The Dark Side: Infamous Japanese Crimes and Criminals [Hardcover]

Mark Schreiber (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 2002

This is a collection of vivid accounts of the most notorious criminals and criminal acts to shake modern Japanese society. Read about sleazy samurai and subway sarin attacks and rub shoulders with anarchists, informers and femme fatales.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

The establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate in 1603 ended Japan's long era of civil wars and ushered in a time of relative domestic tranquility and order. Yet, as amply demonstrated by this lively tour of criminality in Japan from 1600 to the present, not even the best ordered of societies is free of crime. Through a series of deftly sketched vignettes, Schreiber, a Tokyo-based U.S. journalist with an eye for the bizarre, introduces us to a colorful cohort of murderers, rapists, arsonists, embezzlers, and criminal psychotics, many of whom wound up on the gallows or the executioner's chopping block. This is intellectual snack food salty, crunchy, and flavorful, rather than a full meal but the author adds just enough history and sociology to make the first half of this popular book more than mere entertainment. The second half, in which the author himself seems to have tired of his subject, is a slapdash assortment of briefly summarized crime stories that are best read in small doses. For larger public libraries. Steven I. Levine, Univ. of Montana, Missoula
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"... a readable and informative introduction to the criminal underbelly of Japanese society." -- Insight Japan

"... although this is ostensibly a book about crime, it also serves as an altogether agreeable window into Japanese culture." -- Salon.com

"... gets to the core of hot-button issues without being too academic, too judgmental or too prurient." -- Michael Pronko, TokyoQ

"... intellectual snack food--salty, crunchy, and flavorful... " -- Library Journal

"... offers much insight into a side of Japan that journalistic cliches about a 'crime-free society' paper over." -- Mark Schilling, The Japan Times

"... quirky and informative and hard to put down." -- Burritt Sabin, The East

"An essential addition to the shelf of any true-life crime fan." -- Timeout.com

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 251 pages
• Publisher: Kodansha International (JPN) (January 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 4770028067
• ISBN-13: 978-4770028068
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,662,605 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A captivating look at crimes and criminals in Japan, January 17, 2002

By 

Michael P. Birt (Phoenix, AZ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Dark Side: Infamous Japanese Crimes and Criminals (Hardcover)

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.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Two Books in One, January 29, 2002

By 

Charles B. Wordell (Nagoya, Japan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Dark Side: Infamous Japanese Crimes and Criminals (Hardcover)

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.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars schreiber does it again, February 11, 2002

By 

[e-mail] (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Dark Side: Infamous Japanese Crimes and Criminals (Hardcover)

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 an
interest 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.