Speed Tribes

Speed Tribes: Days and Nights with Japan's Next Generation is a 1994 book by Karl Taro Greenfeld. A collection of nonfiction short stories about Japanese youth during the early years of Japan's Lost Decade, Speed Tribes was widely reviewed in international media.

Speed Tribes: Days and Nights with Japan's Next Generation

Author	Karl Taro Greenfeld
Cover artist	Adrian Morgan / Red Letter Design, Dan Winters
Subject	Japan
Genre	Anthology
Publisher	Harper Perennial
Publication date	1994
Media type	Print
Pages	286
ISBN	978-0-06-092665-6

Summary

Each story in Speed Tribes focuses on the life of a specific Japanese youth in the aftermath of the Japanese asset price bubble collapse. Its subjects include a young Yakuza member, a nightclub hostess, an office girl, a motorcycle gangster, a hacker, an ultra-right-wing nationalist, and 'Choco Bon-Bon', a porn star. Popular 1990s rock band Zi:Kill appears in a chapter that documents the writer's time spent with the band and the events that nearly caused their break up.

Greenfeld wrote Speed Tribes while working as a reporter in Tokyo in the late 1980s and early 1990s.[1] Speed Tribes is written in a literary style, and has been cited as an example of New Journalism.[2] In interviews Greenfeld has freely admitted that many of the characters in Speed Tribes are not real individuals, and that the stories in Speed Tribes are a mixture of secondhand stories and original reporting.[3][4]

Reception

Writing for The New York Times, Alan Poul reviewed the book unfavorably, focusing on its "tough guy" language, inconsistent narrative choices, inaccurate descriptions, and an approach to reporting Japanese culture that reduced the stories to "simple, cynical morality plays".[5] Dennis Romero of the Los Angeles Times criticized Speed Tribes for its "bad writing, shaky structure and strange characters," but favorably noted that "Greenfeld turns over the cold, hard stone of Japanese culture and finds life beneath."[6] Kirkus Reviews called Speed Tribes a "tense and spicy read," but concluded that it was "dragged down by heavy-handed writing."[7] In Japan Quarterly, Janet Goff noted "the uneven quality of the stories" but observed that the book added an important perspective on modern Japan.[8] A review by Margaret Scott in Asian Wall Street Journal questioned Greenfeld's motives in writing the book, calling the author "shrewdly opportunistic" and summarizing the book as "pretentious pessimism".[9]

Kodansha bought the Japanese translation rights to Speed Tribes shortly after publication, but a Japanese translation has never been published.[3]

References

1. "Speed Tribes: Days and Nights with Japan's Next Generation". Publishers Weekly. August 29, 1994. Retrieved June 28, 2018.
2. Wolley, Leann (April 29, 2010). "From New Journalism in China to Autism: Interview with Karl Taro Greenfeld". Retrieved June 28, 2018.
3. Tedaldi, Justin (August 30, 2012). "Interview with author Karl Taro Greenfeld on 'Triburbia,' 'Speed Tribes'". JETwit: The Alumni Magazine for the JET Alumni Community Worldwide. Retrieved June 28, 2018.
4. Moorghen, Jean-Marc (February 1, 2015). "Speed Tribes Revisited – An hour with Karl Taro Greenfeld". Moorghen.com (originally published at figure8productions.com). Archived from the original on March 26, 2016.
5. Poul, Alan (October 16, 1994). "Tokyo's Generation X: A portrait of the young and the hip in Japan". The New York Times. p. BR36.
6. Romero, Dennis (January 22, 1995). "A Study in Hip". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved June 28, 2018.
7. "SPEED TRIBES Days and Nights with Japan's Next Generation". Kirkus Reviews. July 1, 1994. Retrieved June 28, 2018.
8. Goff, Janet (July 1995). "Speed Tribes: Days and Nights with Japan's Next Generation by Karl Taro Greenfeld". Japan Quarterly. Vol. 42 no. 3. p. 354.
9. Scott, Margaret (November 18, 1994). "Speeding Through Modern Japan". Asian Wall Street Journal. p. 7.