The Dark Side: Infamous Japanese Crimes and Criminals

by Mark Schreiber

Book by Schreiber, Mark

Genres: Japan, History

251 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2002

Reviews

[Stephen Rowland · Rating 3 out of 5]

2½. The topic is interesting, but Schreiber is a lifeless, awkward writer. And if you've read his Shocking Crimes of Postwar Japan, you can skip the entire Showa section of this one. I really wish he would have elaborated on some of the more fascinating cases, but most are relegated to a few paragraphs.

[Kuma · Rating 5 out of 5]

Scheiber's excellent no-messing-about journalist-style writing is to be commended. He covers a lot of ground, a lot of stories. Gives huge insights into Japan in a very accessible and fun way, despite the dark subject matter. You can dip in wherever you want, and then if you did want to follow up then you can go off and do some research, but he covers each crime/criminal extremely well. Really loved this book. Deserves a reprint because I had to pay a lot for it but money well-spent.

[André · Rating 2 out of 5]

An enjoyable introduction to the history of crime and punishment in Japan. Unfortunately, I feel like it could have been more academic and in depth. The book features a long bibliography at the end, but has no in-text citations or footnotes (only 2 notes at the very end). Also, it has no word index, it doesn't include the Japanese rendering of words and contains occasional transcription errors (e.g. Shirogane instead of Shirokane 白金, fuju-fuze instead of fuju-fuse 不受不施) and typos (page 104: 1963 instead of 1863, among others).

Overall, a useful read for the layman, a frustrating read for any Japanologist out there.