Yakuza

Years ago, I went to a local sushi restaurant with some Japanese friends. Down a side street with little or no signage, it wasn’t a place I could’ve found on my own. Inside, it was warm and inviting. We sat near the far left corner of a well-worn, beautiful, three-sided wooden counter.

The entire restaurant was dim, with most of the lighting around the inside of the counter. This placed the sushi chef at the center of the action and emphasized the entertainment aspect of the meal.

My friends knew the chef, who was charismatic, welcoming, and skilled. The meal was outstanding, even though I can’t recall the particulars.

I’d been living in Japan for a while at this point. It was hot and humid in the late Summer, and I chose to wear a short-sleeve shirt. Had I gone with the long-sleeved dress shirt I’d worn earlier for work, none of the following would have happened.

As we entered the shop, an older, intoxicated gentleman stood up from the counter and made a show of examining my full-sleeve tattoo. Back then, my Japanese wasn’t great. Smiling devilishly, he said what I can only assume was, “You want to see a real Japanese tattoo? I’ll show you one.”

Unbuttoning his shirt, he proudly displayed the two giant dragons on his torso. They were somewhat faded. He’d had them for a long time. 

He began laughing and held up his hands. That’s when I saw them. His pinky fingers were missing two joints each. I’d only seen this in movies. It was unsettling.

My friends stepped in and sorted out the situation. Whatever it was or could have been, I’ll never really know. When I asked them about the guy, they said, “He’s a nice man who lives in the neighborhood.”

It’s the only time I’ve had such a direct interaction with a yakuza member.

Note that this was a rare occurrence. Japan is one of the safest countries in the world; school children as young as six years old ride the subway to school with zero fear of crime. This is the only time I’ve ever had a personal encounter with a yakuza. As long as you avoid sketchy bars in red-light districts and don’t follow any street touts trying to convince you to go to their bar, restaurant, or club, you’re unlikely to have encounters with the yakuza.

Yelp Ratings in Japan

Ratings on Yelp (and other rating sites) in Japan do not work like ratings in North America. If you are from a Western country, it almost feels like “reverse Yelp.”

In the West, it’s normal to start your rating at 5 stars for restaurants, ride-share apps, food delivery services, etc. When it comes to restaurants, Westerners will deduct for poor service, attitude, mistakes, bad food, or small portions. But if the food is good and the service is fine, they’re likely to give the place 5 stars. This is why an average place can have a 5-star rating. It’s not really a 5-star place, it’s just a place that meets expectations. Therefore, people don’t deduct from their starting point.

In Japan, reviews start conservatively at 3 for an average place, with 4 being exceptional and 5 being life-changing (ie, a 5 rating is seldom given). 

These differing approaches have an interesting effect on restaurants in touristy areas in Japan. Restaurants here tend to have higher ratings due to more reviews from lenient foreigners, which skews the whole system toward higher ratings in tourist areas. 

Be wary of any review with a 4-star rating in a tourist area. It is highly likely to be overrated. Especially if many of the reviews aren’t written in Japanese.

A similar ramen joint down a back alley with a mere 3.5-star rating is likely to have significantly better food. Particularly if the reviews are primarily written in Japanese.

I’m not a big ratings person. I tend to find my spots based on the recommendations of people I meet in person. You can do the same. Ask around at small joints you visit. Chefs, bartenders, owners, servers, and other patrons will tell you about places you’d have a tough time discovering on your own.

If you must check ratings, tabelog.com, a Japanese rating website, is more accurate in Japan than Yelp, Google, or TripAdvisor.

I previously wrote about Finding Great Restaurants, which has more useful strategies and pairs well with this article.

Perfect Days

I recently watched Perfect Days, a languid movie about a stoic man working as a toilet cleaner. It was the answer to my doom-scrolling. (This movie was highly recommended by several friends.)

Wim Wenders’ 2023 drama, co-written with Takuma Takasaki, is an unusual film for these times. Focusing on the life of a public toilet cleaner in Tokyo named Hirayama, the movie shows his daily routine, professionalism, dedication to his job, and his passion for photography, music, and literature.

The slow pacing provides a break from constantly being online and processing a firehose of information. I felt nostalgic about the days before the internet. I can relate to those teens rejecting modernity and embracing Luddite attitudes (not in the film, just a cool thing happening in the real world).

Koji Yakusho’s portrayal of Hirayama is outstanding. He won Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival. I won’t describe Hirayama’s daily routine as it should be experienced. Most of the film is quiet. There’s not much dialogue. It’s unnecessary. The silence tells its own story.

The soundtrack is impressive, featuring the Stones, the Kinks, Otis Redding, Patti Smith, and the Velvet Underground. All artists Hirayama listens to on his tape deck.

The film is subtle and immersive, filled with little details providing heaps of information. It’s a slice-of-life movie. The kind they don’t make much anymore.

It stirred a lot of questions in me. It’s a deep movie about a small life with all the conflicting aspects of humanity in its sight.

Despite being about a toilet cleaner, the movie is visually arresting. It features the beautifully designed toilets in Tokyo, which were part of the Tokyo Toilet Project. It also shows other captivating locations in Tokyo. I love movies that show plenty of local areas.

Perfect Days provides insights into Japan, Japanese culture, and normal people striving for happiness and contentment in their average lives.

Watch the Trailer

Check out the Official Perfect Days movie website

If you watch it or have watched it, let me know what you think.

Last week’s most clicked link was for the Official website for Kawai Kanjiro’s House in Kyoto

The 2nd most clicked link was for the specific location of Kawai Kanjiro’s house

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