You know those yakuza flicks where they roll out the ultra right-wing buses to intimidate politicians, extort businesses, and generally act like assholes by holding up traffic, blaring their horrible anthems and ranting over stadium PA systems? This is a real life example of a Black Bus. I could theoretically get in a lot of trouble for posting this photo (which is at least one reason why I’m posting it; there are plently of people who talk about this kind of shit but the lack the guts to call attention to it). I think everyone should know specific examples of criminal and inherently evil elements of Japanese society that are consistently ignored by the media and law enforcement – which perpetuates the very existence of said elements, of course.
This photo was taken in front of Nara JR station where this bus and two others like it came close to causing accidents several times over the course of an entire afternoon. The cops sitting in the police box in front of the station wouldn’t even get out on the street to direct the traffic overflow. They sure looked nice and cool in their air-conditioned little box, though. What a fucking joke. Almost as funny as the propaganda spewing from the loudspeakers mounted on buses like this. Yeah, take back all the disputed islands from the Koreans and the Russians! Restore the Emperor to power! Return the proud warriors of the Rising Sun to their rightful place in the high court of the Golden Chrysanthemum… Or some such bullshit… Nobody understands or really gives a rat’s ass what their message is anyway. The message is not the point.
The purpose of their noisy crybabying is to draw attention, through being a major pain in the ass to their immediately targeted area, as well as society in general. It’s absolutely amazing to me that these fuckers aren’t even stopped or cautioned by the cops when pedestrians are jumping out of the way and scurrying just to get across the street for fear of being run over.
The saddest thing is that the Black Bus tactic must work, because they seem to be increasing in number every year. We even have one on my island (actually not so surprising since Awajishima is like a yakuza retirement community).
Raising a family in Thailand // Documenting Issan food, culture, music, and people
Sonno joiiiiiii…
Kevin
awesome! write more about the jap underworld, please!
Awaji island must be the Japanese equivalent of Miami Beach… “Retired mafioso central”
Thanks for the photo. It has gone in my “culture” folder. I went to another island on the Seto inland sea, nearer Okayama to film the illegal development of its mountain sides and the director was accosted by chinpira (bottom rung mafiosi).
By the way, I hope you don’t mind my copying your photo. It will be be used if at all, purely for educational purposes in lectures about Japan. Is that okay?
Tim
Tim,
No problem. If you want, I can send you the original for printing at higher resolution.
You are right about the existence of a horrifying segment of the Japanese society that wants to return to the Empire, subjugate Koreans and drive all foreigners out of Japan.
I saw a portion of this segment in my dealings with Kyoko Tominaga in Takamatsu. What I thought was a small claim against her Lingo School turned out to be a scary revelation about savagely hostile, hateful nationalists not only supporting the true activity behind Lingo School but also managing Takamatsu Elementary School and a portion of Kagawa University and the Takamatsu Court set-up. I saw a stronghold of Neo-Nazi type people who bread young thieves, liars, vandals and sex offenders within Lingo School, encouraging them to assault foreigners and beat up good students who would not buy into to hatred.
Truly frightening to see these people anxious to revise the Japanese Constitution to obtain a military offensive. They terrorized me. Tominaga and her gestapo staff repeatedly tried to fabricate false criminal charges against her foreign teachers simply because their Christian or Jewish background was not in line with her thinking. Yet she enjoys the support of the Japanese Ministry of Education.
Please keep speaking out.
I’d be very interested to hear more about Kyoko Tominaga and Lingo School in Takamatsu. I was in Takamatsu in the early nineties, and actually worked there for a short time.
You are not understand nothing yet… gaijin
I once taught at Lingo School in Takamatsu and live the nightmare many FTs faced when mixed up with Kyoko Tominaga and her nephew Nakayama. I was so horrified by the experience, that long after I had returned to my country and was approached by many asking for my contribution to relief efforts following the Fukushima nuclear disaster in March 2011 I undertook to pull out the wallet and the credit card, then I would remember my experience with Tominaga and Lingo School and I would put them away, refusing to help. That is what the likes of Kyoko Tominaga and her supporters in Takamtsu breed.
Another Gaijin.