"It was exhausting; It's like being in a Hentai S&M club."
November 3, 2017 9:16 AM   Subscribe

"The reason bosozuko are gone now is that Japan is a fully developed country. It won't allow any flaws in the system. Current society will not allow the average low-life to succeed at life by doing low-life things."
-Revisiting the Glory Days with One of Japan's Most Violent Biker Gangs posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey (18 comments total) 15 users marked this as a favorite
 
Bosozuko bike revving
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 9:56 AM on November 3, 2017 [2 favorites]


they had a pretty bad time of it after one of them transcended his corporeal existence in the olympic stadium and annihilated most of Neo Tokyo in the process
posted by indubitable at 10:19 AM on November 3, 2017 [26 favorites]


It's like being in a Hentai S&M club

Help me out here...is this framed as a bad thing, or...?
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 10:26 AM on November 3, 2017 [11 favorites]


This is my go to book on the topic
posted by Glomar response at 10:38 AM on November 3, 2017 [5 favorites]


It's surprising how similar the culture seems to be to "mainstream" Japanese companies (or, in fact, any other Japanese organization). There's the strict hierarchy, the "sempai-kohai" (seniority) concept, uniforms, the drinking rituals, graduation/retirement ceremonies, all the works.

Except that the gangs seem to be made up mainly of really shitty, violent assholes.
It's totally beyond me why anyone would want to join such a club of assholes, but if they are really gone (which I doubt) then good riddance.
posted by sour cream at 11:27 AM on November 3, 2017 [2 favorites]


* Bosozoku.
posted by sukeban at 11:53 AM on November 3, 2017 [12 favorites]


"I'm not a yakuza anymore, I'm just a hooligan nowadays," says the interview subject towards the beginning of the Vice video. It's fair to guess that his yakuza days didn't in a ticker tape parade of gumdrops and kisses, as he's missing half of the little finger on his left hand (plainly visible at 1.53). Yes, the punishment of self-induced pinky finger amputation--a big fave in nearly every yakuza movie--actually occurs (or occurred; maybe it's not prevalent anymore) in real life yakuza gangs.
posted by Gordion Knott at 12:27 PM on November 3, 2017


It's totally beyond me why anyone would want to join such a club of assholes, but if they are really gone (which I doubt) then good riddance.

Why do you doubt that they are gone (or nearly gone)?

As to why someone would join; a sense of belonging, a sense of family, a way to rebel, etc... Doesn't seem terribly puzzling.

As for being violent assholes; maybe the main subject of the first link *used* to be a violent asshole, but these days he seems to be more like an alcoholic social worker; his life work these days seems to be finding legitimate (hard) work for ex-cons and people who have left the life of crime. While he might have been a violent youth, he seems more like a nostalgic aging ex-con more than anything.

It's surprising how similar the culture seems to be to "mainstream" Japanese companies (or, in fact, any other Japanese organization). There's the strict hierarchy, the "sempai-kohai" (seniority) concept, uniforms, the drinking rituals, graduation/retirement ceremonies, all the works.

Yeah, that is super-interesting. While they are rebels in many senses of the word, they are rebels within the context of their society; which isn't an outright rejection of the general systems they've been taught. Deep respect for elders is another principle that they've firmly embraced. It makes me wonder how often this tendency is replicated within western systems of rebellion; that we're too immersed in the society to grok how much that rebellion is within the context of the society; indeed the 'rebels' have embraced the core principles of the society.
posted by el io at 12:41 PM on November 3, 2017 [2 favorites]


Well, Western Biker gangs are pretty much microcosms of our state, deeply conservative, racist, stratified, willing to bring the entirety of their power to bear to prevent even the minor humiliation of one of their members. It's pretty obvious if you look at the original interactions between the Hells Angels and the hippies, the hippies believed from the look and actions of the Hells Angels that they too were actually rebellious (progressive) and just needed the right prompting to join the movement. The Hells Angels believed and volunteered that they were effectively a terror wing of the state that should be air dropped into Vietnam to cause chaos and fear.

Watching this I kept thinking about the emasculation of Asian men in Western media, the portrayal of say Japanese men as either suited drones or fashion dandies for people to emulate.
This however, look at these men and you could see an ageing soccer hooligan plumber from Leeds, or a pub fighter forestry worker from Te Urewera. It's obvious lower class masculanism in an Asian context which is utterly erased from western media.

I also love how organic so much of this is, not copied from western gangs. The clothes that the common gang members wear look like their classic work wear, it's the Japanese version of Jeans and a jacket. Same with the bikes, for sure chopped and modified, but in no way the kinds of mods that western bikers are into. Those tall seats and the handlebar styles, whatever was going on with the headlight, obviously stuff they thought was cool as fuck.
posted by fido~depravo at 1:13 PM on November 3, 2017 [19 favorites]


Bosozuko bike revving

Man, I thought slugs had weirdly colorful mating rituals.

I know they are or were deadly serious as a bike gang, but bosozuko bikes are somehow even more silly and less threatening looking to me than a Mod's vespa with too many mirrors and chrome bits bolted on to it.

This made the Clown Gang from Akira really confusing. Ok, I can see the nihilistic new wave pill heads but clowns on silly clown bikes? What? Why?

It took me a while to realize that that kind of colorful, zany non-conformity was actually really scary in Japanese culture, kind of akin to the western trope of having an unpredictable serial killer or, say, a villain like the Joker, that that zaniness and active non-conformity was really an outright displayed threat in the right cultural context in ways that don't really map to Western idiom and culture.

This also probably explains why you sometimes see hippie or beatnik archetypes as threatening or unsettling figures in manga, whereas in a Western context the same characters would read more like a harmless Shaggy or quirky stoner, not some kind of threatening unknown quantity or malicious trickster that might actually be corrosive or destructive to the status quo and social order.
posted by loquacious at 2:46 PM on November 3, 2017 [6 favorites]


Well, Western Biker gangs are pretty much microcosms of our state, deeply conservative, racist, stratified, willing to bring the entirety of their power to bear to prevent even the minor humiliation of one of their members. It's pretty obvious if you look at the original interactions between the Hells Angels and the hippies,

Is worth pointing out that hippies themselves were also exemplars of American culture: privileged, conformist while pretending to be obe individualist, self centered, grandiose ideology and so on. Note how many of them were totally happy to join the mainstream and support America's wars once their asses on the line. They even like to point fingers at the younger generations.

So yes, rebellious and criminal groups are informed by the member's culture. After all, they are brought up in the culture and constantly exposed to it. And many of them go on to join the mainstream culture.

Watching this I kept thinking about the emasculation of Asian men in Western media,

To a large part that's due to racism, but also due to the fact that until relatively recently Japanese working class and lower class people were rarely depicted in Western or Western accessible media. That had a lot to do with how the Japanese wanted to be seen. The depiction of homogeneity is fracturing to a degree.
posted by happyroach at 2:48 PM on November 3, 2017 [4 favorites]


The decline of bad ass biker gangs may be a function of population demographics.
Only 9.6% of the Japanese population are between the ages of 15-24. (male 6,436,935/female 5,813,222) 6 million sounds like a lot of young men but how many are drawn to gang life? Also 39% of the Japanese population are 55 or older.
By contrast, in Cambodia 19.02% are 15-24 years (male 1,501,070/female 1,533,500) and 90% of the population is under the age of 55.
posted by Gwynarra at 3:12 PM on November 3, 2017


Just a few seconds of that video and hearing the insane revving thing that bosozuko do brought back memories of hearing them go by in Kochi in 1990. I was going to say "roar by", but "vrim-im-im-im vrim-im-im-im vrim-im-im-im by" is hard to spell. The fact they were so drunk that they could barely stand, let alone get on bikes, was the true miracle.
posted by scruss at 7:47 PM on November 3, 2017 [1 favorite]


but "vrim-im-im-im vrim-im-im-im vrim-im-im-im by" is hard to spell.

I wanted to also note that I found this revving style strangely melodic and fascinating.

In a couple of videos you can see that they appear to be using some kind of special low resistance throttle grip, and the cables look like they are set up to be as loose and responsive as possible to the point that they don't even clip them to the frames so there's no binding points on the cable.

The rhythms and patterns sound a lot like taiko drums. Moreover it sounds a lot like part of the competition or display of skill is revving in time with the natural cycle of the engine. Like they're trying to fire off very quick, controlled staccato bursts that are the roughly same number of cylinder fires per twist, not unlike a three round burst from a machine gun, but doing it in a musically percussive, syncopated way that's aware of the engine and engine RPMs at various points.

They're also doing a lot of tricky clutch work in that controlled rhythm that's making it sound a lot more growly, so you get this bit of sexy engine torque powerband in the sound profile. Like, that's full on engine nerd posturing, like "See, it's not all revs and rpms! You can hear that low end torque!"
posted by loquacious at 8:49 PM on November 3, 2017 [8 favorites]


Interesting (but unsurprising) that the male bosozoku are described in terms of what they do as well as what they look like, but the females are described primarily in terms of what they look like.
posted by scratch at 4:20 AM on November 4, 2017


Why do you doubt that they are gone (or nearly gone)?

Because I can hear their revving engines from my hotel room right now.
posted by sour cream at 8:20 AM on November 4, 2017 [3 favorites]


Because I can hear their revving engines from my hotel room right now.

And it was at this point that loquacious fucked up by picking up a dozen of cans of beer as a way of introducing oneself so they could ask a lot of rather silly questions.
posted by loquacious at 8:57 AM on November 4, 2017


  so you get this bit of sexy engine torque powerband in the sound profile.

Um, I don't remember anything sexy about it up close. Less sexy, more 2TAKTARE.MP3 …
posted by scruss at 9:55 PM on November 4, 2017


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