The Last Yakuza
By Jake Adelstein
Corsair (2024)
ISBN-13: 978-1472158314
Review by Trevor Skingle
The many yakuza films like Kitano Takeshi’s Outrage film series (mentioned in the book) along with many others in this genre alongside yakuza themed fanzines and video games ensure that there is no lack of coverage of the yakuza organised crime in the Japanese imagination. There has also been an increasing popular interest in yakuza in the Western imagination in the last decades with the popular Takakura Ken’s occasional toe dipping into the neo-noir yakuza “exposés” such as the 1974 film The Yakuza (with the late Robert Mitchum), the 1989 film Black Rain (with Michael Douglas), the 2018 action-thriller The Outsider, and the under-rated 2019 British-Japanese TV crime drama Giri/Haji., This crossover of attention to the yakuza in popular culture seems to have reached an apotheosis with Jake Adelstein’s 2009 book Tokyo Vice and its adaptation into two TV series in 2022 and 2024. However, the subsequent controversy about the accuracy of Tokyo Vice (see here and here) seems to have become a talking point which may have, counter-intuitively, worked in Adelstein’s favour. As Oscar Wilde pointed out, “There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about”. So it is with much anticipation that, into this milieu, Adelstein’s latest book, The Last Yakuza: A Life in the Japanese Underworld, has been published.
Early on the author makes it clear that the book is a history of the yakuza disguised as a biography of an individual called Saigo who is an amalgamation of numerous characteristics drawn from various yakuza. This smoke screen perhaps reflects the opaque ambiguity of life in Japanese society but might leave some speculating on the blurring of boundaries, particularly given the abovementioned controversy.
The book begins in an easy-going conversational style covering Saigo’s background, his youth and upbringing, his parents’ chaotic relationship, his path to becoming a bosozoku motor-cycle gang member, and from there to becoming a yakuza. Along the way Adelstein delves into quite some detail on the historical specifics about the yakuza and it’s here where the author’s knowledge and investigative journalist background as well as his yakuza expertise comes to the fore. This informs his style of writing as it moves, almost as though a switch has been flicked, from biographical narrative into a very knowledgeable, almost academic historical style that leads back into and bolsters the biography. This suits the book very well with the result that it reads like a large set of linked newspaper articles. And there is nothing wrong with that, though, because of the overall narrative framework, it is not a book that sits well with being randomly “dipped into”. There are, however, some stand out chapters that cover areas that yakuza afficionados may be particularly interested in. A few of these really stand out; one in depth chapter examines yakuza funerals, another yubitsume (finger shortening), whilst for body art enthusiasts there is another especially revealing chapter on yakuza tattoos. These last two chapters being the foremost of the identifying factors of the yakuza in the mind’s eye of most Westerners.
One element that is alluded to but does seem a bit lacking in detail is an historical exposé of the plight of ethnic Koreans, Chinese, Taiwanese, and burakumin (outcasts) in Japan and the reasons for their involvement with the yakuza. A little of the historical perspective on this regarding ethnic Koreans is alluded to, albeit all too briefly, with a reference to their extreme persecution because of the blame laid at their door for societal ills caused as a result of the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake. There could have been more information about the main elements of discrimination that these groups continue to face in Japan which potentially act as drivers for their alienation from Japanese society in general and their consequent recruitment/enlistment into the yakuza.
The book has its occasional darkly comedic moments which spring up in the most unexpected places and situations (no spoilers given here); scenes that would be well suited to darkly comedic yakuza movies akin to Kitano Takeshi’s Ryuzo and the Seven Henchmen.
The book covers the yakuza’s entrenchment within Japanese society and its involvement with, to name but a few, politicians, the police, businesses and the entertainment industry alongside the development of legitimate business ventures which, like the exposed strands of a tangled spider’s web spun over many years, is laid bare for all to see. It also contains many ironic claims about the yakuza’s abstinence from violence and their spurious adherence to a code of ethics which on many occasions are almost immediately followed by descriptions of extreme violence and plenty of examples of excessive criminality. Readers will have to make their own minds up on what they think about these which may be yet another reflection of societal ambiguity in Japan. What does come across strongly is that however much they claim to they do not adhere to a specious code of ethics; Robin Hood and his Merry Men they are not.
Though there are some useful reference lists, for those unfamiliar with the Japanese yakuza specific terms used throughout the book it might have been helpful to have also included a lexicon of the most pivotal yakuza related words and their English equivalents. An update to be included in a future revised edition perhaps?
Saigo’s time in prison and his ill treatment there does not take into consideration very recent Government prison reforms. What the yakuza will make of these is anyone’s guess. However, in its conclusions the book covers in detail the tighter legal restraints and an aging population as the causes of the substantial decline in the numbers of yakuza. The Last Yakuza and its predecessor Tokyo Vice, are perhaps a timely, illuminating, knowledgeable yet readable historical record of yakuza “culture” and activities in English language.