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Editorial Reviews Review “A delightful memoir of the author’s five-decade love affair with a city that “hypnotized” him and never let go.” —Kirkus Starred Review “From the author of Tokyo Underworld comes an up close and very personal memoir. Tokyo Junkie is a raucous, funny, and always fascinating love letter to one of the most dynamic cities in the…

A ROMANTIC REVERSE COURSE IN OCCUPATION JAPAN  Dangerous liaison? Viscountess Torio ca.1947 by ROBERT WHITING Afew months back in Number 1 Shimbun this author described how the G-2 Intelligence wing of the GHQ and the Canon Agency spied on communists during the Occupation. However, they also spied on fellow Americans. One of their targets was Charles Louis Kades…

Revisiting ‘Tokyo Underworld,’ book that lifted lid on crime in Japan With a TV series in prospect, its author reflects on how lawbreaking has changed Three yakuza in Tokyo’s Kabukicho entertainment and red-light district in 1971. (Katsumi Watanabe)ROBERT WHITING, Contributing writerApril 15, 2020 13:00 JST More than two decades ago I published a book called…

Katsuya Nomura, star baseball player with rocky personal life He spent 26 years at Nankai Hawks, racking up achievements Yakult Swallows manager Katsuya Nomura is tossed in the air by his jubilating players at the Seibu Lions Stadium in Saitama after they capped thier 1993 season with a 4-3 victory over the Seibu Lions on…

Obituary: Masaichi Kaneda, Japanese baseball legend with Korean roots Pitcher, who grew up in an era of ethnic prejudice, won a record 400 games Masaichi Kaneda unleashes a pitch for the Yomiuri Giants in 1969, his final year in a pro career that began in 1950.    © KyodoROBERT WHITING, Contributing writerOctober 8, 2019 18:48 JST…

Lessons from a Japanese baseball maverick Yutaka Enatsu would have wowed America if he had played in the MLB Yutaka Enatsu unleashes a pitch while playing for the Hanshin Tigers in 1975. A Japanese sporting legend, he was as famous in Japan for his notorious lifestyle as for feats on the mound.    © JijiROBERT WHITING, Contributing writerAugust 21, 2020…

JAPAN’S SANDY KOUFAX: THE YUTAKA ENATSU STORY: By Robert WhitingNot much is known in North America about Yutaka Enatsu, a southpaw who was perhaps the best pitcher who ever played the game in Japan, and that includes Shohei Ohtani and Yu Darvish. Americans who had the chance to see him throw, certainly never forgot the…

The annual Koshien Stadium competition is the closest thing to a national festival ROBERT WHITING, Contributing writer NIKKEI ASIA REVIEW JULY 24, 2019 14:30 JST TOKYO — The biggest sporting event of the year in Japan is a high school baseball tournament held each August at the Koshien Stadium in Nishinomiya, near Kobe, on the…

Japanese Baseball’s ‘Wa’ Factor by Patrick L. Smith (Jul 18, 1989) When Bob Whiting arrived in Tokyo back in 1965 to attend Sophia University’s extension for foreign students, it was only natural that he gravitated quickly to the spectator sport both Japan and the United States claim as a national pastime. How could he know…