The Dark Side: Infamous Japanese Crimes and Criminals

In a country where life is generally so ordered it often appears as atrophied as a bonsai, when individual citizens go astray, they frequently go astray with a passion and conviction as dedicated to their crime as their neighbors are to pursuing the norms. Mark Schrieber's look at the dangerous and shadier faces of Japan seems to me, an American resident in Tokyo for the past 38 years, long overdue in providing readers with a better balanced picture of the world's second largest economy. Some of the stories are truly bizarre; some are frightening; some are somehow humorous or ironic. But all of them offer an extraordinarily keen insight into a society that is often praised for itslack of crime and its stable social order. A walk on the dark side with Schrieber is an exciting eye-opener and fabulously exotic entertainment as well.

Schreiber's first book, Shocking Crimes of Postwar Japan, was not only as gripping a read as anything penned by Ann Rule or Jack Olsen, it served as an excellent corrective to the widespread notion of Japan as a society free of violence-prone scofflaws. As good as that book was, however, its follow-up is, in many ways, superior--richer in anecdote, more analytical, covering hundreds of years of history. For those readers with aninterest in Japan, *The Dark Side* is, it almost goes without saying, a must-have. But this is also a painlessly instructive volume for those with an interest in the more general, and always fascinatingly complex, subject of crime and punishment. The criminally inclined, like the poor, we have always had with us: thanks to the prodigiously well-informed Schreiber, we learn the myraid ways that one country has dealt with that unfortunate certainty.

The Dark Side is a great book for two reasons. First, it's a good introduction to the history of crime, crime prevention, and criminal justice in Japan that stretches over 400 years. Though it's not a scholarly book, Schreiber's facts are carefully researched and then presented with a light touch. This book is valuable to anyone seriously interested in Japan, supplying background and facts that can hardly be found in other sources (unless the reader wants to retrace the work that Schreiber has done). The author achieves what we look for in a good historian-he's put a human face on the facts.The second reason I like the book is because of its genuinely interesting stories. Call me offbeat, but I'm fascinated by the details of such topics as Japan's experiments with executions (including the story of a man whose neck was so strong that he couldn't be strangled-he was pardoned because his executioners saw his survival as a sign of divine intervention). The book tells about famous bandits from 300 years ago, love suicides (and the penalties for survivors!), a Tokyo magistrate whose skill puts him in the same league as Sherlock Holmes, and the delightful Sada-san, who anticipated Lorena Bobbitt by about 60 years.All in all, this book is a fine read and a fine work of popular history.

This book delivers handsomely on its promise to take a reader on an entertaining romp through the dark side of Japanese society. This book's got it all-sex, death, murder, gore, pathos, ingenuity, stupidity, greed, and even moments of personal redemption for Japan's criminals and criminally insane. It traces four centuries of crime in Japan and pulls back the covers on everything from cannibalism to crucifixions, phallic dismemberment a la Bobbit to serial killers, and gangsters to grisly executions. There's plenty of new stuff here for even the most jaded Japanologist and a treasure trove of exotic and enticing stories for the Japan neophyte. Opening this book is like diving into a box of crime bonbons. Nuts, chews, soft centers, whatever. I could hardly wait to turn the page and find out what unusual fact, character, or story waited for me next. In fact, my only disappointment with the book was that the author didn't provide even more detail and analysis of some of the cases, especially those from Japan's modern period. But that's a small quibble about a book that kept me engrossed and entertained from page one to the end.