Tokyo Junkie: 60 Years of Bright Lights and Back Alleys . . . and Baseball by Robert Whiting

Tokyo Junkie: 60 Years of Bright Lights and Back Alleys . . . and Baseball Reviews

• 
  David

  Tokyo Junkie blew me away. Whiting is a consummate storyteller, and the stories he has to tell are unlike anything I’ve come across in all my reading about Japan. The fact that this is a memoir makes it all the more readable and memorable. I envy his experiences in Japan (well, many of them, anyway), not to mention his abilities as a writer. Highly recommended.
• 
  Books on Asia

  Upcoming Release (Stone Bridge Press, April 20, 2021)
  
  Review for Books on Asia by Mark Schumacher
  
  Since the 1977 release of his first book The Chrysanthemum and the Bat, author Robert Whiting has remained the “go to” guy for entertaining and educating and enlightening books about Japan. His many English books and articles, once translated into Japanese, have hit the bestseller lists in Japan. Whiting resonates on both sides of the Pacific.
  
  This book is Whiting’s memoir of his adventures (often riotous) as a longtime Japan resident. It is a definitive, detailed, and authoritative book: an “ensemble of curiosities with enough facts to fill two books.” That quote, by the way, is from the N.Y. Times book review of Chrysanthemum and the Bat. It still accurately describes Whiting’s style of writing.
  
  Tokyo Junkie‘s 60-year trajectory carefully and entertainingly details the rebuilding of Tokyo (and Japan) from a destroyed postwar backwater reeking of urine, into a global economic powerhouse reeking of graft, bribery and scandal. It references slogans, cartoons, poems, propaganda films, secret reports, sports columns, and a wealth of other documents of the time. It is also a roller-coaster ride into the underbelly of Japan and into the underworld of Whiting’s own life in Tokyo during those decades.
  
  Drunkenness and debauchery and chicanery play a big part in Whiting’s riveting narrative, but the book’s larger message of “renewal” (both Japan’s & Whiting’s) and the “goodness” of Japan’s common people, is crafted with great skill. His wife Machiko plays a big part in Whiting’s “recovery.”
  
  Writes Whiting: “My story is part Alice in Wonderland, part Bright Lights, Big City, and part Forrest Gump, among other things. It is a coming-of-age tale as well as an account of a decades-long journey into the heart of a city undergoing one of the most remarkable and sustained metamorphoses ever seen. It is also something of a love story, with all the irrational sentimentality that term entails. Tokyo and I have had our differences, our ups and downs—I once left for what I thought was good, so tired of being a gaijin (foreigner) that I thought I would die if I stayed any longer—but as our relationship reaches the end and I look back, I must say that all in all it was the right place to spend all these years. It is not too much to say that I am what I am today because of the city of Tokyo. It was here that I learned the art of living, discovered the importance of perseverance, grew to appreciate the value of harmonious relations as much as individual rights, and came to rethink what it means to be an American as well as a member of the larger human race.”
  
  Later in the book, Whiting describes his own metamorphoses: “I had developed bizarre social skills, to use the term loosely. I knew how to talk to my fellow Tokyoites but found I was becoming less conversant with Americans. I peppered my speech with Japanese words used all the time in daily conversation—sugoi, shoganai, maitta (wow, can’t be helped, I give up)—without realizing what I was doing. Moreover, I had unconsciously adopted Japanese mannerisms: bowing when talking on the phone, sucking wind as Japanese do when trying to think of something to say, pouring beer for dinner partners.”
  
  Whiting and I have been friends since the mid-1990s, when we both lived in Kamakura. He was perpetually stuck inside a Japanese newspaper or magazine, researching his latest book. When I visited to fix or backup his Microsoft computer (I was his PC tech), I asked him how long it took him to write a book. He said: “About five years.”
  
  Like Japanese baseball, Whiting’s approach to writing is a lot of hard training and practice and research, over and over and over. He had a routine of reading the Japanese newspapers and magazines and journals, with a toothpick in his mouth, which replaced the thousands of cigarettes he had smoked and beers he had drunk in earlier times. He had come down to earth. He had become one of us again, a famous man without pretension. I like him for that.
  
  This book is Whiting’s love letter to Japan, to Tokyo, to the overall kindness of Japanese people and Japan’s endearing culture, which allowed him to arrive as a hated foreign conqueror and later to return as a friend. Writes Whiting: “I first came to the city over five decades ago in 1962 as a raw nineteen-year-old GI from small-town America. I spent over three years working for the CIA and the NSA, secretly spying on the communist regimes in Russia and China.”
  
  In his book’s conclusion, he writes: “The product of the city’s continuing renewals and rebirths has redefined what it means to be Japanese. Along the way it redefined me as well.”
  
  Tokyo Junkie is a likeable, breezy, well-written memoir, packed intensely with detail and eye-opening information about Japan, about the foibles of its author, and about bitter WWII enemies becoming steadfast friends in the following decades.
  
  ***
  Mark Schumacher is a longtime Japan resident based in Kamakura. He is an independent scholar of Japanese Buddhist statuary, and author of the popular A-to-Z Photo Dictionary of Japan’s Buddhist & Shinto Deities (online since 1995).
  
  Visit Books on Asia at
  http://www.booksonasia.net
  
  
  
  
  
  https://booksonasia.net/2021/04/02/re...
• 
  Erin

  Having lived in Tokyo from 2010-2015, I was very intrigued by the description of Robert Whiting's memoir Tokyo Junkie and was delighted to receive a copy from NetGalley and Stone Bridge Press so that I could provide an honest review.
  
  Whiting writes with an insider's knowledge and the perspective of having lived in Japan for over 60 years. I loved reading about how the country has changed and how the arc of history has impacted cultural institutions such as baseball, yakuza and Japanese politics and using the 1964 and 2020(1) Olympic Games as book ends was an effective way to frame the time period of the personal recollections. Just as interesting as these large topics Whiting tackles, are the stories of his everyday life and the characters with whom he has crossed paths. What an interesting life lived by a man who was obviously open to embracing the adventure. The respect and love that Whiting feels for the country and its people are evident and makes this an absolute joy to read for anyone interested in Japan, who have traveled Japan or the many of us who were so lucky to have lived there. I am eagerly awaiting the publishing date of Tokyo Junkie as I have a long list of those I know will enjoy it and can't wait to get a copy for myself.
• 
  Sara

  2.5 stars, really. Tokyo Junkie is a memoir of the author's time in Tokyo with a large part of it being devoted to baseball and the criminal world. I found the parts about life in Tokyo in his earliest days to be the most interesting and more of a story of Tokyo than his later years.
  Some will find this memoir offensive as it is very much the tale of a white man in Japan at a time when such men were unusual and as such had way more privilege than they deserved. Whiting is very honest about how he comported himself in such an atmosphere.
  
  The memoir reads smoothly, but as a reader, I wanted to know more about Tokyo than the author.
  
  Thank you to NetGalley for an advance copy of this book.
• 
  Renae Lucas-Hall

  Robert Whiting is a talented and fascinating writer addicted to Japan. His memoir begins in 1962 when Japan was transforming itself on a monumental scale in preparation for the Tokyo Olympics. The pages in-between cover a plethora of captivating subjects relating to the capital and the colourful characters who live there, as well as Whiting's own experiences in the Land of the Rising Sun. His final thoughts dwell on the recent Olympic Games in Tokyo in 2021 and the effects of Covid-19 on the Japanese people and the thousands of businesses that thrive on the streets and alleyways in Tokyo.
  
  Whiting is a humble man, saying more than once he believes he lacks an understanding of the finer points of Japanese culture, for example tea ceremony, but this book proves he has an all-encompassing understanding of society, culture, sport and politics in Japan.
  
  Whiting admits he finds himself drawn towards the “low end” of Tokyo when he’s not thinking of or writing about his favourite sport, baseball. He has always been intrigued by the sordid underbelly of city life and the seedy people who live, work and play there like the yakuza, gamblers and hostesses. He likes to write about all sorts of illegitimate or quasi-criminal and fraudulent activities that lay just below the surface of polite society in Tokyo but Whiting’s love of Tokyo and the people who live there is ever-present in this book. He mentions everyone who has touched his heart and helped him when he needed it most.
  
  One minute Whiting is explaining sumo wrestling is a difficult sport with a long tradition and on the next page he’ll share a story about a romantic date like his involvement with a young girl called Chako, the daughter of an izakaya owner. But it’s his love for his wife Machiko that leaves the greatest impression. He writes about her with the utmost respect and fondness.
  
  Whiting is a captivating writer. His style is void of unnecessary adverbs and superlative adjectives and he is direct, candid and sincere on every page. His descriptions of Tokyo make the reader want to move to this enticing capital or at least visit the city for an extended period. “I like the incredible energy, the activity, the politeness, the orderliness, the cleanliness, the efficiency, the trains that always arrive on time, the mix of neon lights, the charm, and the uniqueness of it all.” (pg. 77)
  
  This book is like a multi-faceted diamond with each prism refracting a unique light on each subject at hand. In the past decade, many Westerners have visited Japan and it has become one of the world’s most popular destinations. Tokyo is now home to more than 500,000 foreigners. Many people strive to understand the real Japan. They give up realising there are so many layers to the culture and levels in society and it would take years to fully comprehend. In less than 400 pages, Whiting’s memoir provides the answers to the many questions that need answering in order to understand the Japanese and their customs. This is possible because he opened his heart to the Japanese people and their culture many years ago when he was stationed in Japan, unlike most of his fellow soldiers. This is a brilliant memoir, I highly recommend it, and I’m looking forward to reading more of Whiting’s books in the future.
• 
  Geoffrey

  (Note: I received an advanced reader copy of this book courtesy of NetGalley)
  
  Author Robert Whitling’s account of his experiences living and working in Japan’s capital city turned out to be a surprisingly engaging read that is a combination of memoir, history, and love letter to Tokyo. I was both wholly absorbed within its pages and also to keep myself from constantly pausing to look up everything from specific temples and other local historical sites of note, to various aspects of Japan’s criminal underworld, and even Liberal Democratic Party scandals. Even when he's focusing on very specific topics like American athletes playing in Tokyo's professional baseball teams, Whitling’s deep connection and adoration for the city help make it come vividly alive across all the decades he lived and worked there. And as a result, Tokyo Junkie felt like it managed to be a book, a plane ticket halfway across the world, and a time machine all at once, leaving me both feeling like I just went for a grand journey, yet also feeling like I have a new location to add to my post-pandemic travel list.
• 
  Daniel Warriner

  Robert Whiting’s Tokyo Junkie covers the author’s ties to Japan’s megacity over a period of more than half a century, including his relationships and notable encounters with all sorts of people and his work on several popular books and articles about Japanese culture, sport, and politics since the 60s. Whiting doesn’t pull punches, and he gives us an honest sizing up of many Tokyo layers and key figures and events, from the construction boom leading up to the 1964 Summer Olympics to the doings of yakuza syndicates and behind-the-scenes workings of the Yomiuri Giants, to foreign ballplayers in Japan, press freedoms (or lack thereof), government screw-ups and shady deals, wrestling, the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and plenty more, with his personal experiences and Tokyo itself taking turns at center stage.
  
  When I heard Whiting was releasing a memoir, I was eager to read it (plus surprised he’d beaten me to the punch, as I’d recently finished writing the first draft of a novel I’d titled Tokyo Junkie.) When I moved here in the mid-90s, a “gaijin-house”-mate passed on to me what was then a selection of current required reading in English on various things Japanese, most of which had been written by “foreigners” who’d dug deep into topics across a spectrum of focus areas. Among these were Alex Kerr’s Lost Japan, Ian Buruma’s The Missionary and the Libertine and, of course, Robert Whiting’s You Gotta Have Wa. And they were instrumental in shaping my views and helped to make sense of a place and culture which from every direction confounded me to varying degrees. I still have (and prize) some of these books (I somehow lost the above Buruma, regrettably; if anyone has a first edition they’re willing to abandon, do let me know).
  
  I also enjoyed Whiting’s Tokyo Underworld (1999). It’s arguably the most compelling book about the city’s seamier sides. Alongside Jake Adelstein’s Tokyo Vice (2009) perhaps. And some choice bits in Tokyo Junkie are Whiting’s recollections of Nicola Zappetti interviews and the author’s accounts of brushes with the yakuza. Occasionally (maybe unavoidably) repetitive but consistently absorbing and informative, it’s a book you can either barrel through or sip at, with its countless, roughly two- to three-page chapter sections. I’ve shelved Tokyo Junkie next to Ian Buruma’s memoir, A Tokyo Romance (2018), and I’d recommend it to anyone familiar with Whiting’s work and/or enchanted by (or addicted to) Tokyo.
• 
  Loren Greene

  Robert Whiting is a guy I, quite frankly, wanted to meet. A few years ago, my then-employer was looking at bringing him in as a guest speaker, and I was tasked with picking up
  You Gotta Have Wa and
  Chrysanthemum and the Bat: Baseball Samurai Style in preparation. I finished both with great interest before turning them over to my colleague, despite having little knowledge of Japanese baseball outside of "The Curse of the Colonel," popular Osaka lore. As I read, I thought, "Wow, what an incredibly interesting life he's led." The detailed account of his time working with Japanese athletes - unheard-of, in the days before those players were permitted to try for the big leagues - impressed me.
  
  When I saw Tokyo Junkie pop up during its pre-sale period this year, I decided to add it to my reading list, as well as pick up
  Tokyo Underworld: The Fast Times and Hard Life of an American Gangster in Japan, hoping for a closer look at Tokyo life in the showa era, and neither title disappointed. Tokyo Junkie is an incredibly well-remembered account of the author's life and the changing cityscape since his arrival in Japan just prior to the '64 Olympics, outlined in such vivid detail that there was plenty to learn for an urban history buff like myself. As I was also in Japan during many of the events described in the book, including the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was fascinating to see them from someone else's point of view.
  
  The style of Tokyo Junkie feels personal, and for those who've read his other work, ties in just enough details of his previous books to keep the repeat reader engaged without rehashing too much (and made me want to re-read You Gotta Have Wa, heh). It also moves at a satisfying clip from the 1960s to present-day, lingering just long enough on the most interesting points from the eras between. An enjoyable read, and a book I'll certainly go back to again whenever I need a dose of Tokyo nostalgia.
• 
  Bernie Gourley

  Tokyo is the river that runs through this book, which for large tracts reads like a memoir and at other turns reads like a broad overview of things Japanese. I’ve only been to Tokyo once, for about a two week stay, but it’s impossible to miss the almost alien level of distinctiveness of the city. It’s the largest city in the world, but in many ways feels like a small town. The subways shut down at midnight, creating an alter ego to the city, aptly depicted in Haruki Murakami novels.
  
  Whiting’s Tokyo journey begins with his time posted there in the military, a time which happens to correspond with the city being readied for the 1964 Olympics, through the present day COVID Pandemic challenges (which happens to correspond with the 2020 Tokyo Summer games being delayed -- and it remains to be seen whether these games will ever happen given the fact that the COVID virus is not taking our plans for vaccine-driven herd immunity sitting down.)
  
  As Whiting’s book is part memoir, it gives particular scrutiny to the subjects of his earlier books, in as much as those topics touch upon life in Tokyo. One of these subjects, the more extensively discussed, is baseball and the very different way the game is played and reported upon in Japan. The other key subject is organized crime and the legendary Yakuza. Crime in Japan is a captivating topic because it is both invisible and infamously brutal. I enjoyed the view through these niche lenses because (particularly) the latter is not so conspicuous, but is riveting stuff. [When I was in Japan, I was taken to a bathhouse (not considered strange in Japan as it sounds to an American.) Before we went, I was told that if I had big tattoos, I couldn’t go; and, if I had a small tattoo, I’d need to use a washcloth to keep it covered the whole time. This is apparently because reputable establishments don’t want the taint of Yakuza on their premises. So, this is how much they keep things on the down-low.]
  
  Whiting led various lives in Tokyo, he was an airman, a student, a salaryman, an unofficial advisor to a Yakuza gang, a journalist, and a nonfiction writer. These allowed him to see the changing city from a number of varied perspectives, offering much deeper insight than the run-of-the-mill expat.
  
  In addition to the modern history of Tokyo, Japanese baseball, Yakuza, and Whiting’s various lives in the city, the book makes a lot of fascinating dives into a range of Tokyo topics, such as: sumo wrestling, the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster, the city’s distant history, salaryman drinking habits, the demographic crisis (i.e. its aging population has been approaching the point of too many retirees per working taxpayer,) etc. The book offers a no-holds-barred look at the good, the bad, and the ugly underside of the city. It at once praises the city’s politeness, cleanliness, and smooth-running order and rebukes its dark side – dirty politics, toxic workplaces, xenophobia, etc.
  
  I enjoyed this book tremendously. It offered great insight into Tokyo, Japanese culture, as well as many niche areas that I probably would never taken the time to investigate, otherwise. If you are interested in learning about Tokyo, particularly modern Tokyo, this is an excellent read.
• 
  Samantha

  It’s Robert Whiting at his finest in Tokyo Junkie, which is essentially a memoir largely focused on Whiting’s life in Japan and on Japanese culture, particularly as it relates (or sometimes doesnt) to the way we see the world as Americans.
  
  I’ve been on an All Things Japan kick lately and thus this book came at a perfect time for me. I’m also a huge fan of Whiting’s baseball writing, and there’s plenty of baseball-related content in Tokyo Junkie too.
  
  That said, this one probably isn’t for everyone. There is a LOT of detail on things like Mori architecture and Japanese government corruption. Great if you like these things, a lot to digest if you don’t.
  
  The book is also probably longer than it needs to be and contains a lot of personal “this one time I met this one guy” type vignettes that I greatly enjoyed but that may feel tedious for some readers who aren’t looking for a full immersion experience on this subject.
  
  For me, Whiting is a can’t miss anytime he has a new book out, and this one hit the mark as usual. And while I’ll always love his baseball musings the most, there’s loads of fascinating material in Tokyo Junkie that runs the gamut on life in Japan that delights in equal measure.
  
  *I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.*
• 
  Leah

  As someone who has lived in Japan for a few years out of every decade since the ‘80’s, Robert Whiting’s book Tokyo Junkie brought back a lot of memories. Even his stories from the ‘60’s and ‘70’s brought to mind stories my father, uncle, and brother told of the times they were stationed in Japan right after the war, and again in the 1960’s and 1970’s.
  
  Mr. Whiting has had a front row seat to the resurrection of a nation from the ashes of defeat to becoming to second largest economy in the world. If some of his stories seem outrageous, trust me-they aren’t. Japan, and especially Tokyo has been able to rise from the ashes like a Phoenix, and continues to do so. It is my favorite city in the world, and every time I return it seems something big has changed, but it’s still so familiar. In his stories, Whiting takes you through time, when Tokyo was still rebuilding, when Americans walking the streets were rare, and living there didn’t cost a fortune, to today when many citizen have to take out multi-generational mortgages just to buy an apartment.
  
  If you’ve spent time in this glorious city, you’ll recognize these stories. I found myself laughing out loud more than a few times. Mr. Whiting understands the Japanese and unapologetically upsets the “wa” as only a gaijin can.
  
  Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for an ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review.
• 
  Denise

  Whiting is a gifted storyteller and effortlessly brings Tokyo, the city he has called home for almost six decades, and its myriad inhabitants to life in a memoir that is nothing less than loveletter to his chosen home - though one that recognizes problems and flaws alongside the positive aspects of life in Japan instead of conyeving a purely rose-tinted view. A fascinating book about a fascinating life.
• 
  Miklos

  I loved this book!! After living in Japan for two years, I have always been fascinated by the culture.
  Mr. Whiting takes us to places long gone and places we can never see because of his deep understanding of the culture and language. It covers the entire period from his arrival as a young Airman in 1960 to the present day. I have even greater respect for Japan after reading the book.
  
• 
  Liane Wakabayashi

  Tokyo Junkie
  
  A junkie, by definition, is someone bent on destroying themselves through excessive behavior. But Robert Whiting may have intentionally rewritten the definition of "junkie" in his riveting memoir covering six decades in Tokyo, and counting.
  
  Whiting's love and comprehensive knowledge of Tokyo are even greater than his addiction to the place. Whiting is a best-selling author, a journalist, and a media personality. US presidents, he tells us, have read his books in their quest to grasp the way the Japanese mind ticks.
  
  From his humble beginnings as a 19-year-old GI stationed in the Tokyo area on an intelligence assignment, this kid from small-town Eureka, California, turns to the sports pages of the Japanese newspapers to gradually take command of a most difficult language—that eludes most Americans. He gets his degree, specializing in political science, from prestigious Sophia University, and his first office job is editing books for Encyclopedia Brittanica.
  
  "I arrived here all those years ago in the full flush of American cockiness, a sense of superiority and entitlement that was unaffected by my total ignorance of any and all matters – cultural, historical or practical – that might be in the discussion."
  
  Well, Whiting has more than vindicated himself of that ignorance. He's one of the world's leading authorities to speak about Japanese sports, politics, and organized crime.
  
  One area of his expertise is baseball. In his best-selling book, The Chrysanthemum and the Bat, he describes the making of Tokyo Junkie, which came about through a love of the game, and his astute grasp of group-ism versus individualism, a subject that he covers in his first book, "You've Got to Have Wa."
  
  Whiting can be hilarious and self-effacing in his humor. The tall, dashing younger version of himself recalls being trotted out on social occasions by his Japanese hosts, like a "pet monkey."
  
  Whiting occupies such different strata of life experienced by most Japanese foreigners in Tokyo. Myself included. He preceded most of us, arriving in 1962. He is succeeding a good many of us, too, as he nears his 60th anniversary in Japan, with a lot more stories to share.
• 
  Don MacLaren

  In the early 1960s, Japan was a poor country still emerging from the ravages of World War II. Pollution was a terrible problem. Most people in Tokyo didn’t have flush toilets. Yet Robert Whiting found himself fascinated by the city when he arrived there as a 19-year-old GI in 1962. His fascination has continued unabated since then, as evidenced by his latest book, Tokyo Junkie: 60 Years of Bright Lights and Back Alleys...and Baseball.
  ​
  “I was as naïve as they come,” Whiting writes of his life before Tokyo. But his naivete didn’t last long as he sought out new experiences while working hard at learning Japanese. Whiting often ventured out from Fuchu Air Station, on the outskirts of Tokyo, where he worked in US Air Force Intelligence, to places like Shibuya, Ginza, and Shinjuku, where he encountered yakuza, bargirls, Catholic priests, doctors, haiku-writing bohemians and others. And though he was surrounded by numerous vices that he could have become addicted to, it was Japanese baseball that he became obsessed with.
  
  The 1964 Olympics brought Japan to the eyes of the world – and brought tears of pride and joy to the eyes of many Japanese. Whiting writes that he “…watched fascinated, astonished, as, before my eyes, the city evolved, in a few short years, from a fetid, disease-ridden third-world backwater into a modern megalopolis in what many believe to be the greatest urban transformation in history.”
  ​
  Though many Japanese were moved to tears because of how far they had come since 1945, there were also tears of grief and shame during the Olympics, when the Dutch judo contestant Anton Geesink won the Gold Medal against the Japanese Akio Kaminaga in the Open category. (The Japanese had requested that the Olympic committee include judo in the games.)
  ​
  Whiting writes about how Geesink’s win revealed the strong mixed and complicated feelings that the Japanese harbored toward foreigners. Sometimes, Whiting shows us, those feelings were not mixed at all, but outright hostile. Despite his criticisms though, it is clear that Whiting’s love for the country, and especially Tokyo, is much stronger than any other feeling he has – mixed or otherwise.
  ​
  Whiting does not confine his criticism to the Japanese. Americans in Japan could be as narrow-minded as any Japanese, he tells us. When Whiting’s enlistment ended in the mid-'60s and he decided to stay in Japan, many of his fellow GIs accused him of being a “Jap-lover.”
  ​
  Whiting has spent most of his life since leaving the Air Force in Tokyo. In the decades since the ’64 Olympics, the city has gone through another miraculous transformation. Whiting’s own experiences in those years have been just as fascinating.
  ​
  In 2013, Tokyo was again awarded the Summer Olympics. By that time it had become the city with the highest GDP in the world, with more Fortune 500 companies than any other metropolis. And the world had become enamored with Japanese culture; people had become hooked on everything from sushi to anime. Japan by then had also stumbled through numerous corruption scandals, and its economy had shrunk during the “lost decade” of the 1990s. By 2013 Whiting had graduated from a Japanese university, mastered the Japanese language, written numerous critically-acclaimed books (including the Pulitzer Prize entry, You Gotta Have Wa), been honored by US presidents and received death threats from yakuza after writing Tokyo Underworld: The Fast Times and Hard Life of an American Gangster in Japan. And he had married a Japanese woman – Machiko Kondo – who made a career as an officer for the United Nations.
  ​
  Whiting takes us on a delightful tour through all of this.
  ​
  Tokyo Junkie brings to mind two other fine books that I’d highly recommend reading after you've finished Tokyo Junkie. One of them is the Pulitzer Prize-winning A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam by Neil Sheehan, which traces America’s role in Vietnam up to the 1970s and on a parallel level the life of John Paul Vann, an American who spent many years in war-torn Vietnam and died there when his helicopter hit trees while flying at night.
  ​
  The other book is Whiting’s own Tokyo Underworld, which traces Japanese-American postwar relations, and on a parallel level the life of Nick Zapetti, a former US Marine, who came to Japan during the postwar Occupation and stayed there. Zapetti would boast that he was the richest American in Japan, but he lost most of his money and died in his adopted country a broken man.
  ​
  Sheehan and Whiting skillfully interweave the lives of the main characters (and in the case of Tokyo Junkie, the narrator) with larger forces. This makes the books very personal stories as well as macro-political/economic narratives about places that have had an immense impact on the United States and the rest of the world.
  ​
  Tokyo Junkie is different from the two other books, however, in that both Vann and Zapetti were dark and conflicted figures. Whiting has lived through a great deal of drama in his years in Tokyo, but reading Tokyo Junkie it’s clear that his own dramatic story is a happier one.
  ​
  By the time Zapetti died he had planned to kill all those he disliked. It seems, however, he disliked himself more than anyone else. As Whiting writes in Tokyo Underworld, Zapetti told him shortly before he died that “…any man who left his own country to live in another was an ‘asshole,’ deserving of everything bad that happened to him.”
  ​
  Zapetti was wrong. Whether it is in Tokyo, or anywhere else in the world, one will find heroes, villains and fools. Zapetti belonged in one - or both - of the latter categories. By living and writing Tokyo Junkie, Whiting deserves to be listed in the first category.
  ​
  If you have any interest in learning of how a fascinating city and a fine human being have developed over the course of nearly 60 years – with many trials, tribulations, joys and successes - read Tokyo Junkie!
• 
  Brandur

  A nice memoir of an interesting life spent in Japan. For those of us a little younger than Whiting, it's also a historical record, as many of the scenes described are set squarely in a Tokyo of the past that are hardly imaginable today. I have little interest in baseball, and so lost the thread a little in those sections, but even for a non-enthusiast understanding the country's relationship with this particular sport is interesting.
• 
  Daiya Hashimoto

  The first 5-star book of the year(2023) is a memoir of the 60 years of Showa, Heisei, and Reiwa between the two Tokyo Olympics. The author is Robert Whiting, an 81-year-old journalist living in Japan. Although the book is written in English for an international audience, the readers who will really enjoy reading this book are those of us who have lived through this period. He is a valuable witness who has observed the era of high economic growth, the bubble economy and its collapse, and the lost 30 years from the perspective of the masses like us. This is not just nostalgia but a first-class discussion of Japanese culture from an original point of view.
  
  Whiting came to Japan in 1962 as a U.S. Army soldier, worked in intelligence for the CIA and NSA, retired from the military, studied political science at Sophia University, and married a Japanese woman. After working as an English teacher for Tsuneo Watanabe, an influential fixer and later president of the Yomiuri Shimbun, and as an advisor to the Yakuza Sumiyoshi-kai, he became the editor of the Japanese edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica and produced related English language materials. 1977 saw the publication of his best-selling book "Chrysanthemum and the Bat," and he began working as a freelance journalist. He has since published many bestsellers, including the Pulitzer Prize nominee "You Gotta Have Wa" (1989) and "Tokyo Underworld" (2000), which has been made into a Hollywood movie.
  
  Whiting was fed up with being treated as a "gaijin," but on the other hand, he used his foreigner's privilege to infiltrate the depths of politics, baseball, and the underworld, which ordinary Japanese could not do. In his youth, he lived in a cheap apartment in Higashi-Nakano, visited at 2 am by hostesses wearing thick makeup and yakuza men he knew, but since becoming a successful journalist, he has mingled with celebrities and lived in a house in Kamakura and a tower apartment in Toyosu. He is a man who knows Japan inside and out, front and back, from top to bottom.
  
  Typically, an individual's retrospective of 60 years can be nostalgic or influenced by recent events that distort the perspective of history, but Whiting's historical perspective is very balanced. He has not lived in Japan for 60 unbroken years but has lived in cities around the world because his wife, who worked for the United Nations, has been transferred to other countries. This is why he is able to look at Japan more objectively than the "gaijin" celebrities who often appear on TV. His analysis is thought-provoking. The book is rich in content and should be read as a textbook by young Japanese readers.
  
  What makes this book a page-turner more than anything else is its unique approach. Using the keywords that he has used in dozens of his books, including politics, popular culture, baseball, professional wrestling, and the underworld, he has superbly organized the turbulent history of our time. And by linking it to his own tumultuous personal history as an expatriate, it becomes a fascinating story. Although there are some journalistic criticisms, Whiting's writing is always full of love for Japan and Tokyo, making this a masterpiece that will evoke strong sympathies among Japanese readers.
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  Yukio Nagato

  I've also been in Japan since the 60s and everything Whiting writes here is spot on. I've also seen this land go from poor to rich in a span of a generation. I remember the "honey bucket" trucks when almost all the houses had "plop toilets." Even in 1972, our brand new apartment in Tokyo didn't have a shower/bath so we had to bathe at a public bath across the street where they were so ubiquitous that there seemed to be one on every corner like convenience stores are today. I miss the "old" Japan that Whiting describes so well. It really was a different world that many today can't even imagine unless they were there. I've been reading Whiting since the 80s and it's hard for me to believe he's written a memoir about his life since I've always pictured him being a young, middle-aged man, just a little older than me, but I guess we are both getting older. I think this is a great book to read if you really want to know the modern history of Tokyo and to an extent Japan.
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  Miriam

  I received an advanced ecopy of this book courtesy of NetGalley.
  
  Tokyo Junkie is a memoir of the author's time in Tokyo Japan starting after WWII and moving onward. It is an interesting study of what Japan was like and how it has evolved as a country. However this book very much feels like it is written from an older white man and it doesn't feel fully authentic to me. The author is very up front with the fact that he is an outsider's look on Japan which is important but did end up being a DNF for me.
  
  The text is very readable and flows very nicely. Very interesting concept on the whole.
  
  Thank you to NetGalley for the advanced copy of this book.
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  Steve

  I've enjoyed his other books on baseball (can't remember if I read Tokyo Underworld) and was interested in reading about someone's life in another country. There is some great history on Japan in general as well that made me understand some things (including baseball) more. The book is mainly focused on his early years then then sort of breezes through the rest at times. But overall, it was a good read for me, well structured and enough different stories to keep things interesting. He definitely had some privileges most other ex-pats did not. But if he didn't then he probably wouldn't have written this book anyway.
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  Julene

  Tokyo has a vast history that is playing out in today’s changing economy. Living in Tokyo during this time has been an interesting experience and the book helped open my eyes to the layers of the city I now call home. Because of the COVID crisis we’ve all played on the Japanese team during our time living through a health challenge. It’s great to hear from the author why he continues to come back to the mega-city and how resilient and resourceful it can be. Looking forward to seeing how the next pages of history are developed.
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  Michelle

  I picked this book up on a whim as I had the pleasure of visiting Tokyo in March of 2019 and loved it. The author covers the history of Tokyo during his time living there, especially his observations of and interactions with the people, which mirror my own. I loved this peek into Tokyo. Highly recommend.
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  Geraldo Daniel

  60 years of memory and experience of Japan, condensed into a compact story. The writing feels breezy and focused, while also unashamedly frank.
  
  Though some recollections of Mr Whiting of Japan might offend our modern delicate sensibilities (for example, his story about women making advances on a gaijin like him), I still think this book is worth reading.
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  Louise Gray

  Try to keep up as the author shares why Tokyo has fascinated him and why it should fascinate you. Part social history, part biography, this book offers a lot of entertainment to a variety of readers. I liked the fast paced writing style which was not overblown in any way. Very enjoyable.
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  Charlotte

  Robert Whiting's memoir of Japan was completely absorbing; as someone who has always wanted to visit I felt that I glimpsed an insight in to the country and now I want to visit even more.
  
  Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review