one man's incredible story, unflinchingly told, Toppamono is a sophisticated analysis of Japan's postwar half-century that will astound and enlighten. Devastatingly critical of banks and bureaucrats, questioning of Japan's understanding of democracy, and cogent on the role played by the yakuza in Japanese society, this underground best-seller, first published in 1996, will keep you enthralled until the very last page. toppamono n: a person with a devil-may-care attitude, who pushes ahead regardless.
Download or read book Star written by Yukio Mishima and published by New Directions Publishing. This book was released on 2019-04-30 with total page 80 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the first time in English, a glittering novella about stardom from “one of the greatest avant-garde Japanese writers of the twentieth century” (Judith Thurman, The New Yorker) All eyes are on Rikio. And he likes it, mostly. His fans cheer, screaming and yelling to attract his attention—they would kill for a moment alone with him. Finally the director sets up the shot, the camera begins to roll, someone yells “action”; Rikio, for a moment, transforms into another being, a hardened young yakuza, but as soon as the shot is finished, he slumps back into his own anxieties and obsessions. Being a star, constantly performing, being watched and scrutinized as if under a microscope, is often a drag. But so is life. Written shortly after Yukio Mishima himself had acted in the film “Afraid to Die,” this novella is a rich and unflinching psychological portrait of a celebrity coming apart at the seams. With exquisite, vivid prose, Star begs the question: is there any escape from how we are seen by others?
Download or read book Tokyo Underworld written by Robert Whiting and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2010-09-29 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A riveting account of the role of Americans in the evolution of the Tokyo underworld in the years since 1945. In the ashes of postwar Japan lay a gold mine for certain opportunistic, expatriate Americans. Addicted to the volatile energy of Tokyo's freewheeling underworld, they formed ever-shifting but ever-profitable alliances with warring Japanese and Korean gangsters. At the center of this world was Nick Zappetti, an ex-marine from New York City who arrived in Tokyo in 1945, and whose restaurant soon became the rage throughout the city and the chief watering hole for celebrities, diplomats, sports figures, and mobsters. Tokyo Underworld chronicles the half-century rise and fall of the fortunes of Zappetti and his comrades, drawing parallels to the great shift of wealth from America to Japan in the late 1980s and the changes in Japanese society and U.S.-Japan relations that resulted. In doing so, Whiting exposes Japan's extraordinary "underground empire": a web of powerful alliances among crime bosses, corporate chairmen, leading politicians, and public figures. It is an amazing story told with a galvanizing blend of history and reportage.
Download or read book Yakuza Courage written by H. J. Brues and published by Dreamspinner Press LLC. This book was released on 2014-08 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Brendan's client believes a dojo is a front for a yakuza syndicate. But the dojo is protecting the client's son--until he disappears.
Download or read book Yakuza Tattoo written by Andreas Johansson and published by Dokument Forlag. This book was released on 2019-03-21 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The art of the Japanese tattoo has fascinated people across the world for decades, but in Japan they are taboo since traditional full body tattoos are associated with the Japanese mafia - the Yakuza. Yakuza Tattoo offers a unique insight into the dragons, fish and gods that form the identity of the Yakuza. While the motifs are inspired by the structure of the organisation, Japanese history and mythology, younger members tend to add a contemporary touch to their body art. Andreas Johansson visited the homes of members of the Yakuza, documenting Yakuza symbols and body art.
Download or read book McCain s Promise written by David Foster Wallace and published by Back Bay Books. This book was released on 2008-06-01 with total page 76 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is John McCain "For Real?" That's the question David Foster Wallace set out to explore when he first climbed aboard Senator McCain's campaign caravan in February 2000. It was a moment when Mccain was increasingly perceived as a harbinger of change, the anticandidate whose goal was "to inspire young Americans to devote themselves to causes greater than their own self-interest." And many young Americans were beginning to take notice. To get at "something riveting and unspinnable and true" about John Mccain, Wallace finds he must pierce the smoke screen of spin doctors and media manipulators. And he succeeds-in a characteristically potent blast of journalistic brio that not only captures the lunatic rough-and-tumble of a presidential campaign but also delivers a compelling inquiry into John McCain himself: the senator, the POW, the campaign finance reformer, the candidate, the man.
Download or read book Seppuku written by Andrew Rankin and published by Kodansha USA. This book was released on 2012-11-20 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The history of seppuku -- Japanese ritual suicide by cutting the stomach, sometimes referred to as hara-kiri -- spans a millennium, and came to be favored by samurai as an honorable form of death. Here, for the first time in English, is a book that charts the history of seppuku from ancient times to the twentieth century through a collection of swashbuckling tales from history and literature. Author Andrew Rankin takes us from the first recorded incident of seppuku, by the goddess Aomi in the eighth century, through the "golden age" of seppuku in the sixteenth century that includes the suicides of Shibata Katsuie, Sen no Riky? and Toyotomi Hidetsugu, up to the seppuku of General Nogi Maresuke in 1912. Drawing on never-before-translated medieval war tales, samurai clan documents, and execution handbooks, Rankin also provides a fascinating look at the seppuku ritual itself, explaining the correct protocol and etiquette for seppuku, different stomach-cutting procedures, types of swords, attire, location, even what kinds of refreshment should be served at the seppuku ceremony. The book ends with a collection of quotations from authors and commentators down through the centuries, summing up both the Japanese attitude toward seppuku and foreigners’ reactions: "As for when to die, make sure you are one step ahead of everyone else. Never pull back from the brink. But be aware that there are times when you should die, and times when you should not. Die at the right moment, and you will be a hero. Die at the wrong moment, and you will die like a dog." -- Izawa Nagahide, The Warrior’s Code, 1725 "We all thought, ‘These guys are some kind of nutcakes.’" — Jim Verdolini, USS Randolph, describing "Kamikaze" attack of March 11, 1945
Download or read book Mafia Organizations written by Maurizio Catino and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-02-07 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How do mafias work? How do they recruit people, control members, conduct legal and illegal business, and use violence? Why do they establish such a complex mix of rituals, rules, and codes of conduct? And how do they differ? Why do some mafias commit many more murders than others? This book makes sense of mafias as organizations, via a collative analysis of historical accounts, official data, investigative sources, and interviews. Catino presents a comparative study of seven mafias around the world, from three Italian mafias to the American Cosa Nostra, Japanese Yakuza, Chinese Triads, and Russian mafia. He identifies the organizational architecture that characterizes these criminal groups, and relates different organizational models to the use of violence. Furthermore, he advances a theory on the specific functionality of mafia rules and discusses the major organizational dilemmas that mafias face. This book shows that understanding the organizational logic of mafias is an indispensable step in confronting them.
Download or read book The Magic of Japan written by Hector Garcia and published by Tuttle Publishing. This book was released on 2021-08-31 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A charming collection of quirky insights into Japanese culture. The Magic of Japan is writer Hector Garcia's intensely personal account of his fifteen years in Japan. A self-professed "otaku" or Japanese anime geek since childhood, Garcia has worked for a Japanese software company, mastered the language, and become one of Japan's most popular bloggers. This book is the culmination of his experiences and showcases Garcia's unique ability to delve beneath the surface of Japanese culture to describe its quirky and deep spiritual underpinnings. This collection of essays and beautiful photographs will appeal to his worldwide fan base--including those who devoured his previous bestsellers, A Geek in Japan and Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life--Japanophiles, armchair travelers and anyone with an interest in cultural and travel memoirs. The Magic of Japan features Garcia's keen observations on a wide variety of cultural topics: Japanese behavioral traits, including non-verbal communication, hansei (self-reflection), heijoshin (a calm mind) and shoshin (childlike openness) How Japan's geography and history have shaped its culture--its natural disasters, scarce resources, centuries of isolation and its feudal past Japanese idiosyncrasies, ranging from food traditions and absurd jobs to a love of queues The Japanese spirit, as evidenced in traditional art, manga and attitudes to women Shintoism and Buddhism, looking at temples, festivals, rituals and how religious beliefs pervade popular culture, as seen for example in Studio Ghibli's movie Spirited Away Japan's dark side, including crime, the yakuza, adultery, bullying and suicide The book ends with a gloriously random selection of all things Garcia considers especially magical about Japan--from izakaya to shiitake mushrooms, summer fireworks and green tea!
Download or read book Gaspipe written by Philip Carlo and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2008-07 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the first time, a Mafia boss--Anthony Gaspipe Casso--reveals the shocking details behind his family's headline-making crimes to the "New York Times"-bestselling author of "The Night Stalker" and "The Ice Man." 8-page b&w photo insert.
Download or read book The Dylanologists written by David Kinney and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An analysis of Bob Dylan fandom shares insights into the music artist's influential role in American culture, contrasting the activities of particularly devout fans against Dylan's intensely private nature. By the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Big One.
