Takarajima Publishing House

Takarajima Publishing House gave Jake Adelstein and Tomohiko Suzuki a route into print for reporting that Japanese newspapers had largely declined to publish. Their anthology chapter, included in Heisei Japan Taboo Compendium 2008, added previously unpublished names and details about yakuza recipients of liver transplants; police later identified the anthology as the tipping point in Tadamasa Goto’s expulsion from the Yamaguchi-gumi.

The Anthology Project

Tomohiko Suzuki, a friend of Adelstein and a former editor of a yakuza fan magazine, approached him about contributing a chapter to an anthology of forbidden news stories for Takarajima Publishing House. Adelstein proposed that they write it together. The collaboration extended the risk beyond Adelstein: Suzuki warned that the project could provoke the Goto-gumi, but agreed to proceed.

Suzuki also told Adelstein that he would need a bodyguard. He arranged for Teruo Mochizuki, a former yakuza with personal ties to the organized-crime world, to serve as bodyguard and driver. The arrangement reflected the danger surrounding the reporting, rather than any protection Takarajima itself is described as providing.

Reporting and Publication

The chapter emerged after Adelstein struggled to place his reporting elsewhere. He sent a copy to the Yomiuri Shimbun before publication, but it ignored the article, as did other Japanese newspapers. Coverage in the Los Angeles Times had made the story harder to avoid, yet Japanese outlets that reported it generally attributed it to the American newspaper rather than independently verifying or extending the investigation.

The anthology was published on August 9 under the title Heisei Japan Taboo Compendium 2008. Adelstein used his chapter to disclose the names of three other yakuza who had received liver transplants, in addition to Goto. They were Yoshiro Ogino of the Matsuba-kai, Hisatoshi Mio, whose name had been supplied by Shibata, and Saburo Takeshita, a financial figure associated with the Goto-gumi. The chapter also reported that Ogino and Goto were blood brothers and that Ogino had allegedly donated $100,000 to UCLA after his surgery. These disclosures widened the reporting from one prominent recipient to a network of patients and financial questions.

Reception and Risks

The response was fierce. Suzuki received the threatening calls, while Adelstein said he was spared having to deal with them directly. Shukan Jitsuwa covered the book and Adelstein, casting him as a CIA agent or pawn, or as an ignorant American hostile to the yakuza. The attacks sought to discredit the reporting as well as its author.

The publication also carried consequences beyond threats. A blood brother of Mochizuki who remained an organization member placed four cars in Adelstein’s neighborhood around the clock. Adelstein understood this as a warning to the Goto-gumi that another crime group was protecting him. He had not requested this protection and did not want to become indebted to a Japanese mafia group, but acknowledged that he owed the man for taking the risk on his behalf.

Kodansha International later pulled the book after outsourcing a risk assessment whose conclusion was unfavorable. That decision was distinct from the publication itself: the anthology had already appeared, while the assessment led to its withdrawal by Kodansha International.

Consequences and Significance

Around October 14, Goto was officially expelled from the Yamaguchi-gumi, and several of his associates were suspended, expelled, or banished for life. The Goto-gumi split into two crime families, leaving Goto an ex-crime boss. Adelstein said police assured him that publication of Heisei Japan Taboo Compendium 2008 had been the tipping point, and warned him to lie low. The account presents that connection as what police told the reporter, not as an independently established explanation of the organization’s decision.

Takarajima Publishing House’s significance in the episode lies in making a barred and risky investigation publicly available when other Japanese newspaper outlets had declined to carry it. The anthology’s path—from rejected reporting, through publication and threats, to a police-attributed organizational consequence and a later withdrawal—shows how publishing decisions could affect which allegations entered public discussion, and at what personal and institutional cost.