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Jake Adelstein

Jake Adelstein
BornJoshua Lawrence Adelstein
(1969-03-28) March 28, 1969 (age 55)
Columbia, Missouri, U.S.
OccupationInvestigative journalist, writer, editor, blogger
GenreTrue crime, non-fiction, journalism
Notable worksTokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan
The Last Yakuza: A Life in the Japanese Underworld
Children2
Website
www.japansubculture.com

Joshua Lawrence "Jake" Adelstein (born March 28, 1969) is an American[1] journalist, crime writer, and blogger who has spent most of his career in Japan. He is the author of Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan, which inspired the 2022 Max original streaming television series Tokyo Vice, starring Ansel Elgort as Adelstein.

Early life

Adelstein grew up in Columbia, Missouri and graduated from Rock Bridge High School.[2] As a teenager he volunteered at KOPN and co-hosted a punk music program on the air. In 1988, he moved to Japan at age 19 to study Japanese literature at Sophia University.[3]

Career

On April 15, 1993, Adelstein became the first non-Japanese staff writer at the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper in Urawa, Saitama, where he worked for 12 years.[4]

After leaving the Yomiuri, Adelstein published an exposé of how an alleged crime boss, Tadamasa Goto, made a deal with the FBI to gain entry to the United States for a liver transplant at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). In 2009, Adelstein published a memoir about his career as a reporter in Japan, Tokyo Vice, in which he accused Goto of threatening to kill him over the story.[5] An April 2022 article by The Hollywood Reporter raised doubts about the veracity of the events described in the memoir.[6] In November 2022, Esquire reported that Adelstein had released via Twitter a folder of source materials which he claimed supported his versions of events.[7]

Adelstein was subsequently a reporter for a United States Department of State investigation into human trafficking in Japan,[8] and now writes for the Daily Beast,[9] Vice News, The Japan Times[10] and other publications. He is a board member and advisor to the Lighthouse: Center for Human Trafficking Victims (formerly Polaris Project Japan).[11]

On April 19, 2011, Adelstein filed a lawsuit against National Geographic Television, which had hired him to help make a documentary about the yakuza, citing ethical problems with their behavior in Japan.[12][13] However, the court dismissed the case with prejudice, meaning the plaintiff is barred from bringing that claim in another court.[14]

Personal life

Adelstein is Jewish.[15][16][17][18][19] Jake was formerly married to Sunao Adelstein with 2 children; both of them live in Missouri after 2005 due to threats made by Goto towards them.[11]

Works

  • Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan. New York City: Pantheon Books. 2009. ISBN 978-0-307-37879-8. OCLC 699874898.
  • Operation Tropical Storm: How an FBI Jewish-Japanese Special Agent Snared a Yakuza Boss in Hawaii (Kindle Single) ASIN B00Z7DUV7W June 7, 2015[20]
  • Pay the Devil in Bitcoin: The Creation of a Cryptocurrency and How Half a Billion Dollars of It Vanished from Japan. New York City: Pantheon Books. 2017.
  • The Last Yakuza: A Life in the Japanese Underworld. New York City: Pantheon Books. 2023.
  • The Evaporated: Gone With the Gods. Campside Media and Sony Music Entertainment. 2023.
  • Witnessed: Night Shift. Campside Media and Sony Music Entertainment. September 1, 2024.
  • Tokyo Noir: In and Out of Japan's Underworld. Scribe, 2024.

Interviews

References

  1. ^ Jake Adelstein, "Yakuza, strippers, drugs, an undercover Japanese-Jew FBI special agent? Pulp non-fiction.", Twitter, June 26, 2015. Archived March 5, 2016, at the Wayback Machine
  2. ^ Ganey, Terry. "Gaijin Journalist: American reporter covered cops and crime in Tokyo". Columbia Daily Tribune. Retrieved February 29, 2024.
  3. ^ Hessler, Peter. "All Due Respect" Profile, The New Yorker, January 9, 2012.
  4. ^ Mark Willacy, "Exposing Japan's Insidious Underbelly", ABC News, October 20, 2009; accessed November 20, 2010.
  5. ^ Jake Adelstein, "This Mob Is Big in Japan", The Washington Post, May 11, 2008, Accessed November 20, 2010
  6. ^ THR Magazine, "Insiders Call B.S. on ‘Tokyo Vice’ Backstory", The Hollywood Reporter, April 29, 2022; accessed May 2, 2022.
  7. ^ Esquire, "The Gripping True Story Behind ‘Tokyo Vice’ and Jake Adelstein's Tussles With the Yakuza", Esquire, November 24, 2022; accessed December 27, 2023.
  8. ^ "An American In Japan, Investigating The 'Tokyo Vice'". NPR. November 9, 2009. Retrieved March 23, 2024.
  9. ^ "Jake Adelstein". The Daily Beast. October 31, 2015. Retrieved March 24, 2024.
  10. ^ "Jake Adelstein". The Japan Times. March 24, 2024. Retrieved March 24, 2024.
  11. ^ a b Hessler, Peter (January 1, 2012). "All Due Respect". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved March 24, 2024.
  12. ^ Gardner, Eriq (May 10, 2011). "NatGeo Delays Japanese Mafia Show at Center of Lawsuit (Updated)". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved August 1, 2015.
  13. ^ "Superior Court of the District of Columbia. April 19, 2011" (PDF).
  14. ^ "Superior Court of the District of Columbia. May 4, 2011" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on July 28, 2014.
  15. ^ Jake Adelstein hachette.co.uk
  16. ^ A Jewish journalist against the Yakuza with Jake Adelstein Naor Meningher and Eytan Weinstein, The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles (March 29, 2017)
  17. ^ ‘Tokyo Vice’ is a portrait of the reporter as a terrible coworker Irene Katz Connelly, The Forward (April 11, 2022)
  18. ^ Tokyo Vice TV review: An outsider Jew in Japan Josh Howie, The Jewish Chronicle (December 22, 2022)
  19. ^ An insight into the Japanese underworld Sharyn Kolieb, The Australian Jewish News (May 7, 2024)
  20. ^ 299_ James Stern –Yakuza Japanese Mob, Operation Tropical Storm

Further reading
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