Talk:Kōichi Iiboshi

Was Iiboshi ever a yakuza?

To say that somebody was a member of a criminal organization is a serious charge. The allegation here is backed up with what purports to be a quotation from one book:

p.9: ...a series of articles by Koichi Iiboshi, a journalist and former yakuza... p.23 (Kinji Fukasaku): Battle Without Honor's original writer, Koichi Iiboshi. He had also been a yakuza and ended by becoming a reporter.

The book is at Google but what I hazily suppose are the relevant parts are not. I therefore can't immediately check in the book for myself.

I don't even understand this quotation. I tentatively guess that it actually conflates two separate quotations: first, on p.9, CD writes "a series of articles by Koichi Iiboshi, a journalist and former yakuza"; secondly, on p.23, Fukasaku is quoted as saying "[...] Battle Without Honor's original writer, Koichi Iiboshi. He had also been a yakuza and ended by becoming a reporter."

Whether I'm right or wrong, reorganizing this lucidly would be a start. (A very similar, perhaps identical footnote appears at Koichi Iiboshi, an article that needs a lot of attention.)

I'll assume for now that the article is indeed citing CD saying one thing in his book and Fukasaku saying another in the same book. Well, what evidence do they present for this serious allegation?

If this book is typical of books that chattily and pleasantly explore this or that once stigmatized, now celebrated film genre, it doesn't really cite anything: Fukasaku talks off the top of his head, and CD uncritically repeats something Fukasaku says there. However, this is only my guess. Fact check, please! -- Hoary (talk) 00:31, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Ah-- the allegation was in this article, and cited before I stepped in, concerned about other editor's removal it based on personal knowledge. I checked the book and added the quotations. Your interpretation of that sloppy notation format is correct-- CD states it in the intro to the interview, and Fukasaku states it during the interview. Fukasaku talking off the top of his head, but he ought to be pretty knowledgeable about the subject. The Koichi Iiboshi article was started by the other editor, apparently in retaliation for my restoriation and citing the allegation here. If CD and Fukasaku are both full of shit, I still think it needs to be addressed here. Many English speakers interested in the topic will come across that book, and if it's a serious allegation which is indeed wrong, then shouldn't we present it as such, and present the other side, sourced? I politely asked the other editor to provide a source, but he responded at my page with "We Japanese know things" bluster... Well, "We Americans" have a saying about pearls and swine... Dekkappai (talk) 00:42, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Let's attempt to keep swine, shit and pearls out of it.

It's my understanding that CD is merely repeating what Fukasaku said. It seems likely that this was from an interview with Fukasaku made when Fukasaku was in his seventies, perhaps already cancer stricken, and possibly on more or less mind-bending drugs related to the cancer. Is there any mention or hint of this? And does the rest of what Fukasaku says appear to be authoritative? -- Hoary (talk) 01:12, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Hi, Hoary. Right-- That "This is so just because I say it" stuff ticks me off. Anyway-- I seriously doubt that the CD source is accurate. I take the Japanese editor's word for it, but I just ask for a source contradicting the Fukasaku statement. "I know it" doesn't cut it with me, and I don't think it does here at Wikipedia. We can't discount what CD/Fukasaku say just because an editor says it's wrong, with no back up-- can we? Also, if we're going to disqualify writing of the CD caliber simply because... then very little writing about Japanese cinema in English beyond the level of Kurosawa-Ozu-Mizoguchi is going to have any reliable sourcing at all beyond catalogue entries... I say, it's sourced to a published authority-- questionable though he may be-- and cited to a very prominent director who certainly had knowledge of the subject. For the record, here's the passage in full:

CD: Junya Sato had done the film series with Ando, True Account of the Ando Gang. How much of that was in the films really happened, do you know?

Fukasaku: They were based on his memoirs, and when yakuza write memoirs quite often they end up justifying their actions. I don't believe that Ando was an exception to the rule. You could probably take about 50% of it as being real. However, I believe an exception to this were the articles written by Battles Without Honors original writer, Koichi Iiboshi. He had also been a yakuza and ended up becoming a reporter. I think his writing you could take 80%, maybe even 90%, of it as the truth. Many of the people from his writings were still alive when they were first published, so if there'd been fabrication involved it would have been exposed.

CD: How was Ando to get along with? He seems a natural actor.

Fukasaku: In a way, I accept a lot of yakuza like that. They tend to be very fun people. Sarcastic, but a lot of fun. One habit that many of them have, though, is that they'll never look into your eyes when you're talking to them.

Dekkappai (talk) 03:03, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

There's nothing much on the internets that I can see. I do, however, notice one interesting nugget within his multiply reproduced (and of course utterly unsourced) ja:WP article: the story that his daughter became a moonie and that he devoted a lot of effort into countering that "church". If this was indeed so, we can expect that he would have had enemies.

When attempting to look into this kind of thing on the web, I always feel as if I'm walking into a hall of mirrors of unsourced Wikipedia, scrapes thereof, bloggery, fanfiction, and so forth. Somebody's going to have to go to a library and look him up in a book. -- Hoary (talk) 03:37, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Before this goes further: As Kōichi Iiboshi does now have an article, may I move this discussion to Talk:Kōichi Iiboshi? (Dekkapai, if you agree, just go ahead and move it.) -- Hoary (talk) 03:45, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, feel free to move it. The creating-editor and I have had a diplomatic falling-out, and I really have no interest in the Iiboshi article anyway, so I'll leave it alone... Of course it's possible Fukasaku's memory erred, or that their was a mistranslation. I forgot to include the setting of the interview: "The following interview took place in the early summer of 1997 beside the Beverly Hilton's deserted swimming pool. Toshiko Adilman, Kinji's long-time friend and translator, visiting from Toronto, did the on-site translation." I went through my set of the Yakuza Papers DVDs this morning looking for any mention of Iiboshi in the extras or in the pamphlet that comes with the set, and found nothing. In fact I was going to suggest we take mention of Iiboshi out of this article, just leaving his name in the infobox, though that doesn't seem quite right either... I'll look into library sources on Monday-- doubtful I'll find much, but I'll give it a try. I would think a good Japanese bio or obit on Iiboshi would lay the issue to rest. If it follows his career from high school to college to work as a reporter, that wouldn't leave much time for a yakuza career. And if he had in fact been one, surely an obit would mention that. I'd think that would be enough to include as a "however", after the CD/Fukasaku quote. I still think, as a prominent English work on the genre, and attributed to a major director closely linked with the yakuza genre that the CD allegation deserves mention, even if just to refute it. Dekkappai (talk) 05:40, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

I've moved the discussion above from Talk:Battles Without Honor and Humanity. -- Hoary (talk) 07:44, 17 May 2009 (UTC)