Customer Reviews

Kamikaze Biker: Parody and Anomy in Affluent Japan

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Sato's Kamikaze Biker is the definitive work on the bosozoku subculture. Sato situates the boso between extremes of delinquency and mere youth rebellion, taking them far less gravely than Japan's police and news media, recognizing their performance for the elaborate public spectacle it is. The bosozoku play with the (almost clichéd) Japanese fears of deviance, disorder, and rebellious youth, and wear their evilness on their sleeves. They adorn themselves with the symbols of the yakuza, kamikaze, uyoku, and mafia, becoming archetypical outcasts. Sato's work is valuable for getting the bosozoku's image for what it is- show- and not getting caught in the trap of assuming the bosozoku's actions match their image. Sato's exhaustive study of Kyoto bosozoku gangs at their peak in the early '80s should put to rest continuing demonization of the bosozoku by Japan's police and news media. Bosozoku were never a serious threat to society, and have decreased in number since the early '80s. If it dresses like a kamikaze, barks like a mobster, and rides bikes like a Hells Angel, it must be terrible, right? Kamikaze Biker gets at the reality beyond the boso mystique. For more see jingai.com

I guess I bought this because of its provocative title, good cover art work, the publishing Press and the subject matter, even though I recognized this is a text better suited to a course in the Social Sciences or Cultural Anthropology division of a college.
Still, the book is surprisingly readable.

The Bosozoku or so-called Speed Tribes are gangs of Japanese youth known for their over the top costumes and regalia; tricked out motorcycles and cars; and anti-social behavior. They gripped the terrified imagination of the Japanese nation for a period of about a decade from 1974-1984. At their peak they might have had as many as 20,000 participants of varying degrees. Note that the Japanese government passed highly restrictive laws regulating the rights of it citizens to gather and ride which effectively quashed the Bosozoku movement. The author was in contact with them very near to the end of the reign of the Boso tribes. While remnants of the Bosozoku survive in a much diminished fashion, the Boso phenomenon has very much come and gone.
Satodoes a truly fantastic job of unpacking the Boso phenomenon, and the related 'Yankee' status to which many a Boso particpant belongs. His purpose is to make the participants understandable and place them within Japanese society and also to make them out to be less monstrous than their public image. He also dispels the popular notion that the Boso youth are alienated and disenfranchised citizens or mere dregs of society.
Sato's basic premise is that the Boso phenomenon may be seen as a coming of age ritual that gets played out over a period of years in the form of an elaborate theater or play. What he describes, in fact, are highly ritualized stages of liminality through which the Boso passes on the way to adulthood.
A cool thing this book also discusses is the names and meanings of the characters and phrases the Boso tribes give themselves as well as certain stereotyped behaviours (rituals) and customary objects and decorations adorning their equipment and uniforms. Sato's insights are satisfying and quite piercing, although I take issue with certain aspects of his discussion of flow and separation which he uses to analyze the dialectical meanings of these things. For, I don't believe he convincingly explains the mechanism, if indeed there is one, that precipitates one or the other.
His discussion also presupposes knowledge of certain theories or books he refers to and/or cites which, to one in the field, are useful signifiers or jargon that help to place his own discussion within the larger canon of literature in the field but which are not especially helpful to an outsider without more.
I also believe he romanticizes or softens the hard edges of the Bosozoku in order to make his point about the metaphor of theater or play: At the height of the phenomenon 500-800 Boso were dying per year due to motorcycle accidents, car crashes and fighting, for God's sake.
The other thing that I believe the author misses is the teleological argument one might make regarding the place of the Bosozoku (and, in a greater sense, the other zoku's which have sprouted up since) in carrying on, and/or preserving Japanese culture. The irony of the Boso having to proceed through a quite rigid and hierarchical series of norms or stages before he assimilates into mainstream adult culture gets no comment in this book, for instance. In other words, Sato seems oblivious to the actual lack of anomy in the Boso lifestyle as regards Japanese society when the Boso phenomenon is examined as a system within the larger framework of THE system or culture.
Just a thought.

In a search for more information on the Boso-Zoku (Speed Tribe) culture within Japan, I came accross this book. Instead of an entertaining volume, I found it to be more of a scientific study into the behaviors and sociology of the Boso and Yankee sub-cultures. While extremely informative, it is not for casual reading. I have rated it a seven based upon what it is, and educational volume.