Who is the real Jake Adelstein from Tokyo Vice and where is he now? Tokyo Vice is the latest original series from HBO, which stars Ansel Elgort as Jake Adelstein, an American reporter in Japan who covers the crime beat for a prominent newspaper, eventually getting embroiled with the Yakuza in the process. The series is based on Adelstein's 2009 memoir of the same name, which tracks his immersion into that world over the course of 12 years. Originally, Tokyo Vice was set up to be a film starring Daniel Radcliffe, but it eventually fell through and was restructured to be a series.
Ansel Elgort replaced Radcliffe in the role and Tokyo Vice moved to HBO, complete with Adelstein acting as an executive producer and J.T. Rogers as the showrunner, with Michael Mann hired to direct the pilot. Ken Watanabe was hired to play Hiroto Katagiri, a fictionalized version of the Tokyo police detective who acted as a mentor to Adelstein in real-life (and in the show). Additional Tokyo Vice cast members include Rinko Kikuchi, Rachel Keller, Shô Kasamatsu, Hideaki Itô, and Ella Rumpf, all playing representations of real people from the time period. Tokyo Vice is billed as being inspired by real events but is still fiction, which gives the showrunners the ability to take creative license as needed.
The real Jake Adelstein was raised in Missouri and moved to Japan at age 19 to study Japanese at Sophia University. In 1993, Adelstein became a staff reporter for The Yomiuri Shimbun, eventually landing on the crime beat, working with local police, informants, and locals to cover the stories in the area, while facing cultural and societal clashes along the way. Adelstein remained on the beat for 12 years, from 1993 to 2005, eventually publishing his memoir, Tokyo Vice, in 2009. His biggest story, which covered a Yakuza boss acting as an F.B.I. informant in order to get a liver transplant in the U.S., caused Adelstein to receive death threats at a time when they were taken very seriously. This particular story is a focus in Tokyo Vice season 1, which traces Adelstein's hiring at the newspaper and long road to becoming a reputable reporter in Japan.
Where is Jake Adelstein Now?
Adelstein is still a reporter living in Japan, with bylines that include Asia Times, Vice News, The Japan Times and The Daily Beast. In 2011 Adelstein consulted on a documentary about the Yakuza for National Geographic, eventually filing a lawsuit after receiving death threats over it. The suit was settled and the documentary special aired without incident. Adelstein gave a Ted Talk on his experiences in 2012 and also acted as a chief investigator for a US Department of State investigation into human trafficking in Japan. He has reported on the topic regularly, now sitting on the board of the Polaris Project Japan, a non-profit that helps victims of human trafficking.
The Yakuza, a huge source of Adelstein's reporting, has dwindled significantly since his reporting, especially with stricter laws in the country against them and difficulty in recruiting new members, which has left the organization at 1/10th of its size since the events of Tokyo Vice. Adelstein still maintains some of the connections from his early reporting days, but the scene has changed drastically, even as the Yakuza still retains a small, yet powerful presence. In 2017, Adelstein became a Zen Buddhist priest, although is not currently practicing. He recently completed a sequel book to Tokyo Vice called Tokyo Private Eye, which is slated for release in 2023, and continues to act as an executive producer on the HBO Max series.