Aibou TV Season 6 Episode 1 - The Court with the Compound Eye(複眼の法廷)

Subtitle: The Court with the Compound Eye(複眼の法廷)

 Sergeant Yūichi Hayami(速水 雄一), a beat cop, is shot and killed while he was patrolling on his bicycle. Investigators suspect that Isao Tsukahara(塚原 功), a recently paroled illegal firearms dealer who had been arrested by Sergeant Hayami two years ago, shot the Sergeant. The police apprehend and bring Tsukahara in for questioning. During the intense interrogation, Tsukahara confesses to the crime and reveals that he threw the gun from the crime into a canal. The police search party finds the gun from the canal, and the CSIs confirm that the recovered gun was the weapon used to kill the sergeant. With a confession and the murder weapon in hand, almost everyone believes that this will be an open and shut case. The Japanese Justice Department decides that this is the perfect case to introduce "trial by jury" into Japan's legal system.

However, nothing goes as planned. At the start of the trial, the defendant declares that he was coerced into making a confession and that he did not kill the sergeant. Shortly afterwards, Ryōhei Akagawa(赤川 良平), a jury member who grilled the suspect earlier in the day, dies after falling into a nearby small artificial lake, hitting his head on a rock. Fearing for their lives, the other jury members declare that they don't want to continue. The justice department chooses another group of people, and the trial restarts with the new jury members. Things finally seem to have settled down, but one member of the jury, Shōko Kurashina(倉品 翔子), is determined to sentence Tsukahara to death, even though such a decision would be unusual in cases like these. As if the infighting among the jury members wasn't enough, someone leaks the details about the behind-the-door meetings to the press... Will this nightmare case ever come to an end? Who killed the cop and the juror?

Characters appearing/mentioned in the story

Yūichi Hayami(速水 雄一) - A no-nonsense sergeant who worked from a police box in South Shinjuku. He died from a gunshot wound while on patrol riding a bicycle. He looked through a list of guns seized near his police box the day he was killed, possibly because he found out that Tsukahara is out on parole.

Ryūichirō Tatsumi(辰巳 隆一郎) - Detective working for the anti-organized crime division at the South Shinjuku Precinct(新宿南署 Shinjuku Minami-sho). He is famous for always collecting enough guns to meet the quota set by the Keishicho.

Tadashi? Udō(有働 正) - Detective at the South Shinjuku Precinct(新宿南署 Shinjuku Minami-sho) who interrogated Tsukahara.

Isao Tsukahara(塚原 功) - A former illegal firearms dealer. Sergeant Hayami apprehended him two years ago for illegally possessing a firearm and was released on parole six months ago. While in prison, his mother had passed away. The police found him at his girlfriend Shizuka's apartment and caught him when he tried to escape. He had an unused gun in his possession at the time of his arrest.

Shizuka Mori(森 静香) - Tsukahara's 33 year old girlfriend. He was at her apartment when he was apprehended. Earlier, she accompanied him as they secretly observed Sergeant Hayami. Tsukahara had been saying that he hated Sergeant Hayami and wanted to kill the sergeant, but Tsukahara couldn't even work up enough courage to just go talk to the sergeant. Because of this, she adamantly claims that Tsukahara couldn't have killed the sergeant.

Norio Mikumo(三雲 法男) - Presiding judge for this case. He recently presided over an embezzlement case at the social insurance office, giving an opinion that the country is responsible for determining whether insurance premiums were paid or not. In the past, he also had ruled that verbal abuse can be considered a form of domestic violence. As a result of these and similar rulings, the members of the media nicknamed him "the conscience of the judiciary (司法の良心 Shihō no Ryōshin)."

Kōichi Tasuku(佐 光一) - One of the judges presiding over this trial.

Rika Sōma(相馬 里香) - One of the judges presiding over this trial.

Ryōhei Akagawa(赤川 良平) - A member of the first group of jurors. He was a 55 year old employee of Metro Bank. After he grilled Tsukahara on the second day of the trial, he was killed that night between 6 and 8 PM as a result of hitting his head on a rock falling into a pond. Police found signs of struggle and a woman's shoeprints nearby.

Shōko Kurashina(倉品 翔子) - A member of the second group of jurors, She works for the credit card company Dynastic Card. During the deliberations she is the only juror who insists on handing down the death sentence to Tsukahara.

Sadayoshi Seki(関 貞良) - A member of the second group of jurors.

Makoto Akutsu(阿久津 真) - A member of the second group of jurors.

Michiyo Motomura(本村 美千代) - A member of the second group of jurors.

Tetsuharu Sōma(相馬 哲春) - A member of the second group of jurors.

Kaito Tagami(田上 魁斗) - A member of the second group of jurors.

Yasuo Ōkubo(大久保 康雄)  - Miwako's former boss at Teito Newspaper.

Naibu? Makishi(牧志 乃武) - Reporter at Teito Newspaper. He tried to interview Shizuka after she interrupted the trial with heated comments on the second day of the first trial, but she declined and walked away. Later, while working overtime at the Teito Newspaper office, he receives a call from a woman claiming to be a juror who leaks out information from the behind-the-doors jury deliberations. He also tells the Tokumeigakari pair that Ms. Tabei didn't replace his coverage of the trial - she had been covering the trial even before he had to cover another story.

Yūko Tabei(田部井 祐子) - Miwako's kohai at Teito Newspaper. She broke her voice recorder while covering this trial. Before this trial, she specialized writing articles about local stories such as popular bakeries and tatami mat dealers. She tells Miwako that she is filling in for Makishi who started covering this trial but was pulled away to cover another story.

Kiyofumi Haratake(原武 清文) - Security director(警備部長 keibi buchō) who says that without proof that juror Kurashina leaked information about the deliberations to the press, the police can't search her cell phone.

Kōken Onoda(小野田 公顕) - Superintendent Supervisor Onoda asks the Tokumeigakari pair to guard the jurors during the trial, or more accurately, to act as the official bodyguards while the Kōan members secretly guarded the jurors from the shadows.

Haruki Ōkōchi(大河内 春樹) - General Inspector Ōkōchi questions Detective Udō because the detective leaked information to Juror Kurashina. He later reveals to the Tokumeigakari pair the details about the Commissioner's Award Sergeant Hayami was scheduled to receive. The decision to give out the award was informally made on the day the sergeant was killed. Only a few of the people in the Keimu-bu(警務部), the manager of the South Shinjuku Police Precinct, and the Sergeant himself knew about the award at the time the sergeant was killed.