Shocking Crimes of Japan

I commissioned this book and edited it. The author is an almost lifelong resident of Japan. I lived there, myself, for a number of years. We both read and speak the language fluently, and have some claim to expertise about the country. Our point wasn't to "Japan-bash," or to "highlight those crazy Orientals." Rather, our intention simply was to look at a side of a country that gets very little attention from Western readers, as opposed to the usual crap about Nintendo, samurai, sushi, or economic might. If anything, this book serves to humanize the Japanese for an English-reading audience, showing them that Japan is a normal country like anywhere else, with its own share of tabloid-worthy action. When American "true crime" books come out, are they America-bashing???

I've lived in Japan for 20 years but popular culture is one area that continues to elude me. This book goes a long way toward filling that gap. The author tells the stories of crimes that stayed in the headlines for weeks, but the great thing is that he explains why these deeds were important to the Japanese. Kim Hee Roh, for example, was an ex-con who held 13 hostages for five days--after he killed two yakuza. His story was especially important to Japanese readers because he was a Korean, a minority that has come in for some hard treatment by them. The writer fills us in on Kim's life story and shows how different commentators, even people-on-the-street, responded to the criminal and the hostage standoff. The book covers 15 more crimes with similar thoroughness. The crimes themselves have a certain shock value and are entertaining in an offbeat way. But the book also gives sidelights into the psychology of the criminals and places their crimes in cultural perspective by evaluating the responses of the press and others. We get to see what the crimes meant to the Japanese, and in this regard the book becomes a commentary on the popular culture of this fascinating country. The author obviously read dozens of articles in the Japanese-language press in order to report on each of these crimes. He's done a great (and entertaining) service to readers and done some excellent scholarship, too. My only criticism of the book is that it's only 312 pages long. I'd be happy to go on reading for days. Sergeant Joe Friday, on the TV detective series "Dragnet," used to say, "Just the facts, Ma'am" when he interviewed witnesses. I'm glad this book gives much more than just the facts.

Mark's book in a really good read. I do not like the title because it sounds like something you pick up in a supermarket as you pay for your groceries. So, I was pleasantly surprised to find I did not want to put it down after I started to read. The crimes are handled in a delicate manner and the real focus is on what happened later. Police incompetence, uniquely Japanese answers to problems other cultures would handle differently are all shown with gentle and sometimes pointed humor with just a hint of irony. Since many of the crimes are unsolved or the quilty may have been innocent it is fun to read some of the hypotheses about who really "done it and why." All & all a really good read.