Kenichiro Yasui

Satoshi Itomura is an assistant police investigator who belongs to the Metropolitan Police Department’s Scientific Investigation Team. Reenactments, fingerprint and voice data collections, profiling... His team collects scientific evidence and pieces together fragments of information in order to help build evidences. However, Itomura often does not care about the scientific approach and instead pays a great deal of attention to the things that the victims always carried with them or treasured. And he focuses on these things because they usually carry the victim’s dying wishes, understanding that last message not only helps solve the cases but also brings closure to the depressed family of victims.

Hanasaki Mai is but an ordinary employee of a bank, with zero diplomacy. She doesn't think twice about pointing out her boss' mistakes. Her job is to investigate any wrongdoings in the bank branches. She is the voice of the suppressed staff who are unable to go against their bosses. Her partner is the veteran staff, Soma Ken, whose career with the bank had reached a dead end, no promotions in sight. Together, they resolve all the non-compliance issues at the bank.

Ask any nursery-aged little girl what she wants to be when she grows up, and she's bound to say nurse, florist, or ballerina. Ask any nursery-aged little boy what he wants to be when he grows up, and he's bound to say policeman, fireman, sports player, or pilot. As for 20-year-old young man Taiyo Suzuki, however, he's had different aspirations all his life. Moved by his elderly nursery school teacher, Taiyo decided then and there that he too, would also become one. Now, having passed the nursery school teacher examination, bright-eyed and eager Taiyo is out to make his mark in a totally female-dominated world.

Sayoko is a tough, 19-year-old with ambition, energy and nowhere to direct it. Her father clearly favors her blind 16-year-old sister. Junior college is unstimulating. She is fired from her part-time job in a dress shop because she is too diligent at catching shoplifters and slaps them around a bit when she does. Even her boyfriend opts out for a more docile girl, but Sayoko doesn't think she is tough enough.

Two historical incidents that deepened the friendship between Japan and Turkey are connected in this story of friendship and compassion: In the night of 16 September 1890 the Turkish frigate Ertuğrul is caught up in a typhoon and sinks off the Japanese coast. Risking their own lives, local villagers are able to rescue 69 Turkish sailors. Although being very poor and having hardly to eat, the villagers share what little they have with strangers from a country 9,000 kilometers away. 95 years later, during the Iran-Iraq War, more than 300 Japanese are stranded in Tehran. In the morning of 19 March 1985 a Turkish Airlines aircraft takes off for Tehran to evacuate the Japanese. But the remaining Turks at Tehran Mehrabad Airport still need to be convinced that they won't be able to board their own country's rescue flight.

In the early 1200s, Dogen brought Chinese Zen philosophy to Japan, and established the Japanese Zen school of Buddhism. He taught that a person was capable of realizing Buddhahood within himself, by way of Zazen. Zazen is extended hours of sitting and meditating to achieve a state of “Mu” (nothingness, or empty existence).

Sanpei is a young boy who lives with his grandpa in a small village in Akita and they both love fishing and are masters at it. His sister moved to Tokyo when their father died and blames it on the fishing. She thinks it's just a stupid play. Gyoshin, a bass professional fisher who lives and competes in America is in a slump and comes to the small village to try to find the joy of fishing again. Together, they all go to find the legendary big char of Yonakidani (The Crying Valley of The Night), which Sanpei's father once saw, but could never catch, before he died.