A riveting, behind-the-scenes look at the life and times of yakuza mob boss Makoto Saigo, aka Tsunami, by Americas foremost expert on Japanese organized crime.
Makoto Saigo could have been a rock star. Instead he became a yakuza. Born in Japan, but the son of an American-born Japanese womanwho moved back to Japan to avoid internment campsSaigo was never a typical Japanese boy. As a child, other children referred to him as a damn American, or simply a non-person. He was always an outsider, but as a teenager in 1970s Tokyo he found his tribe in Japans notorious motorcycle gangstheBosozuko. His life was full of speed, whether synthetically through crystal meth, mechanically from the engine of his bike, or rhythmically as he played guitar for Japan pioneering punk-rock group Gedo. But a chance encounterand perhaps a bit too much lust for life that kept leading him to Toykos notorious red light districtplaced him on a different path of becoming a boss in the Inagawa-kai, the countrys third largest organized-crime group.
Full of swordfights, gun battles, finger amputation, rock n roll, financial crimes, gang wars, tattoos, and personal vendettas, Saigos story is one of a kind. But it is not the only story told here.The Last Yakuza also tells the history of the yakuza since World War II, and explains how the yakuza became so entrenched in Japan. Saigos life is the axis around which tales of yakuza life and their role in Japanese society are told. It is the story of one yakuza bossnot a good man, but a man with a code of honorand the history of the rise and fall of Japans underworld as it is almost literally tattooed on his body and charted by his missing finger.
(With 8 pages of black-and-white illustrations.)
