Rating: 
Summary: Cry the Beloved Country
Review: As he did in Lost Japan, his study of traditional arts and crafts, Alex Kerr gives us deep insights into his adopted country. But this isn't a celebration of Japan and its traditions. Instead it's a lament for a country that's lost its way. The root cause, according to Kerr, is a self-serving bureacracy that sits above the governance of politicians and the people. Combine this with a rigid education system, a conception of modernism frozen in post WW II priorties, and a population conditioned to acceptance and obediance, and the result is a mediocre society mired in its self-created fictions. Balance, creativity and a sense of proportion have lost out to manga, Hello Kitty, and out-of-control construction projects. This book is an antidote to all the uncritical and idealized versions of Japan that came our way in the eighties. It's an eloquent diatribe by a loving and angry uncle. Some nuance is lost in Kerr's forceful prose, but his arguments are always insightful and thought provoking. Whether you love, fear, or dislike Japan, this book is must reading.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent book. Japanese version is out.
Review: For those wondering when the Japanese version is coming out. Found today online in Japan Times. OUR PLANET EARTH ALEX KERR'S VIEW
Japan: A land gone to the dogs? By STEPHEN HESSE Alex Kerr loves Japan as much as anyone, but he knows much more about it than most. With the publication April 25 of "Inu to Oni" (Kodansha) -- a translation of his book "Dogs and Demons" (Hill and Wang, 2001) -- Japanese, too, will be able to share his insight. As it says on the cover of "Dogs and Demons," the book offers "tales from the dark side of Japan's well-known modern accomplishments. This book is excellent because it brings to the front burner a lot of things that are kept in the closet concerning Japan. As a tourist you probably cannot see it. However if you have lived there you know what he is talking about. The question can be applied in many countries. How do you change systems that were set up years ago and have outlived the purpose it was originally designed for ? How do you tell the people have have vested interests in the status quo that the game is over ? A good read.
Rating:
Summary: A Fairly Good Book That Reveals Some Of Japan's Dark Side
Review: Having lived here for 8 years I have a love/hate relationship with Japan. While all countries have their bad points I must say that I enjoy seeing Japan's negative aspects exposed. It is easy to criticize a country like the US because our dirty laundry is aired for all to see and people around the world are always watching. But some Asian countries, particularly Japan, try to hide their bad points. Partly to save face and partly because they believe they can alter the truth by hiding it or denying it. Alex Kerr's book covers corruption within the Japanese government and problems with Japanese society. He may sound bitter at times but you can tell he is sad to see the unfortunate direction that Japan is heading. He does not paint a nice picture of Japan's future as he compares Japan to a boiled frog. The frog does not realize it is in trouble until it's too late. But he says that it will be a gradual decline. My only criticism about this book is that Kerr repeats certain points too much and he does not talk enough about problems in Japanese society. If you are a pro-Japan person you will probably not like this book but if you want to read about Japan behind the mask then I recommend this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Ethnocentric white-suprematist view of Japan
Review: I know the title of this review is crass, but that was a significant impression I had while reading Dogs and Demons. This book is a venomous, hard-hitting, and an unabashed assessment of the problems Japan as a country, a society, as an economy has for the present and near future. Yet this book is very necessary and a worthwhile read for anyone who is interested in contemporary Japan or the state of affairs in East Asia when it pertains to Japan. Alex Kerr has spent thirty five years in Japan, he speaks and writes the language as well as the average Japanese, and he calls Japan his home. In various ways I could argue that Alex Kerr is Japanese in most ways except on his passport. But there is no denying his perceptions garnered from being very Japanese in certain ways but very obviously not in others. In Dogs and Demons he uses his attachment to Japan and his linguistic skills to expose and highlight problems that he sees in Japan from various elements. For instance there is economy, thirteen years in recession and continuously amounting a huge national debt that in some estimates could be upwards of (US)$11trillion. (He goes on to explain why this figure is neither official nor exactly accountable, which is linked to other problems.) There is the environment, which from an aesthetic perspective is cluttered with concreted rivers, cedar monoculture forestry, clusters of exposed power lines in every urban and suburban center, uninspired architecture of concrete and molded plastic, and an overwhelming obsession with grandiose and uninspired monuments that pepper the landscape. From a health standpoint there is pollution from dioxin emissions from garbage incinerators, nuclear blunders (including "The worst since Chernobyl"), and regulations that pale in comparison to Europe and the United States. Kerr further goes on to highlight problems in culture (ex. the lackluster output of movies), sports (ex. the current exodus of the best players to other countries), population (ex. Less people being born, a lot more entering retirement), and the general societal malaise to it all. His main argument for why all these problems exist lies with the bureaucracy. It is the bureaucracy that controls the distribution and means of most of these problems. Constantly throughout the book he links the problems he mentions with the overwhelming and uncontrollable power the intricate matrix that is the Japanese bureaucracy has over nearly every aspect of Japanese life. In the end Kerr argues that it could potentially be the downfall of Japan as a major influence in world affairs, be he still remains optimistic. It is after all the reason why he wrote this book. For the first 3/4s of Dogs and Demons I was ready to give it five stars for being an excellent, well researched, and impassioned expose of problems facing Japan. His chapter about the economy can be laborious in its detail, but for the most part he was doing a very good job. It was only when he got to the chapter about movies and the entertainment industry that his argument started to loose steam. His thesis for the problems with the Japanese entertainment industry is solid, but his arguments are weak. Twice I caught facts that were wrong ("Disney's The Prince of Egypt" was made by Dreamworks, and on one page he correctly says the original Godzilla was released in 1954 while one page later he says 1956.) and it makes me wonder what else he may have gotten wrong that I missed. All in all it sounds like that particular chapter was garnered from friends who know more about the subject of movies and such than Kerr does. Whether this factual laziness is concurrent with the rest of his book, I somehow hope not and think he is more knowledged about the economy and society than movies, but it makes me wonder. The other slight I will give to the book that is worth noting is with perspective. Constantly throughout the book Kerr will make comparisons to economic, environmental and other such policies of western European countries and the US that are always meant to be the better alternative than what is going on in Japan. People who bother with the situation at all will agree that the US and Europe have problems of their own and proffering them as the solution to Japan potentially reeks of a cultural bias of generations past. (But in hindsight I realized Kerr may be using this tactic not just for comparison, but as a way to goad (or shame) Japan into trying harder. After all, Japan has been trying to leapfrog the west for over a century. Why stop now?) Having spent two years studying in Japan I was glad I read this book. Even if it made me feel a little sour about a place and culture I have dedicated so much time to. Kerr's tactic may seem off-putting, but it is a work that practices tough love to open people's eyes. Even when Kerr lambasted things I liked about Japan -- like the $1billion city hall complex in Tokyo that is a favorite destination of mine -- I understood his criticism of them and saw that one can love something enough to wish it to become better than what it currently is. A very worthwhile book.
Rating:
Summary: Ethnocentric white-suprematist view of Japan
Review: If you want to read an ethnocentric white-suprematist view of Japan, this is it. It's thinly disguised but nevertheless obvious that this author thinks he's better than the Japanese and feels he has something to preach. With his sweeping generalizations and I-am-better-than-you attitude, the author only succeeds in telling us that he lives in Japan so that he can feel superior to the rest. It was so atrocious that I couldn't even finish this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Overblown and Alarmist
Review: In the opening pages of this book Kerr claims that every river in Japan has been lined with cement. I happen to know for certain that he is mistaken on this point. I have lived in Japan for the last seven years and I've swam in a few rivers. Aomori is a prefecture (a political division similar to an American state) in northern Japan. Whatever 'Japan' Kerr is referring to it apparently doesn't include Aomori. Aomori has miles and miles of untouched beautiful rivers. Kerr should go up to Shimokita and have a look around. If he had said most rivers or even if he just said it in passing, the error could be forgivable. But he not only makes this false claim but he makes it again and again pounding the reader over the head with it through out the opening of the book. And he returns to the falsehood several times again throughout the whole book. It's incredible really. I've never in my life read a book that goes on and on claiming something that is so easily disproved. He just assumes that his readers will accept his lies as facts since they are indeed printed in a book. Even in Aichi, the prefecture of the industrial cities of Nagoya and Toyota, has untouched rivers. I know because I have indeed swam in one after this book was published. It's too bad that the first thing Kerr did was destroy his own credibility because he has a lot of important points that should be considered. Unfortunately, all his book can ever do is fill the minds of Westerners with negative falsehoods about Japan. His book will never instigate any social change in Japan because it's too full of bologna to be taken seriously by anyone who knows anything about the place.
Now about the cementing of the rivers and the coastlines. It is widespread and it is ugly. But it's a hard call whether or not Japan should do this or not. This last year thousands were killed in floods in China, India and Bangladesh. Dhaka was soaked in over a meter of water throughout the whole city. The death toll, displacement and human suffering in these countries was incredible in 2004. Japan was also hit with incredible rains and a staggering twenty-four typhoons! Japan, also faced some flooding, death and displacement but the numbers have been in the dozens compared to the thousands or even tens of thousands who died or suffered elsewhere. As a seaside/riverside resident in and area that was hit with several typhoons this year forgive me if I'm a little less critical of how Japan manages it's water irrigation and flood control. My house and community, unlike the ones elsewhere in Asia, are fine.
He also claims that shabby Japanese architecture is hindering earthquake safety. He even cites Kobe as an example. While there's always room for improvement, an earthquake as powerful as Kobe would have left people dead in whatever city it struck, anywhere in the world. In a lot of places, like Iran for example, the death toll would have probably been tenfold. We had some good shakes this year with minimum causalities. A powerful earthquake can kill anywhere but to suggest that Japan is wildly under prepared compared with other earthquake prone places in the world is preposterous.
Furthermore, it's really regrettable that Kerr is so partial to extremely alarmist language. It really hurts his credibility. At one point he even uses an analogy where he compares Japan to the 'Death Star' heading for total disaster. The whole book goes on and on with this kind of outlandish language. Sure, Japan has had some extreme ups and downs economically but if you look at the overall quality of life and what they've achieved since their near total annihilation in World War Two it's obvious we're not on the 'Death Star' over here. I suppose it's a kind of Catch-22 for Kerr. I'm sure his alarmist language has generated interest in his book. But like I said it destroys his credibility. A writer of more integrity would have settled for less sells and more credibility.
This book make a lot of good points, however. That's what makes it so disappointing. He brings up a lot of important flaws about Japan, like noise pollution, bullying in school, boondoggle public works projects, wild mismanagement of funds, corruption in government and especially bureaucracies. These are all important issues and need to be brought into the light. In that regard I salute Kerr. He tackles everything head-on. He just goes over the top with his frustrations with Japan.
When he starts in on Japanese culture he comes of as a snob. He writes about how the Japanese like cute things like Hello Kitty and enjoy lowbrow entertainmant like manga. So what? I maintain that the cute Hello Kitty culture goes all the way back to Sei Shonogon. And as for Manga, who's to say what it's worth? No less than American sitcoms, I'm sure. Sure the Japanese like light entertainment. Show me a culture that doesn't. And then he even takes issue with Japanese festivals. Believe me, the festivals in Japan are a lot of fun. People dress up in Kimonos and make big floats, drink beer and have a good time. Kerr really comes off as a jerk for even bringing it up in a negative way at all.
And Tourism. He makes the point that countries like France and America generate far more revenue from tourism. But look at Japan's neighbors. China and Korea. Japan is much more expensive than either of those places so it's only natural not to attract as much tourism. And he says even the Japanese prefer to go abroad. Well, it's cheaper to do so. He plays it up like Japan has nothing of cultural value to attract tourists which is completely false. Kyoto and Nara and other places around Japan have some of the best sightseeing in Asia. Kyoto is not a big ugly dump like he describes it, but a beautiful city with lots to do. I encourage you to come and see for yourself.
Westerners who expatriate to Japan are famous for having a love/hate relationship to this place. Sometimes it gets so extreme people have nervous breakdowns living here. Kerr obviously loves Japan if he cares enough to write this book. But he's also infested with obvious hatred that makes him bash Japan with extremist untempered language throughout the book. Some expats here can't face the bad in Japanese society because it's too painful to admit to yourself you've sacrificed your home for a place with so many bad points. However, others go to the other extreme with negatives about everything. Kerr, at least transcends these mindsets. If he had just been more honest and less doomsdayish he would have written a great book.
I just noticed that my book's full title is Dogs and Demons: The Fall of Modern Japan. I guess I wasn't the first to notice how alarmist he is as he has since changed the subtitle to 'Tales from the Dark Side of Modern Japan'.
Rating: 
Summary: Globalization Hogwash
Review: Maybe Kerr has seen things decline in Japan in the past 35 years. All I can tell you is that as a northern California resident of 17 years who has been to Japan five times and has been astonished at the cleanliness, culture, history, efficiency, incredible service, and beauty, he's way wrong.
Kerr's book is almost certainly a polemic that is intended to create hysteria where none need exist. Why? Obviously to force Japan open and to force it to become like America - an America which is in serious decline. I have personally witnessed the effects of globalization first hand in Northern California. Freeways and streets that look like garbage dumps full of trash, crumbling infrastructure, poorly kept houses, grafitti, urban decay. All of it is due to mass immigration of people from the third world. No, that's not racism, that's fact. The third world is the way it is because of its people, not some inherent geography or politics. Bringing huge numbers of those same people into developed countries turns those countries slowly into the third world also. If you don't live in California you probably don't believe this, but I have witnessed it first hand, and believe me, it is very much true.
Japan refuses to globalize (wisely) for these very reasons. Whatever inadequacies may exist in the Japanese gov't, they are far outweighed by Japan's incredible civility: friendly and kind people, vacuum-cleaner clean streets, an astonishingly clean and efficient train system, incredible levels of customer service.
Perhaps a large decline has been perceived from the time of 80s boom excesses through the recession 90s. But compared to a U.S. turning rapidly into a third world in a wave sweeping west from California, Japan looks like a veritable utopia.
Every time I have been to Japan, I have witnessed its incredibly clean cities as well as astounding natural beauty - and I have been only to Nikko, Kawagoe, Awajishima, and a few smaller towns. There is plenty and plenty of "old" Japan still intact.
It is much more likely that this book is intended to sound the globalization alarm in an attempt to convince Japan that it must open its borders. The implied message here is that a clean and prosperous Japan is somehow "decades behind" the modern world despite a society that works amazingly well and still provides a very high quality of life. The implied "solution" to these problems is to become more like America - namely allowing the kind of psychotic cultural and government politics that are ripping America apart. In other words "You 'old boy' Japanese politicians can't get the message so we need to dump you and bring in some new blood'. This book is in effect a cry to liberalize Japan - with an extreme liberalism which is already proving that Japan's conservativism provides a much higher quality of life than does America's extreme liberalism.
The enormous third world masses have seen the quality of life in Japan and like in America, they want in to enjoy it. Because they did not contribute to the building of such a great society do they *deserve* to enjoy it? Is it rational to think that populations that cannot get their own countries to function at even the most basic level can possibly cause an increase in the quality of life in one of the world's most advanced countries? The great globalization experiment in American so far would suggest otherwise.
While we would all like to live in a world where all cultures can mix and live in an orderly society, it just isn't realistic as the globalization disaster in America is proving. My advice to Japan and the Japanese: don't change a thing. Keep doing what you are doing. The real threat to Japan is globalization, not concrete.
This book is designed to discredit the current Japanese government so that it can be replaced with one that is pro-globalization. The globalists know they can never globalize Japan with the current conservative government in power. Therefore they know they must remove it before they can proceed with their plans. This book is nothing more than an attempt to help bring that about.
Rating:
Summary: Japanese point of view....
Review: The trouble with being Japanaese is that your fellow Japanese won't understand what 'constructive criticism' means. Sadly, when someone points out what is wrong with today's Japan, it usually comes from non-Japanese writers, and this is yet another case in point. This book disappoints anyone who seeks root causes of Japan's ills today. Kerr is actually quite nice to the Japanese people by saying that it is Japan's inflated and constipated bureaucracy that is slow to adjust to modern society. People on the streets are largely spared of criticism. In fact, they are silently fuming over the stupidity of contructing worthless monuments and stadiums (Kerr should have waited for World Cup 2002, as Japan built dozens of useless football stadiums in the middle of nowhere). As Japanese myself, however, I would love to read something more about ordinary Japanese people, from whom the bureaucrats are recruited.
On the whole, however, this book elegantly sums up the reality of frustratingly inept public services in the coutry. I even wondered in the middle of reading this book whether Kerr is actually Japanese. His rather condescending American tone can easily be that of a typical Japanese rhetoric, pointing out how things are better in the (advanced) western countries (therefore we must change things in order to 'catch up' etc. etc.). However, Kerr is American obviously, and his criticism of modern Japanese architects shows his personal love for ancient Japan. It is this personal taste that is largely offended by 'Modern Japan' - he doesn't explore the possibility that Japan may be in transition from sharp focused modernisation/westenisation to creating something entirely new out of hitherto poorly executed east-west cultural mix. Doesn't any country pass an ugly cultural phase in its history? A lack of this kind of discussion undermines this book, even though I personally agree with what he is saying.
In fact, I can think of a large number of Japanese individuals who would heartly welcome Kerr's arguement. What is unfortunate is that this book reads more or less like cheap Japanese journalism, bashing lazy and selfish civil servants, who hold real power in Japan. Kerr has apparantely gone native.
Rating:
Summary: A typical journalist book: full of hyperbole? must read this
Review: The writer clearly is trying to write a polemic. He does make some interesting points but only for those people who have never visited Japan. BTW, Japan, like California, indeed has concreted over practically every river. Perhaps for good reason (flood control)--the Koreans have done the same thing for the Han river.
The book largely focuses on lack of asthetics amongst Japanese architects, which actually is a good point made for any culture (tackiness is universal), especially parts of suburban American.
Now hear this: Japan, because of industrialization is ugly. Here is a quote, guess what year it was written:
"Yokohama [Tokyo] was also a disappointment. I knew that port from the old photographs brought home by my father in the eighties, and was prepared for a pageant of Japanese life as I remembered it from those pictures. Here was neither fish, fowl, nor good red herring; the city was neither European, American, nor yet entirely Japanese, but a conglomeration of all. ... Yokohama looked to me like Oriental bric-a-brac in a Victorian drawing room." - from the book "Survival: through War and Revolution in Russia" by D. Fedotoff White, Univ. of PA press (1939), describing his trip through Japan in 1919.
That's right--1919--over 85 years ago.
BTW, White's book is spectacular--I picked it up in a old used bookstore.
Rating:
Summary: WORST BOOK EVER
Review: THIS BOOK WAS TERRIBLE. THE DA VINCI CODE WAS 100x BETTER LOLZ M3G4T0KY0 PWN J00.
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