Tokyo Underworld

By Robert Whiting. On the life of Nick Zapetti who stayed in Japan after the occupation and tried to make something of a life there. The title is ironic, although he is referred to as an "American gangster," it turns out that he actually was just trying to build his business, while there were plenty of real mafiosos among the Japanese political and economic elite. Whiting paints a vivid picture of the unavoidable connections between the Yakuza and Japanese politics.



This is a thoroughly fun book to read. Zapetti's life is not an ordinary story, he really comes through as a person who does not know the meaning of neither giving up nor giving in. And this is precisely what makes him easy to relate to. Especially if you have lived in Japan for any length of time beyond a two-week tourist tour of Kyoto and Tokyo. Japan is not an easy place to live, unless you behave exactly the way you are expected to behave. Even if you have lived in Japan for many years, you will still be a gaijin, that is, an outsider. Even if you get Japanese citizenship, as Nick Zapetti did. Even if you change you get a real Japanese name, as Nick Zapetti did.

But Tokyo Underworld is not about Nick Zapetti's issues as an eternal gaijin amidst a homogeneous mass of faces. It is about business, politics, and organized crime in a society that pretends to be immune from all such things. It is about someone who is let down because he does not conform, while actual criminals live and die as honored citizens.

Anyway, the books is definitely worth reading.