Oshima launched a guerilla assault on narrative continuity and political neutrality in his playfully experimental fable about a sexually confused book thief loose in Tokyo's boisterous Shinjuku neighborhood. Diary of a Shinjuku Thief's freeform meditation on the psychosexual ambiguities of the postwar counterculture interweaves the awkward romance and sexual therapy misadventures of the thief and his captor with a series of avant-garde kabuki performances. Set against the vivid background of the massive student-led riots against the American Security Pact and the Vietnam War, Diary of a Shinjuku Thief adapts an energetic mode of cinema vérité to capture the violent protests and the radical street theater enacted by Oshima's cast and, at times, crew.