Toppamono: Outlaw. Radical. Suspect. My Life in Japan's Underworld

Toppamono is a Japanese phrase for someone who pushes ahead regardless. Miyazaki Manabu has been doing just that for the last sixty-one years -- regardless of the law, regardless of social convention, and now, alas, regardless of his readers' patience. Eighty-plus pages describing the student riots of the 1960s are used mostly to recount how the writer charged around Tokyo hitting people over the head with lumps of wood. Coming early in the 460-page book, this section presents a strong disincentive to finish it. But that's a pity, because there's some fascinating stuff later. And earlier, for that matter. Miyazaki's description of the milieu into which he was born is riveting. He was the son of a Kyoto gang boss and made his entrance back in the days when yakuza were mostly working men, tough and industrious. His father specialized in demolition and selling off whatever could be salvaged from the postwar ruins. To call the competition fierce is a serious understatement. It was as if the war was still being fought -- not the war against the Allies (interestingly, MacArthur and his army of occupation aren't even mentioned) but the endless skirmishing over limited resources which characterized so much of Japan's history. In the late 1940s they were scarcer than ever. The gangs staked out their own territory, and any incursion was a call to battle. Members would gather in the boss's house, dressed in black so the blood would not be visible if they were hurt, and turn the tatami over so they wouldn't slip. Armed with shotguns, bamboo spears, swords, and sticks of dynamite, they drank, and awaited the enemy's assault. It was an unorthodox childhood, and not surprising that Miyazaki turned out as he did, with a propensity to rely on violence and intimidation. His story has a larger-than-life quality, from bankruptcy and massive debt to the dazzling glitter that was Tokyo in the 1980s. "Beneath society's peaceful façade there is always a storm blowing," he writes at the end of Toppa Mono. "It tosses people together and reeks of sweat and cosmetics, sometimes even of blood. I have lived all these years thinking it wasn't such a bad smell." He has passed on a strong whiff of it in this book.

Toppamono is a speedy, exciting and somewhat bumpy ride through the first 50 years of the author's life as yakuza scion, student subversive, criminal suspect, paparazzi reporter and eye-witness to the expansion and eventual bursting of Japan's bubble economy. Although neither an intellectual nor a gifted writer, Miyazaki tells a riveting tale of postwar Japan as it successfully pulls itself out of poverty only to devour itself with greed. Like his life, his writing style is unpretentious and choppy, and he frequently flits back and forth between personal observations, historical events and the nitty-gritty now. However, there is method to Manabu, as he concludes in the Epilogue. And this is where things go a little bit loopy. Toppamono, one must not forget, was written for a Japanese audience, whose weltanschauung differs considerably from that of Americans and that of Europeans. Throughout Toppamono, Miyazaki's sympathy for Japan's gangster class is never far from the surface, and he frequently hints at an expanded role in society for the yakuza. In the book's Epilogue, he fesses up, describing the ideal future as one where the chivalrous yakuza will join with its Korean and Chinese counterparts to punch a hole in global Western culture and recreate a brave new world; and as one in which the scar-faced will rightly return to their roles as community cops and enforcers of corporate and political purity. Cuckoo. Fortunately, his sentimentality can be put down to his yakuza roots, and the reader doesn't have to take Miyazaki's opinions too seriously to enjoy what is a rollicking story and an important piece in the literary jigsaw of post-war Japan.