Tokyo Flashback #2: Bosozoku and Tokkofuku

I can remember my first day in Japan nearly 13 years ago like it was yesterday.   I’d studied Japanese in high school, I’d had Japanese roommates, and I loved ramen. I was psyched to see what Japan was all about.

My friend Joji picked me up from Narita Airport and we drove straight into Chiba City to grab my first real Japanese meal at an Izakaya. After dinner we went to a Pachinko parlor where I tried the game for the first (and last) time.  We went to a Japanese 7-11 to buy canned milky tea, and I immediately fell in love with Japan.  As we left 7-11 I saw a guy ride past us on a crazy motorcycle that looked like it was constructed half in 1982, and half in 2082. It was loud, it was weird, and it was awesome.  ”What the fuck was that?”, I asked. “Bosozoku.”

Bosozoku (literally translated into English as “Speed Tribes”) are motorcycle gangs made up of rough kids from smaller cities around Japan.

In the 1970s and 80s you could see Bosozoku gangs riding around late night in Tokyo, but these days you’re lucky to see them in the smaller cities around Japan as the culture has taken a nosedive in popularity.

When I ask my Japanese friends what they think about Bosozoku, they unanimously think they’re lame. Maybe the equivalent sub-culture in the US are the kids who trick out their Maximas with spinners and purple lights.

They’ve got their own style of bikes, their own clothing, their own magazines, and now an English language documentary.

I’ve never been into cars or motorcycles, but what initially peaked my interest in Bosozoku were their uniforms called Tokkofuku.

Tokkofuku are the equivalent of the Hells Angels motorcycle jacket, but much, MUCH weirder. Long Matrix-style jackets with intricate embroidery of Kanji characters cover nearly every inch of the jacket. The jackets themselves are pretty cheap, but the embroidery is expensive, with intricate designs costing upwards of $1000.

For the past decade I’ve tried any way possible to buy my own tokkofuku.  I tried resale shops during my work trips to Tokyo, I tried yahoo auctions…I tried everything, and had no luck. The closest thing I could find were clothing stores that sold construction workers uniforms, but they didn’t offer the embroidery. It was dead end after dead end. That is until this past trip to Japan.

I enlisted the help of some of my Japanese colleagues at Nike to help me find a place that specialized in Tokkofuku.  After some Internet searching they found a placed called “Fashion House” in Honatsugi, Yokohama. The guy who owned the shop was a little surprised when we called him up to let him know that a gaijin (and not a local thugged out kid) wanted to make his own tokkofuku, but he was confident in his skills.  He told us of a time years ago when he created tour outfits for Aerosmith.

I was so excited to find a place that could do the real embroidery, that two days later I was on my way to Honatsugi to make my own jacket.

To get to this place from Tokyo it’s about an hour and a half by train, then a 30 minute walk through a residential neighborhood. The only gaijin who have ever been to Honatsugi were either lost, or JET English teachers forced to live in the ‘burbs.

I imagined that Fashion House was going to be in a rough part of town (still haven’t seen the “rough” parts of Japan, but my friends swear they exist) with a bunch of Bosozoku out front smoking cigarettes and playing dice, but the reality was much more boring.  Fashion House was in a strip mall with a ramen place and men’s hair salon.  So not gangster.

When I walked into the shop, I assumed that the owner Toshio was going to remember the phone call two days before telling him that a white guy who didn’t speak much Japanese was coming in to make a jacket, but he blanked me. I had to ask him if I was in the right shop since there was only one embroidered jacket mixed in with school uniforms and fake Affliction T-shirts.  “Yeah, yeah.  This is the right place,” he said to me in Japanese.

Got it…lets get down to business.  I tried on a few of the jackets he was selling, but they were garbage.  The fabric was crappy, the fit was weird, and the sleeves were so short that they barely passed my elbows.  “Can I give you my own jacket to embroider?” I asked him through the Google Translate app on my iPhone.  “Sure.”

I showed him my designs, he chuckled, and after paying my money he gave me a can of coffee for the long trek back to Tokyo.

Two weeks later, I got my jacket, and I love it.

Translation: Death Before Dishonor

Translation: Japan USA

Translation: Wild Cat Attack

Tokyo flash back #1: All Black Everything

I found (and drank) 37 different variations of canned black coffee out of vending machines in Tokyo.  Who ‘gon stop me, huh?

I’ve been a collector all my life.  I’ve collected shoes, clothes, cameras, records, and magazines (and more) to the point of obsession, possibly hoarding.  I can’t say I’m as bad as the people on that Hoarders show on A&E, but it got out of hand.  Overflowing closets, drawers, and rooms filled with garbage that I didn’t want or need, but was somehow compelled to keep.   “My grandmother bought me those shoes when I visited Scotland in 1996 so I should hold onto them”, or “What if I need 75 flat pack single record mailers…it would be stupid for me to throw them out because i’ll just end up buying them again.”  I could justify all of it.  I had an excuse for why I kept all of the junk.  I knew it was wrong, but I couldn’t help myself.  That is until I went to Japan.

Before we left for Tokyo, trying to pack 3 months worth of shit into two suitcases stressed me out.  It took me days to pack, and I always had this feeling that I wasn’t bringing enough.  With limited space in our Tokyo apartment, I made due with with the contents of those two suitcases.  In the end, it was easy.

My time in Tokyo inspired me in so many different ways but most importantly I learned that my compulsion to collect needed to get checked.  Long story short, I’ve spent the past few days purging.  I’ve cleared out an entire storage unit, sold 80% of my record collection, and gave up a few pairs of shoes to charity.  97 paris to be exact.

I know its in bad taste to show off and tell people that you’ve given to charity, but  I thought about how pissed off my friends are going to be that I didn’t hook them up with free sneakers and I should explain why.

I thought about offering up my collection of shoes to friends on Facebook who would appreciate UNDFTD AF1s, leather Hyperfights, first edition wovens, unreleased Dunks, and Supreme SBs, but in the end I came to my senses and gave them all to a charity to kids (that are lucky enough to have a shoe size of 10.5).

If anything, maybe this blog post might remind you that you’ve probably got some extra stuff in your closet that you don’t need as bad as someone else.  Donate your shit today.