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Umidori
In North America you've got Knight Errant and LoneStar running around dealing with the criminal element, but what's the status of things in good ol' Japan?

Who are the major "Security" companies? What sorts of gear are they liable to be fielding? For that matter, what's the crime rate in the JIS?

Or at the very least, where's a good place to look for resources on these and similar questions?

~Umi
ProfGast
The most recent (4th edition) entry to Neo Tokyo that I know of is in Corporate Enclaves. I've only started skimming it but the first note as far as law enforcement is that it mentions police drones. Reading a little farther mentions "Tokyo Metropolitan Police" as well as corporate security forces so it seems that the Japancorps take care of their own and the Neotokyo also supplies its own police force. What this says of the JIS at large, I'm not sure

Edit: the other thing to note is that weapons are a lot harder to carry around in Japan, to the point that even corporate security doesn't openly carry weapons outside of their extraterritorial areas.

Edit Edit: here we go, Corporate Enclaves pg 85 has a sidebar that details both the Tokyo Metropolitan Police, and the right to bear arms.

It is somewhat vague on the right to arm bears though.

What it boils down to is as mentioned earlier a heavy emphasis on drones, a strong patriotic bent, and a close working with both corporate and "legitimate business"(yakuza) interests. Bladed weapons can be openly carried, but firearms not so much. The sidebar also notes that Neo Tokyo has a much lower crime rate than Seattle.
Umidori
Nice find! I wasn't expecting to be able to get much. I'll have to get a hold of a copy of CE and brush up.

~Umi
Sendaz
With the zipcuffs being pretty much standard restraints I wonder if they would still use traditional Hojōjutsu methods for High profile arrests to bind them with the Honnawa, like when bringing out a company president as a bit of showy arresting for the cameras.
kzt
Japan has a long tradition of the population not having any rights to weapons, and also a tradition that the police are far more powerful than they are in the US. It's been described as a very polite and happy police state. This state of affairs totally accepted by pretty much everyone and that's how they want to keep it.

I have no idea how SR describes it. I would have literally thrown the SR3 book that talked about Japan against the wall, except that I was sitting in a Popeye's restaurant and that seemed likely to draw unwanted attention.
Brazilian_Shinobi
Most police oficcers in Japan don't even carry firearms, prefering unarmed martial arts, or blunt melee weapons.
This kinda of creates a spiral where the oposition (yakuza) knows the police won't be carrying firearms and so they won't carry either and this prevents any escalation of force, usually...
Umidori
Full disclosure, the players at my table have expressed interest in an interesting location for our next campaign, and I've been watching a lot of Patlabor and You're Under Arrest! lately, hence my interest. biggrin.gif

On a related note, is the Mitsuhama Tomino more likely to be "Security" grade (albeit at the high end of the range) or full blown Milspec?

~Umi
Nath
Vice has a section on the Tokyo Police Department, pages 185-186 under the header "GovPol".
Tymeaus Jalynsfein
QUOTE (Umidori @ Mar 13 2014, 12:56 PM) *
Full disclosure, the players at my table have expressed interest in an interesting location for our next campaign, and I've been watching a lot of Patlabor and You're Under Arrest! lately, hence my interest. biggrin.gif

On a related note, is the Mitsuhama Tomino more likely to be "Security" grade (albeit at the high end of the range) or full blown Milspec?

~Umi


I would place the Tomino as Milspec, personally.
Drace
You could also bring in some of the current South Korean method. High use I tasers, unarmed fighting styles (Taekwondo) and blunt weapons with firearms being a last resort and result in the officer being dismissed until thy can e proven to haw used the gun in good faith (and last I heard from a police officer doing cross cultural training there)
kzt
This is in modern Japan, so things might change. But being that SR is a dystopia it won't change in a way that increases freedom or reduces the power of the police. (Note that this is a 50,000 foot overview of what I remember from a course and some books.)

First thing is the things mentioned below are not something that appears to bother the average Japanese citizen, it's just how it is. People respect the cops and their authority. Essentially the police don't randomly hassle "normal people" in Japan, they normally have a good reason to start hassling you. So you have better take it very seriously if they do.

One of the things about Japan is that the police visit your house/apartment twice a year and have you fill out a card with a list of who lives there, what they do, where they work, any vehicles they have, and any relatives living elsewhere. They also do this for businesses. While there they also look around, etc. This is apparently technically voluntary, but apparently everyone does it.

If the police arrest you they can hold you without charges for 48 hours before they have to transfer you to a prosecutor for 24 hours, then a judge can agree to hold you for 10 more days, which can be renewed for another 10 days. This is without any charges being brought. So after 23 days of being held without any charges they have to release you, but before you leave the police station they can arrest you again and start another cycle....

It's illegal to torture a confession out of suspects, but the confession is still admissible in court and there are rarely any problems incurred by the police who did this.

Don't get arrested by the cops, they have a 95% confession rate and the courts (which don't have juries - the case is just heard by a judge) have a 99.9% conviction rate.
Umidori
Borrowed a friend's copy of Corporate Enclaves, been tearing through the Neo-Tokyo and JIS section.

From what I've read, it sounds like SR's Japan is kind of the world's greatest national power. They have a very stable government; a strong national military; 30% of the AAA corps with major emphasis on technology, medicine, and communications; strong national Mercantilism with in-built systems of economic protection; their national currency is the de facto global currency; low crime and violence rates; and a pretty unified culture in spite of their racial and metahuman tensions.

~Umi
psychophipps
In other words, it's entirely based upon the 1980s perspective of Japan as determined by outsiders. Didn't that house of cards fall down in the 90s?

One of the biggest things to keep in mind about the Japanese is that there are always two of them. One is the version you see every day at work, the park, on the subway, whatever. The second is the real person that only a few people really get to meet. Oh, you get a glimpse once in a while when they get drunk or something, but they have a pretty good set of walls up around it. This is a huge part of their culture, enough so that they have actually named the two sides of the person and every Japanese person would immediately know what you're talking about if you opened up a discussion about it, but I'm too lazy to look them up right now.

And what makes you think their corporations are any different?

As for Law Enforcement, interrogations go much easier for the police when their first question can be a right hook and they can enter your home or office at will. To be honest, the Japanese police know about a whole mess of stuff that is illegal, but they let it pass because that's what makes the boat float. You go rocking that boat and they will drop the hammer on your ass big-time. Probably the single most prolific Japanese saying that we Gaijin hear roughly translates as, "The nail that sticks out gets the hammer."
psychophipps
This should offer some insights to Japanese culture...Dinner With a Yakuza Mob Boss
Drace
QUOTE (psychophipps @ Mar 13 2014, 09:22 PM) *
In other words, it's entirely based upon the 1980s perspective of Japan as determined by outsiders. Didn't that house of cards fall down in the 90s?

One of the biggest things to keep in mind about the Japanese is that there are always two of them. One is the version you see every day at work, the park, on the subway, whatever. The second is the real person that only a few people really get to meet. Oh, you get a glimpse once in a while when they get drunk or something, but they have a pretty good set of walls up around it. This is a huge part of their culture, enough so that they have actually named the two sides of the person and every Japanese person would immediately know what you're talking about if you opened up a discussion about it, but I'm too lazy to look them up right now.

And what makes you think their corporations are any different?

As for Law Enforcement, interrogations go much easier for the police when their first question can be a right hook and they can enter your home or office at will. To be honest, the Japanese police know about a whole mess of stuff that is illegal, but they let it pass because that's what makes the boat float. You go rocking that boat and they will drop the hammer on your ass big-time. Probably the single most prolific Japanese saying that we Gaijin hear roughly translates as, "The nail that sticks out gets the hammer."


Feel like I have to point out that it is probably because this game.... Was made in the 80s

And while a lot of Japanese culture has changed over the years, something's are the same. So basically I don't see how most of what you have brought up is any different than what was already said.
ProfGast
I'd like to point out one other very important thing about Shadowrun's Japan, and that is they are an INCREDIBLY racist culture. That doesn't simply apply to to metahumans or "kawaruhito" (lit. changed person), but also to the gaijin or outsiders. If you are not Japanese you automatically must take extra steps to belong. if your runners are coming to Neo Tokyo from out-of-town then they will not have the social connections made, and if they are not Japanese, or have lots of Etiquette to back them up, they will stick out like a sore thumb

On a related note, I've been doing some more digging about to see what would be useful sources. Corporate Guide has entries for the big AAA Japancorps

Mitsuhama controls a lot of the tech and was originally founded by the Yakuza.

Shiawase actually has one of its major shareholders married to the Japanese Emperor. It was founded on slightly more official basis as by the Zaibatsu/Keiretsu, the japanese super companies.

Finally the Vice book details Yakuza somewhat.
kzt
Played right, Japan is both familiar and very alien at the same time. The crazy racism of SR japan goes way over the top, but there is, as in some other Asian cultures, a much stronger sense of cultural/racial identity/uniqueness in RW Japan than in most Western countries.
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