The following is a sequential list of things Jake Adelstein claims to have happened in Tokyo Vice as well as a few generally known facts. The purpose of a timeline listing is assist any readers of this blog and Tokyo Vice to keep the myriad of events in order, better understand the sequence, etc.
| 1969 | Joshua “Jake” Adelstein is born | |
| 1987 | At the University of Missouri | |
| 1988 | Comes to Japan and enters Sophia | |
| 1991 | late | Begins studying Japanese, “with a very light class load and lots of time on my hands, I decided to throw myself into studying the Japanese language” |
| 1992 | Sophia student | |
| 1992 | May 7 | Attends first Yomiuri seminar |
| May 10 | Takes Yomiuri written exams | |
| Jun. | 2nd round of interviews at Yomiuri | |
| Jul. 12 | Receives call to attend final round of interviews | |
| Jul. 31 | Final round of interviews. Yomiuri informs him that he will be hired. | |
| Oct. | Visits Yomiuri HR and asks for prelimniary internship | |
| Oct. | Mini-internship for a week at the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department (TMPD) press club among other minipostings. | |
| Oct (mid) | Sent to Chiba for a mini-assignment | |
| Oct/Nov.
weeks later |
Claims his article appears in national edition without byline. “Organized Crime Targeting Non-Japanese Street Vendors. Yakuza Find New Way to Squeeze Out ‘Rent’ by Taking Advantage of Illegal Workers (Who Can’t Seek Police Protection).” | |
| Dec. 21 | (The actual date of publication of the street vender article) | |
| 1993 | Trouble getting working visa but goes through after Yomiuri HR calls to complain. | |
| Apr. 1 | Enters Yomiuri with ceremony | |
| Assigned to the Saitama branch of the Yomiuri in Urawa City. | ||
| Ostenibly orientation at head office | ||
| Apr. 14 | Welcome party for new employees | |
| Apr. 15 | First day of work at Saitama branch | |
| Apr. 15 | at 1:00pm call came in that Ryo Machida stabbed by Yoshiyama (sentenced to 8 years in 1994) in Tsurugashima. Claims to have found the name of the killer before the police announced it. No full name, no dates. Likely made up. | |
| Summer | Bribes lead detective for info on Kosuke Sato, 45, who had picked over 400 pockets. Claims the story came out in late September in “The News Inside and Out,” a feature section of the local Yomiuri. Claims a byline. | |
| ??? | Adestine is regular at the “Maid Station,” as a customer and English teacher. “I was a single guy, and in Saitama during the nineties, going for a “sexual massage” was as Japanese as sushi.” | |
| ??? | Noaya Kaneko, “the Cat” calls. “Like many reporters, I covered the yakuza for quite some time without actually ever dealing with them directly. That changed very quickly when a call came in from Naoya Kaneko, aka “The Cat,” the number two man in the Sumiyoshi-kai for all of Saitama” | |
| Oct. 9 | Snack Mama murder, breaks up with I-Chan due overwork and absentee boyfriend but enough time for Maid Station? | |
| Dec. | Got into a brawl at company bonenkai and beats up a colleague with masterfully executed martial arts moves. | |
| Dec. 29 | Ran into self-immolation victim Hikoki Harasawa (age forty-eight, birthday on January 5) in a Saitama park. | |
| 1994 | Jan. | Covering the Saitama Organized Crime Control Bureau “My focus now was on organized crime, theft, and public security. In other words, the yakuza 24/7.” “You’re the guy covering the Saitama Organized Crime Control” |
| Electrocution suicide. Urawa homicide squad medical examiner, Takagi, beeps Adelestein and then says on the phone,”Hey, Jake, you want to see something really weird?” | ||
| Snack Mama in order of book (out of order) | ||
| Ageo Park murder in order of the book (out of order) | ||
| Jan. | Dog breeder case starts. “My focus now was on organized crime, theft, and public security. In other words, the yakuza 24/7.” | |
| Feb. 19 | Dog breeder article appears “Several Dog Lovers Missing in Saitama from April to August. Trouble over Sales. | |
| Nov. 16 | Covering hostilities between Kokusui-kai and Yamaguchi-gumi in Konosu | |
| ???? | ???? | Publishes Cyclop’s story: His family invested heavily in a Korean-run credit union/bank that eventually had to be bailed out by the Japanese government. Adelstein’s “investigative reporting led to arrests” and brought justice to the Korean community. |
| 1995 | fall | Nakagawa woman murdered in Maruyama Park in Ageo, boyfriend Abdul, “Andy” |
| 1996 | ???? | Marries Sunao |
| 1997 | ||
| 1998 | ||
| 1999 | Covering Saitama politics | |
| 1999 | Apr. | Moved to Tokyo Shakaibu and assigned to Police Beat covering Fourth District almost all of Shinjuku Ward |
| Mature Hot Wives Party Palace owner arrested | ||
| Superjake, the crack reporter who has been covering organized crime since 1993 and a regular at the Maid Station claims ignorance of the laws surrounding the sex industry in Japan? Really? | ||
| So, the vice squad head, Shimozawa (no first name) gives Adelstein an explanation of and tour of Kabukicho along with visit to health place. He then goes home and tells the wife and she’s okay with it? | ||
| Meets Mami Hamaya | ||
| 1999 | Oct. 6 | Host Club |
| 2000 | June | From shakaibu (City News Desk) asking to talk to people about volcano eruption |
| July | Called in to assist with Blackman case and returned to TMPD press club | |
| Goes under cover in Roppongi to investigate. | ||
| Sep. 17 | Son Beni born | |
| week later | Beni’s picture appeared on Yomiuri front page,”Cloning: Are We Going to Create a Superhuman Race?” | |
| 2001 | Summer | Goto gets liver transplant |
| 2001 | Aug. | Covers Kabukicho fire |
| 2002 | Nov. | Eiju Kim crime scene in Tokyo |
| 2003 | ??? | Covering IT crime |
| 2003 | Aug. 1 | Returns to TMPD press club to alludes to covering Organized Crime Control Bureau” |
| Aug. 2 | Susumu Kajiyama arrest warrant | |
| 2003 | Sep. 12 | Hamaya to HR announcement |
| Fall | Covering Kajiyama/visits Quest/meets Cyclops and learns about Goto liver transplant | |
| Mid-Nov. | Two Million Dollars Seized from Emperor of Loan Shark’s Safe Deposit Box. | |
| Nov./Dec. | More articles followed about money trail | |
| 2004 | Feb. 8 | Viktor article runs in Yomiuri morning edition |
| Jun. | U.S. State Department put Japan on a watch list of countries doing bad job of addressing human trafficking problems. | |
| Jun. 23 | U.S. Embassy held a symposium on human trafficking at the United Nations University/Adelstein a panelist/ Adestein grills NPA speaker | |
| Jun. 23/24 | Next day: “Japan: Kingdom of Human Trafficking? American Wants Japan to Criminalize Human Trafficking.” | |
| Next day: “Trio of irate Japanese bureaucrats stood waiting for me. One was from the NPA, one from the Ministry of Justice, and one from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The MOFA official was a woman.” | ||
| Jun. 24 | “Strengthening penalties, including establishment of new laws, toward eradicating trafficking of foreign women.” appears in Yomiuri Shinbun. | |
| Jun. 26 | “Govt must act on human trafficking” article appears | |
| Summer | Hamaya suicide | |
| International Labor Organization (ILO) carried out a study of human trafficking in Japan | ||
| Nov. 19 | Yomiuri front page article on human trafficking based on ILO study | |
| Nov. 20 | Adelstein follows up with his own article the next day | |
| Nov. 22 | Japan blasted over human trafficking translation of Nov. 19 story appears in Daily Yomiuri | |
| 2004 | May | Son Ray born |
| Covering ATM theft stories | ||
| Drug squad raided Slick’s clubs, and he went out of business. | ||
| Viktor was beaten by local yakuza for infringing on their turf after someone gave his name to them. | ||
| Viktor wound up behind bars. | ||
| 2005 | Mar. | In March 2005, Kazuoki Nozaki, a fifty-eight-year-old adviser of a building management company and partial owner of the Shinjuku Building, was stabbed to death on a street in Minato Ward, Tokyo. |
| Oct. | Goto’s men make their threat | |
| Nov. | Resigns from Yomiuri | |
| Nov/Dec | In U.S. preparing for LSAT | |
| Dec. | Returns to Japan | |
| 2006 | Jan. | Visits Sekiguchi house and learns of his cancer |
| Jan. | Working for U.S. government | |
| Jan. | Fights his way out of Moscow Mule in Ikebukuro | |
| Feb. | Last meeting with Helena at Starbucks, night before was cold | |
| Mar. | Helena calls Adelstein in the U.S. and disappears almost immediately afterwards | |
| Mar. | Races back to Tokyo to find Helena disappeared. | |
| Nov. | Meets Goto solider far from Tokyo and learns about FBI deal | |
| Dec. | Meets Jim Moynihan and gets story confirmed. | |
| Dec. | Meets Masaki Shibata, who had been a friend of Goto but no mention of his gang. | |
| Completing human traficking project and commuting back and forth from U.S. to Japan | ||
| 2007 | Shibata dies but gives Adelstein the name Hisatoshi Mio, the founder of the Mio-gumi. He was also a backer of the Emperor of Loan Sharks, Kajiyama. | |
| Jun. | Kitazawa Police Department data leak, which confirmed everything | |
| Aug./Fall | Sekiguchi dies | |
| Nov. | Notices Kodansha summary of story online | |
| Dec. | Getting signals that he is in trouble | |
| 2008 | Jan. | Gets confirmation in Kabukicho bar that Goto is planning to kill him |
| Mar. 5 | Adelstein placed under police protection. ” An FBI special agent accompanied me to the National Police Agency, and they discussed what measures they could take. The FBI contacted local U.S. law enforcement and had them put a watch on my house in America.” | |
| Mar. 7 | Pisses off police by going to Goto trial, touches Goto from gallery, flips him off in the hallway and launches a rant against Goto’s lawyer in the press area. | |
| Mar. 8 | Learns of Lietenant K. who is a yak informant but the cops won’t touch him because he gives them good intel. | |
| May 11 | Washington Post story “This Mob Is Big in Japan” | |
| May 30 | Los Angeles Times story, “Japanese gang figures got new livers at UCLA, Recipients included one of Japan’s top crime bosses. Some fear a chilling effect on organ donations.” | |
| May 30 | Japansubculture.com is registered | |
| 2009 | Nov. 9 | Featured on NPR |
