Jake Adelstein | |
---|---|
Born | Joshua Lawrence Adelstein March 28, 1969 Columbia, Missouri, U.S. |
Occupation | Investigative journalist, writer, editor, blogger |
Genre | True crime, non-fiction, journalism |
Notable works | Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan The Last Yakuza: A Life in the Japanese Underworld |
Children | 2 |
Website | |
www.japansubculture.com |
Joshua Lawrence "Jake" Adelstein (born March 28, 1969) is an American [1] journalist, crime writer, and blogger who has spent most of his career in Japan. He is the author of Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan , which inspired the 2022 Max original streaming television series Tokyo Vice, starring Ansel Elgort as Adelstein.
Adelstein grew up in Columbia, Missouri and graduated from Rock Bridge High School. [2] As a teenager he volunteered at KOPN and co-hosted a punk music program on the air. He moved to Japan at age 19 to study Japanese literature at Sophia University. [3]
In 1993, Adelstein became the first non-Japanese staff writer at the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper, where he worked for 12 years. [4]
Jake was able to break the story of this guy illegally jumping the line and getting into the U.S. and receiving a liver transplant, way ahead of many other patients, because of illegal donations and selling information to the FBI. All kinds of dirty stuff. But that story was still untouchable in Japan. Even though Jake was working for the Yomiuri Shimbun, the newspaper, at that time, he could only get the story published by selling it to the Los Angeles Times. [5]
After leaving the Yomiuri, Adelstein published an exposé of how an alleged crime boss, Tadamasa Goto, made a deal with the FBI to gain entry to the United States for a liver transplant at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). In 2009, Adelstein published a memoir about his career as a reporter in Japan, Tokyo Vice , in which he accused Goto of threatening to kill him over the story. [6] An April 2022 article by The Hollywood Reporter raised doubts about the veracity of the events described in the memoir. [7] In November 2022, Esquire reported that Adelstein had released via twitter a folder of source materials which he claimed supported his versions of events. [8]
Adelstein was subsequently a reporter for a United States Department of State investigation into human trafficking in Japan, [9] and now writes for the Daily Beast, [10] Vice News, The Japan Times [11] and other publications. He is a board member and advisor to the Lighthouse: Center for Human Trafficking Victims (formerly Polaris Project Japan). [12]
On April 19, 2011, Adelstein filed a lawsuit against National Geographic Television, which had hired him to help make a documentary about the yakuza, citing ethical problems with their behavior in Japan. [13] [14] However, the court dismissed the case with prejudice, meaning the plaintiff is barred from bringing that claim in another court. [15]
Yakuza, also known as gokudō, are members of transnational organized crime syndicates originating in Japan. The Japanese police and media, by request of the police, call them bōryokudan, while the yakuza call themselves ninkyō dantai. The English equivalent for the term yakuza is gangster, meaning an individual involved in a Mafia-like criminal organization.
The Nikkei, also known as The Nihon Keizai Shimbun, is the flagship publication of Nikkei, Inc. and the world's largest financial newspaper, with a daily circulation exceeding 1.73 million copies. The Nikkei 225, a stock market index for the Tokyo Stock Exchange, has been calculated by the newspaper since 1950.
The Yomiuri Shimbun (讀賣新聞/読売新聞) is a Japanese newspaper published in Tokyo, Osaka, Fukuoka, and other major Japanese cities. It is one of the five major newspapers in Japan; the other four are The Asahi Shimbun, the Chunichi Shimbun, the Mainichi Shimbun, and the Nihon Keizai Shimbun. It is headquartered in Otemachi, Chiyoda, Tokyo.
Juzo Itami, born Yoshihiro Ikeuchi, was a Japanese actor, screenwriter and film director. He directed eleven films, all of which he wrote himself.
The Sixth Yamaguchi-gumi is Japan's largest yakuza organization. It is named after its founder Harukichi Yamaguchi. Its origins can be traced back to a loose labor union for dockworkers in Kobe before World War II.
Hideo Murai was a member of the Aum Shinrikyo cult and one of the perpetrators responsible for the Sakamoto family murder. He also helped plan the Tokyo subway sarin attack. Murai held a doctorate in astrophysics. He was reportedly the number three person in the Aum leadership, after Shoko Asahara and Kiyohide Hayakawa. He headed Aum Shinrikyo's Ministry of Science and Technology.
Bunta Sugawara was a Japanese actor who appeared in almost 200 feature films. Dropping out of Waseda University, he worked as a model before entering the film industry in 1956. After years of work, Sugawara finally established himself as a famous actor at the age of 39, with the lead role of Shozo Hirono in the Battles Without Honor and Humanity series (1973–1976) of yakuza films. He quickly found additional success starring as the truck driver Momojiro Hoshi in the comedic Torakku Yarō series (1975–1979). In 1980, Sugawara won the Japan Academy Prize for Best Supporting Actor for his role as a detective in the satirical Taiyō o Nusunda Otoko (1979).
The Goto-gumi was a Japanese yakuza organization founded by Tadamasa Goto.
The Blue Ribbon Awards are film-specific prizes awarded solely by movie critics and writers in Tokyo, Japan, established in 1950 by The Association of Tokyo Film Journalists, established under the name of the "Association of Tokyo Film Journalists Award", which was formed mainly by film reporters from the Yomiuri Shimbun, Asahi Shimbun, and Mainichi Shimbun. Currently The Association is made up of film reporters from seven sports newspapers in Tokyo: Sports Hochi, Sankei Sports, Sponichi, Daily Sports, Tokyo Sports, Tokyo Chunichi Sports, and Nikkan Sports.
J. T. Rogers is an American playwright. He is best known for his play Oslo (2016) about the 1990s Oslo Peace Accords between Israel and Palestine. The play received widespread acclaim as well as the Tony Award, Drama Desk Award, and Obie Award for Best Play. He is also known for his plays Madagascar (2004),The Overwhelming (2006), Blood and Gifts (2010), and Corruption (2024).
Sukeban (スケバン/助番) is a Japanese term meaning 'delinquent girl', and the female equivalent to the male banchō in Japanese culture. The usage of the word sukeban refers to either the leader of a girl gang or the entire gang itself, and is not used to refer to any one member of a girl gang.
Vic Lee is a veteran TV reporter in the San Francisco Bay Area in the United States. He most recently worked for KGO-TV, his reports being broadcast on the five o'clock news, the six o'clock news, and ABC7 news at nine on KOFY.
Hiroyuki Jo is a Zainichi Korean member of Shinshushieikan (神洲士衛館), an (impersonated-)uyoku organization, and the Mie Prefecture-based Hane-gumi branch of Yamaguchi-gumi, a Yakuza organization. Jo assassinated Hideo Murai, a member of Aum Shinrikyo, on April 23, 1995.
Robert Whiting is a best-selling author and journalist who has written several books on contemporary Japanese culture - which include topics such as baseball and American gangsters operating in Japan. He was born in New Jersey, grew up in Eureka, California and graduated from Sophia University in Tokyo. He has lived in Japan for more than three decades since he first arrived there in 1962, while serving in the U.S. Air Force. He divides his time between homes in Tokyo and California.
Kōichi Iiboshi was a Japanese journalist for Yomiuri Shimbun and author.
Tadamasa Goto is a retired yakuza. He was the founding head of the Goto-gumi, a Fujinomiya-based affiliate of Japan's largest yakuza syndicate, the Yamaguchi-gumi. Goto, who has been convicted at least nine times, was a prominent yakuza and at one point the most powerful crime boss in Tokyo, even being dubbed the "John Gotti of Japan". Goto was once claimed to have been the largest shareholder in Japan Airlines, but this was disputed by stock exchange filings.
Ansel Elgort is an American actor and singer. He began his acting career with a supporting role in the horror film Carrie (2013). He gained wider recognition for starring as a teenage cancer patient in the romantic drama film The Fault in Our Stars (2014) and for his supporting role in The Divergent Series (2014–2016).
Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan is a 2009 memoir by Jake Adelstein of his years living in Tokyo as the first non-Japanese reporter working for one of Japan's largest newspapers, Yomiuri Shimbun. It was published by Random House and Pantheon Books. HBO adapted the memoir into a 2022 television series. According to Gavin J. Blair of The Hollywood Reporter, there were individuals that disputed whether certain events in the book happened as stated.
Tokyo Vice is an American crime drama television series created by J. T. Rogers and based on the 2009 book of the same title by Jake Adelstein. It premiered on April 7, 2022, on HBO Max. It stars Ansel Elgort and Ken Watanabe in lead roles. In June 2022, the series was renewed for a second season, which premiered on February 8, 2024.
Mari Yamamoto is a Japanese actress and journalist.