I've never done anything bad!
Why can you do such a ridiculous thing?
I won't forgive your incivility.
I'll contact my country immediately!
The lieutenant will do hara-kiri here if nothing will be found.
Oh, what impressive resolve!
Japanese warriors don't go back on their word, right?
Go.
Episode 1: Joker Game (Part 1)
Celebrating Going off to war Kobashi
Greater Japan National Defense Women's Association
Hisanaga Yasutake
The army has landed at Qingdao!
This program is a work of fiction. The characters, organizations, locations, laws, names, etc. being portrayed are unrelated to actual events.
The army has landed at Qingdao!
Greater East Asia Cultural Society
Lieutenant Sakuma reporting for duty.
Are you stupid?
Who bows while wearing a business suit?
So?
You're the spy General Staff Headquarters sent?
No, sir.
I don't engage in cowardly behavior like spying.
Ah, so spies are cowards, huh?
Autumn, 1937.
The Imperial Army, following Lieutenant Colonel Yuuki's proposal,
established a clandestine spy training agency.
Greater East Asia Cultural Society
The histories, names, and even ages of the prospective agents are all
treated as top-secret information.
They study multiple foreign languages,
medicine, pharmacology,
physics, communications...
Professional thieves and safecrackers teach them their techniques.
Gigolos even teach them the art of seducing women.
They're tested on a wide range of skills.
But, unbelievably,
none of them are graduates of the Imperial Japanese Army Academy.
They graduated from imperial universities or ordinary colleges.
In other words, they're all so-called ordinary citizens.
They easily complete training exercises that push them
to their physical and mental limits.
And then,
finally, only eight people remained.
No...
Eight monsters.
We're going to town. Would you like to come, Sakuma-san?
No, I'll pass.
Unbelievably, there's no curfew here at the dormitory.
Everyone is free to do as he pleases at night.
Everything here is completely different from
the army academy I graduated from.
My academy classmates and I swore that we'd
give our lives for our country if necessary.
I'd gladly give my life to save one of theirs.
But the students here...
Miyoshi.
Kaminaga.
Odagiri.
Amari.
Hatano.
Jitsui.
Fukumoto.
Tazaki.
They all use false names.
They call each other by fake names, respond to fake life stories...
They undergo such harsh training together,
but they don't even know each other's real names.
How can they live like that?
I call. Two pair.
One pair.
One pair here, too.
Cafeteria
You got me.
I'm out.
Oh, you're back?
What're you doing?
Care to join us, Sakuma-san?
Poker, huh?
Sure, I'll play a little.
I'll bet.
I call.
I fold.
Fold.
I call.
I'll raise you.
I'll raise.
I fold.
I call.
Full house!
Four of a kind.
I'm just getting started.
Oh, well. These things happen sometimes.
We'll have to do this again.
Sakuma-san, you didn't lose the poker game.
What do you mean?
I was peeking at your cards
and signaling the others.
What?!
What's so fun about cheating to win?
We...
weren't playing poker at all.
What? Then what were you doing?
We call it the Joker Game.
Joker Game?
Basically...
There's a card game going on at the table,
but it's only a charade.
The goal is to get people in the room on your side,
have them peek at the opponents' hands, and signal you.
However, there's no telling who's on whose side.
The signs may be fake,
or you might read an opponent's signs and change your hand.
Hey, give me a cigarette.
Here.
In the right conditions, you can convince the enemy spy
to betray his side and join yours.
What's so enjoyable about deceiving one another like that?
What's the point?!
Who knows?
It's more or less the same thing as international politics.
International politics?
What's going on?
Just our usual game.
Sakuma-san doesn't like it, that's all.
I'm not complaining about who won and who lost.
My point is that the way you do things is cowardly.
You think all competition should be fair and square, huh?
If they hadn't let you in on the secret,
would you be saying the things you are now?
That's the current state of Japan.
What do you mean by that?
Say this is Washington.
Imagine that table is the stage for an international political meeting.
If your information is leaked, you've got no hope of winning.
The same thing happened to Japan during last year's
disarmament summit in Washington.
The American Black Chamber
Former lead US Cryptologist H.O. Yardley's Shocking Documents
American Govt. Cracks Everything
From the very beginning, the players at that table, the other countries,
knew exactly how much Japan would be
willing to compromise.
Japan was preoccupied with the rules for the façade.
We never even noticed the true nature of the game being played.
Remember, this is a spy training facility.
When these men leave here, they'll be scattered all over the world,
where they'll have to make themselves invisible.
Ten years, twenty years, maybe even longer.
Their job will be to move to a foreign land,
assimilate, and make themselves invisible
in order to gather intelligence on
that nation and report back to Japan.
Can you even imagine what their lives will be like?
The only thing that awaits you all
is black, empty solitude.
If you were a spy,
and the enemy discovered your secret, what would you do?
I'd have no choice but to kill the enemy,
or if that weren't possible, kill myself.
Kill or commit suicide...
The worst possible decisions a spy can make.
I don't understand what you're trying to say.
When someone dies during peacetime,
their country's police will inevitably get involved.
It should be obvious that, to a spy,
both murder and suicide are pointless,
idiotic courses of action.
That's the way cowards who fear death think.
I just can't see spies as anything but gutless cowards!
Then let me ask you this.
If you commit suicide, what happens next?
If I die...
I'll proudly meet my comrades on the other side.
Ah. Then you'd die so that
you could brag about it to your compatriots in the afterlife.
But what if you don't see them there?
There's no way that would happen!
I see.
Miyoshi. What's your opinion?
Tautology. "With enough faith, you can worship a sardine's head."
It's a deeply entrenched belief,
but no different from a new religion.
Their ideas are short-lived once they
leave the confines of an isolated group.
Kaminaga?
I agree with Miyoshi.
For example, if Japan lost the war,
the people would promptly learn to take all their faith
and put it in the antithesis of their original beliefs.
If Japan lost the war?!
Money, honor, patriotism...
Even death is fiction.
The only thing that lies in your futures is that empty solitude.
And the only thing you'll have to support you there
is your ability to constantly adapt to any situation,
and instantly decide the best course of action.
So they're not even becoming spies out of
a sense of honor or patriotism.
It's just an obscene amount of self-confidence telling them,
"I must be able to do this."
The only ones who could live like that
are monsters.
Give us the order to go in and get proof.
There's no question this guy's a spy.
Bring back irrefutable evidence.
Understand?
John Gordon.
He came to Japan three years ago at a major trading company's invitation.
He runs a business here that
calibrates imported precision machinery.
Currently, he's renting a Japanese house in Kanda,
eats rice out of a bowl with chopsticks,
prays before the emperor's portrait morning and night, and lives as a Japanophile.
Gordon is suspected to be a spy.
Another man, arrested in another case,
named him.
Colonel Mutou expects this school to
bring back concrete proof of the target's guilt.
Proof? Why would you bother looking for proof?
Huh? What did you say?
Even if you don't go look for evidence,
he'll disappear on his own if you leave him alone.
Gordon is suspected of the serious crime
of taking covert pictures of the Imperial Japanese Army's cryptographic ciphers.
Once a spy is suspected, he's finished.
It's as pointless as taking a crippled enemy combatant prisoner.
General Staff HQ is growing more vocal in their demands
for results from this school.
In other words, this is an official mission for D-Agency.
A meaningless mission.
Regardless, orders are orders.
Fine. All we need is some evidence, right?
How should we go about it?
You'll masquerade as a military police unit.
Miyoshi, you'll take command at the scene.
As soon as you find evidence, get out of there immediately.
You'll have about forty minutes before
the real MPs start kicking up a fuss.
Can you do it?
Thirty minutes would be enough.
Well, Sakuma-san,
can I ask you to play the role of MP captain?
Me?
I'll act as your interpreter.
It would look suspicious if the real military police raided
a foreigner's house without an interpreter.
I seriously doubt any of them know a foreign language.
We'll move out at 0800 hours.
I'll inform the others.
What're you going to do if we don't find anything in the raid?
Well, it's there, isn't it?
I've never done anything bad!
Why can you do such a ridiculous thing?
I won't forgive your incivility.
I'll contact my country immediately!
The lieutenant will do hara-kiri here if nothing will be found.
Oh, what impressive resolve!
Japanese warriors don't go back on their word, right?
Huh? Hey, what'd you say to him?
I said that if we search his house and don't find anything,
you'll cut your own stomach open right here, Lieutenant.
What?
I love Japanese culture!
I've seen geishas and Fuji Mountain.
All that's left is a hara-kiri show.
I can't wait.
Go.
Hey, take off your shoes! Are you even Japanese?!
Lieutenant!
Order them to take off their shoes!
Why is he so confident?
Stop! Stop it!
What're you looking for?!
Are you trying to break my house?
Oh, no, knock it off! Hey, that's my treasure!
Don't even touch it!
Hey, are you listening?
I've had enough of you people.
Once was bad enough,
but twice is unforgivable!
What'd you say? Twice?
What do you mean?!
You don't know?
The military police were here looking for something a few days ago.
Of course, they didn't find anything.
What?
Then there's no chance we'll find any of the code ciphers.
The colonel knew, and he still...
Even a tiny mistake is fine.
If anything at all goes wrong, they're finished.
But if nothing happens...
The colonel did this on purpose to entrap D-Agency...
What's wrong? Going to keep searching?
The kitchen is clear.
The yard is clear.
Drawers are clear.
Above the ceiling is clear.
There wasn't anything here
for us to find in the first place!
What's the matter, Captain-san?
Is it show time now?
Don't tell me...
I'm the one who ended up
drawing the joker?!
Preview
What we're looking for
may be closer than we think.
What do you mean?
Episode 2: Joker Game (Part 2)