A review by tucholsky
Dogs and Demons: Tales from the Dark Side of Modern Japan by Alex Kerr

4.0

Japan is the Mike Yarwood of countries. Huge in the mid 70s the british impressionist Mike Yarwood played a stellar cast of actors, singers, politicians, sports commentators (yeah it was Britain in the 70s). He looked like all of them but rarely sounded like any of them....and so Japan. Looking the picture but the debt, corruption, class and status conscious, cluelessness and aping of the west rather than understanding and challenging ir, reality is a very different story. A harsh reality from which it comes to an agreement with itself that it must never mention, must hide, bury under insane social ettiquettes and believing its own myth. A harsh reality that Alex Kerr describes very lucidly with good supporting examples that demonstrate the malaise is not one off examples but deeply ingrained and passed on from generation to generation as surely as they hated the social mores when they were younger but now need them to subjugate those who would overtake them.
Yarwood eventually slipped into the same obscurity of most of his characters and younger more professional and detrrmined impressionists with greater versatility took over. And so, Japan, i hope the Alex Kerrs of the modern era can still describe the country they love but find unfathomable in its rejection of real progress and reform