Speed Tribes: Days and Nights with Japan's Next Generation Book

A collection of (newspaper) articles from the author on various aspects of Japanese society that usually are ignored by the mainstream - motorcycle gangs (bosozoku, that's where the title comes from - speed tribes), small time youth criminals, low-ranking Yakuza, independent drug dealers, party girls, foreign hostess girls, criminal far right nationalists (Neonazis?), apathetic elite university students, etc. There's an undercurrent of anger in some of those articles, especially the one on uni students - the cult around Tokyo University, the number one elite university, is criticized as having this ridiculously hard rote-learning entrance exam, after which every student is basically given a pass for the rest of the degree. I can't comment on the truth of that - the example question on specific landmarks and their size in the Netherlands certainly is ridiculous and requires pure rote learning, but online I can only find their mathematics exam which looks 'normal'.

Since the book is a bit old it works better as a time document of Japan shortly after the bubble popped. Some of the subcultures described have mostly disappeared, or greatly lost in importance. I think bodycon is completely gone, bosozoku are mostly gone too (2011 source), other areas like hostess bars are still going strong (I've once been invited to one, it's a strange place), and the Nazis are still driving around with their annoying speaker cars (and are now getting stronger due to Abe's program of strengthening Japan's military and changing the constitution towards what they've always clamored for).

The target of these articles is clearly a Western reader unfamiliar with Japan since these articles mostly appeared first in Western newspapers, so people should have no problems reading these. The seediness of the majority of these articles should satisfy people who are into authors such as Ryu Murakami (not Haruki), most of Murakami's books are set in the same milieu as Greenfeld's articles.

P.S.: The bosozoku gang Black Emperor appears shortly - there is an documentary from the 70s on that gang with a name that, to post-rock fans, sounds very familiar: Godspeed You! Black Emperor.