Colonel
This program is a work of fiction. The characters, organizations, locations, laws, names, etc. being portrayed are unrelated to actual events.
Remember that, as the protection of the state and
the maintenance of its power depend upon the strength of its arms,
the growth or decline of this strength
must affect the nation's destiny, for good or for evil.
Therefore neither be led astray by current opinions nor meddle in politics,
Young Heroes
but with single heart fulfill your essential duty of loyalty,
and bear in mind that duty is weightier than a mountain,
while death is lighter than a feather.
Remember that, as the protection of the state and
the maintenance of its power depend upon the strength of its arms,
the growth or decline of this strength
must affect the nation's destiny, for good or for evil.
Therefore neither be led astray by current opinions nor meddle in politics,
but with single heart fulfill your essential duty of loyalty,
and bear in mind that duty is weightier than a mountain,
while death is lighter than a feather.
As the embers of world war smoldered
in autumn of 1937,
the Imperial Army
established a clandestine spy training agency.
Greater East Asia Cultural Society
The histories, names, and even ages
of the elite men who pass its rigorous application process
are all treated as top-secret information.
They easily complete training exercises that push them
to their physical and mental limits.
Under the command of founder Lieutenant Colonel Yuuki,
they operate worldwide, within the shadows.
And so a brand-new intelligence agency was created.
Its name is "D-Agency."
Episode 2: Joker Game (Part 2)
Are you even Japanese?!
Lieutenant!
Order them to take off their shoes!
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?!
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?!
Kill or commit suicide...
The worst possible decisions a spy can make.
Ah, so spies are cowards, huh?
We...
weren't playing poker at all.
Japan was preoccupied with the rules for the façade.
We never even noticed the true nature of the game being played.
Tautology. "With enough faith, you can worship a sardine's head."
It's a deeply entrenched belief...
When these men leave here, they'll be scattered all over the world,
where they'll have to make themselves invisible.
Invisible people... Invisible places...
Invisible places?
Come on, you can't quit now.
Back of the imperial portrait.
Sir!
That's right.
There's one place in Gordon's house that a real military policeman
would never dare to touch.
It's in plain sight, yet invisible at the same time.
But an impostor MP,
someone from D-Agency...
Stop! Stop it!
The man who organized them, Lieutenant Colonel Yuuki,
even if he never saw it in person...
Hey, don't touch that!
He understood that something was there.
I have one question.
Did you know that the real military police
had already searched Gordon's house?
What makes you think that?
You always say that spies are invisible.
The reason you dressed everyone up as MP
and sent them over in broad daylight was
to make Gordon lower his guard,
so that the MP would have less trouble in the future.
Excuse me.
Miyoshi...
Heading back to the General Staff Office?
I'm sure the Colonel will be shocked to hear your report.
Did you come here to mock me?
No. I've changed my opinion of you a bit.
I didn't think Sakuma-san the soldier
would have caught that.
More importantly,
we're going out on the town.
Would you care to join us?
Maybe splurge and go to a classy restaurant?
Back there, why...
No, forget it.
I'm afraid I'll have to pass. Maybe next time.
I see.
I have no proof that Colonel Mutou commanded the military police
to search Gordon's house beforehand.
But if he didn't,
he must've been shaken by the fact that they didn't find anything.
If his failure were to go public,
it would tarnish his record
and ruin his chances for further promotions.
It must have occurred to him then
that he could cover up his own failure by
having someone else make the same mistake.
If someone else failed at the same task...
The question is,
how did Lieutenant Colonel Yuuki learn
that Colonel Mutou had already raided Gordon's house?
The colonel would've kept that failure a secret.
Lieutenant Colonel Yuuki only could've learned what happened
on the night the raid took place.
Come to think of it,
the day I went to the General Staff Office
and received the order to search Gordon's home,
Colonel Mutou was clearly hungover.
Maybe splurge and go to a classy restaurant?
You... found proof?
Impossible... There's no way...
I wasn't told that it was the second time.
What? What did you just say?
Sir, yesterday,
you ordered me to use D-Agency
to search the home of the American spy John Gordon.
However, I was not informed that the
military police had already searched Gordon's home once before.
Of course not!
Listen. You're nothing more than
a liaison between us and those guys.
You think I need to explain everything to you?
Keep your ego in check!
That doesn't matter.
Tell me where you found the evidence.
Yes, sir. If you'll excuse me...
Behind the imperial portrait.
Impossible!
Don't tell me you went in and...
No, sir. I never laid a finger on it.
Well, where's the microfilm you found?
We didn't bring back the evidence.
What?!
We only confirmed its existence. We didn't bring it back.
You fool! What were you thinking?!
Then... I see.
The microfilm you found
didn't contain any photos of army crypto ciphers.
No, that's exactly what it was.
What kind of imbecile
lets an enemy spy slip away with something like that?!
Now that we've confirmed what codes were taken,
if we change our encryption, it's harmless.
Rather, it benefits our own communications to let the enemy
waste their time with meaningless ciphers.
That may be so.
But what about that damned spy?
You're not going to just let him swim back home, are you?
Lieutenant Colonel Yuuki is handling Gordon.
He intends to use him as an asset.
An asset?!
Yes, sir. He claimed he would
turn him into a double agent.
Damn it! Yuuki, you son of a bitch!
This means he got the man,
the evidence, and all the glory!
An asset?! Shit!
What does he think Gordon is?!
People aren't toys, damn it!
I have something of yours, Colonel Mutou.
Something of mine?
Yeah, this is mine, all right.
Where'd you find it?
Apparently, it was on the floor in the hallway at Hanabishi.
H-Hanabishi?!
Hanabishi
Welcome.
Hanabishi
Welcome.
Oh!
Is that... Sakuma-san?
I'm here on a secret investigation.
I have a few questions for you.
Yes, Mutou-san was here on that day.
How did he look to you at that time?
He seemed to be in a terrible mood.
He was here drinking until very late at night.
Can you tell me about the other customers present, if there were any?
Oh, there was
a man in the next room who drank too much and fell asleep.
Can you describe him?
He's the president of a small trading company
who comes to this establishment quite often.
He's a very sociable man
who's always making our younger geishas laugh.
Certainly not anyone suspicious.
Does he have
any distinctive traits?
For example,
does he walk with a cane due to a lame left leg?
Or wear a white leather glove on his right hand?
I see...
I'll be on my way, then.
Sorry to disturb you when you're busy.
Oh, that's right!
Now that you mention it, that night,
he turned in something Mutou-san had dropped.
A cigarette case.
It was empty, so I held on to it.
If you're returning to headquarters,
would you mind bringing it to him?
It's against military law to tell anyone
the details of a military police raid on a suspected enemy spy's home,
even a geisha whom you visit regularly.
Furthermore, Lieutenant Colonel Yuuki
has stated that this matter will not be made public.
This concludes my report.
You bastard...
When did you switch to their side?
I am simply acting as a liaison,
as per the orders I was given.
Get out.
Huh?
I said, get out!
Yes, sir! Excuse me!
Miyoshi was impressed with you.
You were
really going to cut open your stomach there, weren't you?
It's probably true that Miyoshi was impressed.
Still...
They noticed the second half of the situation well in advance.
I never would've considered that Colonel Mutou
might have set all this up to cover his own mistake.
To the very end, I wasn't able to even join in
the Joker Game...
That cane is a disguise, isn't it?
You've been asking questions.
For example,
does he walk with a cane due to a lame left leg?
Or wear a white leather glove on his right hand?
You can walk perfectly well without a cane.
You wear a white leather glove when you walk with the cane.
Having such a memorable, conspicuous appearance makes it
easier to disguise yourself.
And as a result,
your less noticeable left hand
is much more readily overlooked.
Your left hand is a prosthetic, isn't it?
I had a forensic expert at the imperial university do an examination for me.
There were no fingerprints
on the front of the cigarette case.
Or to be more specific, Colonel Mutou's,
the Hanabishi proprietress's,
and my fingerprints
were the only ones that were detected.
In other words,
the only fingerprints missing were those of the customer who turned in the case.
Wearing a glove on your right hand
leads people to believe that's the injured hand.
But in reality, it was your left hand that you lost
during a past mission.
That jackass Mutou...
Even I didn't expect him to be idiotic enough to get drunk,
start blabbing about state secrets to a geisha,
then finish by dropping his property in the hall.
Immediately after Mutou left,
I went out into the hall and saw his cigarette case.
My right arm was wrapped around a geisha.
In that scenario,
it would've been unnatural not to pick it up with my left hand.
I gave it to the proprietress and left for the night,
but I didn't anticipate you having it examined.
Now that we've done him a favor,
Mutou has no choice but to cooperate with D-Agency.
We're a poor group with a very small budget, after all.
Lieutenant Colonel Yuuki was shadowing Colonel Mutou
to drag more funding out of the General Staff Office!
Do you
have any interest in taking our training?
I'm a soldier through and through.
I'm prepared to sacrifice myself at a moment's notice.
However...
However,
I refuse to be a pawn who is used, then cast aside.
Preview
You remember that incident now?
No...
Don't worry about it.
The memories aren't important.
Episode 3: Miscalculation
That was the right decision.