Naoya Kaneko

Naoya Kaneko, known as The Cat, is the number two man in the Sumiyoshi-kai for all of Saitama. His introduction to Jake Adelstein overturns the reporter’s expectation of a plainly threatening underworld figure: Kaneko appears composed and politically presentable, and treats a foreign journalist with deliberate courtesy. The contrast between his criminal standing and his careful management of manners defines the encounter.

Identity and Introduction

For some time, Adelstein had reported on the yakuza without dealing with them directly. That changed when Kaneko left a message for him through The Face, asking to speak with him. The intermediary was unnerved and wondered aloud whether Adelstein was in trouble or why the Sumiyoshi-kai wanted him. Adelstein did not know Kaneko’s purpose. He considered asking Yamamoto for advice, but anticipated being told to ignore the call or take a senior reporter along; instead, he decided to handle it himself.

Adelstein’s uncertainty was sharpened by where he was spending his time. He was a regular at the Maid Station, ostensibly giving English lessons to employees, and the club stood in Minami Ginza, within Sumiyoshi-kai territory. He wondered whether Kaneko might be calling over his presence on that turf or might try to blackmail him, but had no basis for deciding that either explanation was true. A police source reassured him that Kaneko was not a threat and suggested that knowing him could be useful to a reporter. Adelstein then called Kaneko’s office from a public telephone.

The first voice he heard was that of a loud, surly man who struggled to identify him as a foreign reporter. After Adelstein repeated his name several times, the man addressed Kaneko in a disrespectful manner. Kaneko immediately rebuked his subordinate, telling him to cover the phone’s mouthpiece and show the caller respect. The reprimand established that the courtesy Adelstein encountered was not simply an individual exchange: Kaneko expected his own staff to observe it as well.

When Kaneko took the call, his voice was unexpectedly smooth, almost purring. He apologized for contacting Adelstein at work, explained that he had not known another way to reach him, and asked him not to take offense at his underlings’ rudeness. Adelstein had expected a raspy, menacing voice; the polished sound and formal apology presented a different face of a man with considerable standing in organized crime. When Adelstein asked what he could do for him, Kaneko said he had an unusual, sensitive problem and hoped the reporter could help solve it.

Their first meeting carried that careful negotiation into Kaneko’s office. Adelstein got lost and asked a pink-salon tout for directions; the tout drew him a map and said that a friend of Kaneko’s would be welcome at the establishment, though Adelstein declined the invitation and continued to his appointment. Kaneko’s headquarters stood beyond sex clubs, a Vietnamese restaurant, and a taxidermist, but its exterior resembled a small construction company’s branch office. In the reception area, a formidable-looking man sat reading a pornographic magazine; he rose and silently announced Adelstein’s arrival by knocking on an office door.

Kaneko himself was about five feet seven and probably in his late fifties, with narrow eyes, thinning hair, and a goatee. In a dark suit, white shirt, paisley tie, black loafers, and two gold rings, he looked more like a politician than the Sumiyoshi-kai’s second-in-command. The office, his appearance, and his manner all complicated the image Adelstein had brought with him: the meeting offered no simple correspondence between criminal rank and outward menace.

The Meeting as a Test of Manners

Kaneko greeted Adelstein with a handshake and invited him to sit on one of three dark-brown leather sofas. A silent attendant brought green tea in lacquer saucers, a presentation meant to convey respect. Kaneko sipped his tea, while Adelstein left his untouched. Kaneko then asked for coffee; when it arrived and Adelstein raised the cup to his lips, Kaneko appeared relieved. Even before they discussed the reason for the meeting, small gestures had become part of the exchange, registering how each man received the other’s attention and hospitality.

The formal introduction followed through the exchange of business cards, or meishi. Kaneko handed over his card, and Adelstein accepted it with both hands and a bow; Adelstein offered his own, which Kaneko also received with both hands and a bow, though less deeply. The ritual made relative standing legible through the handling of a small object. Adelstein looked at Kaneko’s title and ornate lettering before placing the card carefully in his holder. Kaneko inspected Adelstein’s card and put it into a holder that appeared to be solid platinum.

After these formalities, the conversation turned to how a foreigner had been hired by the Yomiuri Shinbun. Adelstein summarized his life in Japan, including his studies at Sophia University. Kaneko listened, and the talk seemed unnervingly ordinary. That ordinary tone did not erase the disparity between their positions; instead, the card exchange and polite conversation showed how deliberately Kaneko could make a meeting between a crime-group leader and a foreign reporter proceed according to recognizable social rules.

The Reporter as a Potential Intermediary

The meeting moved from social ritual to an unresolved request when Kaneko described his reason for summoning Adelstein as an unusual and sensitive problem. He hoped the reporter could help him solve it, but the available account does not yet disclose what the problem was or what help Kaneko expected. The request nevertheless changed the terms of their encounter: Adelstein was no longer only a journalist reporting on organized crime from the outside, but someone Kaneko had deliberately sought out and invited into a matter he characterized as delicate.

That opening also left Kaneko’s purpose suspended. His formal courtesy and his authority over the men around him were already visible, but neither explained why he had chosen a foreign reporter as a potential helper. The unanswered request gives the introduction its forward motion: the meeting established a channel of direct contact before revealing what Kaneko intended to do with it.

A Changing Boundary Between Reporting and Contact

The encounter takes place against a broader change in the relationship between organized crime and public life. A detective from the Osaka Prefectural Police Department observed that, in the sixteen years after Japan’s 1992 anti–organized crime laws, yakuza numbers had remained near eighty thousand even as their money and power grew; the consolidation of the Yamaguchi-gumi had made it a formidable force. The account also marks the loss of an older boundary: journalists, once left alone, were no longer beyond reach. Kaneko’s approach to Adelstein is not presented as a threat—the reporter’s police source explicitly reassures him—but it moves him from covering the underworld at a distance to being personally sought out by a senior Sumiyoshi-kai figure. In that setting, Kaneko’s courtesy is not proof that the encounter is safe; it is the manner in which direct contact begins, while his sensitive request leaves its stakes undisclosed.