Book One: FINALLY!

Finally. I have managed to finish Yakuza: Japan's Criminal Underworld by David E. Kaplan and Alec Dubro. I've been working on this freaking book since last September but kept putting it down. Last night, though, I turned the last page (read it even). Go me!

Ultimately, this book was pretty interesting but I had issues with it at the beginning. This book is like a big spiral, with the yakuza at the center. Instead of focusing on the yakuza (you know, like the title would suggest) this book circles around and around the topic, gradually getting closer and closer until the very end when the book is actually about the yakuza. Until then, though, it's more a general corruption in Japan. Sure, that corruption ultimately ties back to the yakuza in some way or another and learning about police corruption or corporation payoffs was fairly interesting, but I was really expecting something more detailed about, you know, the yakuza. Ultimately, the book did end up discussing the yakuza, specifically how they've expanded into other parts of the world (though at the same time, I got to learn almost equally about Chinese triads and tongs), but I think this book would be better represented by a title like Those That Deal with the Yakuza or Associates of the Yakuza.

Verdict: Three and a half stars for interesting corruption-related information and two stars for only mild yakuza-ness. So I'll call it three stars and move on to the next book.