Confessions Of A Yakuza

Product Description

This is the true story as told to the doctor who looked after him just before he died of the life of one of the last traditional yakuza in Japan. It wasnt a good" life in either sense of the word but it was an adventurous one; & the tale he has to tell presents an honest & oddly attractive picture of an insider in that separate unofficial world. In his low hoarse voice he describes the random events that led the son of a prosperous country shopkeeper to become a member & ultimately the leader of a gang organizing illegal dice games in Tokyos liveliest entertainment area. He talks about his first police raid & the brutal interrogation & imprisonment that followed it. He remembers his first love affair & the girl he ran away with & the weeks they spent wandering about the countryside together. Briefly & matter-of-factly he describes how he cut off the little finger of his left hand as a ritual gesture of apology. He explains how the games were run & the profits spent; why the ties between members of "the brotherhood" were so important; & how he came to kill a man who worked for him. What emerges is a contradictory personality: tough but not unsentimental; stubborn yet willing to take life more or less as it comes; impulsive but careful to observe the rules of the business he had joined. & in the end when his tale is finished you feel you would probably have liked him if youd met him in person. Fortunately Dr. Sagas record of his long conversations with him provides a wonderful substitute for that meeting."