Sumo world’s ties to gangsters, baseball betting have long legacy

Ever since weekly tabloid Shukan Shincho reported (in its May 27 issue) that sumo wrestlers frequently gamble on professional baseball games with organized crime members, the Japan Sumo Association has been on the defensive.

On Sunday, the association decided to dismiss 34-year-old wrestler Kotomitsuki and his stablemaster Otake. Other wrestlers and senior advisors received punishments.

Recent revelations that Yamaguchi-gumi crime syndicate members have been supplied with ringside seats for past matches — ostensibly so that fellow gangsters behind bars can catch a glimpse of their compatriots on television — have also soiled the image of the pastime. Read more

Tokyo college seniors expelled over project ‘to protect ugly women’

Tokyo Metropolitan University, or TMU, was formed in 2005 by the merger of four public institutions of higher learning in the Tokyo area. The institution was in the headlines recently when two of its seniors majoring in system design were summarily expelled.

The two had come up with a project they named “Dobusu wo Mamoru Kai” (group to protect ugly women).

“They went around on the street accosting women, saying they were ‘researching an article,’” a source at TMU tells Shukan Shincho (July 8). “Later it was determined that the video, showing the faces of certain women, had been posted on YouTube without the subjects’ permission.” Read more

Concrete controversy: DPJ’s Mieko Tanaka travels to Yamba Dam

Last month’s visit by Democratic Party of Japan representative Mieko Tanaka to the Yamba Dam project site in Naganohara, Gunma Prefecture lacked professionalism, squeaks Shukan Shincho (Apr. 29).

With the relocation of the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma now at the forefront of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama’s agenda, the weekly says that the dam, whose construction was halted following the DPJ’s historic victory in last year’s lower house election, has become a secondary issue.

A native of Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture and one of “Ozawa’s girls” — referring to the group of attractive female candidates dispatched to minor constituencies under the guidance of DPJ politician Ichiro Ozawa — the 34-year-old Tanaka fell short of former Prime Minister Yoshihiro Mori in Ishikawa Constituency No. 2 in last August’s election. Yet she wound up qualifying for a house seat through the proportional representation system. Read more

Porn actresses pen salacious memoirs in chasing legacy of Ai Iijima

Realizing that playing with pens might be more beneficial than swords, former and current AV (adult video) actresses have released titillating tell-all memoirs over the past year as they pursue the fame of former starlet Ai Iijima, the author of the million-selling book “Platonic Sex” who died in late 2008, reports Shukan Shincho (Mar. 25).

Honoka resigned from the AV business a year ago, after starring in 50 films over a career that spanned five years. Her biography “The Basket” was released on January 18. The weekly provides one excerpt. Read more

Deflation equation: room, board, Ginza hostess — all in, 12,800 yen

Usually entry to a high-end Ginza hostess club requires an initial outlay of tens of thousands of yen. Yet the wave of deflation is causing one new establishment to charge a mere 12,800 yen for an hour of all-you-can-drink and — get this — food and lodging.

Shukan Shincho (Feb. 25) reports on the latest project by mama-san Shiho Masui, 41, who has appeared in the media numerous times since 1995, when she opened the hostess club Futago-ya (Club Twins) in Ginza’s 6-chome district. This separate pricing venture began on the first of the month. Read more

Ozawa’s gals appearing anxious as party ponders path

“Ozawa girls” is a title that refers to the group of attractive female candidates dispatched to minor constituencies under the guidance of the Democratic Party of Japan’s scandal-plagued Secretary General, Ichiro Ozawa, for last August’s lower house election.

At the party’s annual convention inside the Hibiya Kokaido on January 16, three of these ladies, who wound up winning seats in their districts, seemed a bit on edge, reports Shukan Shincho (Jan. 28). Read more

Yamaguchi-gumi gangsters give gifts in the name of goodwill in Kobe

With the year winding down, the Yamaguchi-gumi yakuza group entertained 1,200 members of the Kobe community with food and gifts in an effort to convey a sense of civic goodwill, reports Shukan Shincho (Jan. 14).

The Yamaguchi-gumi, Japan’s largest mob, boasting an estimated membership of 40,000, is generally feared by the public but its upper echelon and underlings spent the morning of December 28 preparing mochi (rice cakes) — in a ritual where the rice is pounded with a wood mallet — and distributing toys, candies and cash gifts to children. Read more

Shinjuku gay district’s ‘war trophy’ fails to lead cops to murder suspect Tatsuya Ichihashi

Reporting on the arrest of accused murderer Tatsuya Ichihashi on Nov. 10 in Osaka port, Shukan Shincho (Nov. 19) was really quick on the draw, with five short items in its latest issue, just two days after the arrest.

From one article, readers learn that the police dragnet last year had extended to the notorious gay enclave in Tokyo’s Shinjuku 2-chome, where a 36-year-old denizen of the area named Nobuharu Terasaki (a pseudonym) came forward to notify police he had engaged in physical relations with a man resembling Ichihashi on two occasions, in late February and early March of 2008. Read more

‘Black widow’ strikes? Marriage fraud suspect Kanae Kijima linked to six deaths

Wearing white gloves, seven or eight plain-clothes cops stormed into an apartment building in Tokyo’s Ikebukuro district one recent morning. Their destination was the 14th-floor residence of Kanae Kijima, a 34-year-old native of Hokkaido who has been arrested for marriage fraud and is under investigation for the deaths of six men, reports Shukan Post (Nov. 13).

“The officers stayed for a week, working 24 hours a day, and they took her wine-red Mercedes,” a resident of the building tells the tabloid.

News reports indicate that Kijima has conned numerous men, whom she met on Internet dating sites, out of sizable sums of money. The police are treating four of the subsequent deaths, which took place in Tokyo and Chiba and Saitama prefectures, as murder. Information on the other two deaths has not yet been released.

“Sometimes she was wearing a black one-piece dress with an open front to display cleavage,” says another tenant. “But usually she didn’t wear make-up and sported worn-out jeans and t-shirts. To be honest, it is hard to believe that kind of lady was able to deceive men.” Read more

On the ‘Tokyo Vice’ beat with Jake Adelstein

TOKYO (TR) – The extortion, racketeering, prostitution and gambling rings associated with Japan’s yakuza criminal organizations have been written up in books and glorified in films too numerous to count. Yet a substantial first-hand peek inside this insidious underworld by a foreign journalist — not straitjacketed by Japan’s rigid press system — has not existed.

Enter reporter Jake Adelstein, a 40-year-old Jewish-American and the author of the recently released memoir “Tokyo Vice,” an account of his 12-year stint of working the crime beat for the Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan’s largest newspaper.

Following the successful completion of the paper’s entry exam in 1993, Adelstein began covering Japan’s seamier side. Written in a fast-paced, acerbic and sometimes humorous style, “Tokyo Vice” recounts his investigations into serial rape, child pornography, murder and his greatest scoop: providing details on how four gangsters were able to travel to the U.S. between 2000 and 2004 to receive liver transplants. “Either erase the story, or we’ll erase you,” was the subsequent threat from the particulars involved. “And maybe your family.” Substantial repercussions linger to this day. Read more

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