#Tobisaki Hiroyuki

[jgfiles]

Anime Odagiri’s precious smile

[namaikiii]

It’s Odagiri’s month so time for another playlist -^^-

Songs that I thought fit his journey and the struggles he went through from youth to de- well, wherever he ended up...

[kyuukancorbie]

JG Summary 1-5 XX

 XX. 1939

Disclaimer: 1. I assume people know what’s already in the anime. 2. The information is based on the Chinese novel, I do not claim credit for translation. 3. Everything is quoted, my comments are in parenthesis. 4. Please don’t post outside of tumblr. 5. Corrections are welcomed.

 Main character: Hiroyuki Tobisaki（弘行　飛崎）/ Odagiri （小田切）

(I said I’m not translating the whole novel but this chapter was altered a lot in the anime so I ended up feeling like I might as well have. But never mind. As in Robinson I will be following the plot sequence for this one.)

A note on the timeline: I refer to these charts when suggesting a timeline. But note that some of the dates are suggested based on historical events that may or may not be quoted directly from the novel/anime. 

For this chapter, it suggests that XX. takes place not long after Sakuma departs, when cherry blossoms are still flowering, which means roughly from March 31 to around April 11 in 1939 when the flowers reach full bloom. 

Tobisaki’s military exercise (that killed his career in the army) is suggested to be in September, 1936. This is based on the historical Japanese “Special Large Scale Army Maneuver” in Sapporo, Hokkaido. This means that there would be ~1 year gap between when Tobisaki left the army and when the D-Agency is established and picking its first students.

The story starts with Yuriko Nogami's （百合子　野上） monologue.

- She asks for some water before explaining how found Karl Schneider dead in her house as she is in shock.

- Earlier the day she arranged to meet with Schneider at her flat, and had already given him the keys. She states that Schneider is often busy with work while she stayed at home alone.

- When she felt the rehearsal will last longer than usual, she phoned Schneider who is back home to tell him. The time is around 2pm.

- She recalls that Schneider sounded unusually depressed, and wished she had noticed at the time.

- Rehearsal ended at 3 pm. She phones home again but this time nobody picks up.

- She states that she thought Schneider was tired of waiting and had already left, which often happened in the past. She thus decided to invite her friend Miyoko Yasuhara（美代子　安原） home to eat some cake together.

- When she opened the door Schneider's shoes were in the doorway. Miyoko saw this and suggested she should be leaving.

- Yuriko asked her to stay and calls into the room. When nobody answered, they entered the flat together and saw Schneider's body.

- She stated that she was too shocked to do anything, and Miyoko called the police.

 Hiroyuki Tobisaki （弘行　飛崎） reports the case to the Agency.

- Three years ago Schneider arrived in Japan as a writer for the famous German newspaper "Berlin Allgemeine". He rented a two-story house in Tokyo city, and often held parties at his house. Geishas and all sorts of artists with various nationalities are invited, the music continues late into the night.

- The Kenpeitai dislikes his flamboyancy and investigated him closely. From their report, Schneider is a secret Nazi member in contact with the Gestapo, and a language genius fluent in German, English, French, Russian, Japanese, Beijing dialect, and Cantonese. The Kenpeitai decides that Schneider is here to write for the Nazi government, but does not realize that Schneider is a spy.

- By chance a communist suspect interrogated by the Tokko gave out Schneider's name, naming him a spy working for the USSR.

- At first nobody believes him. Schneider has several friends in the German embassy, it made more sense if he were a German spy.

- But after further investigation they realize Schneider is indeed gathering information about the Germans in the Far East. For the Kenpeitai, uncovering the truth now will make them look bad for not finding him out earlier over the past three years.

- Schneider is also very popular among the high ranking officers of the Japanese army, their wives, and various foreign embassies. It is not just difficult to prove that Schneider is a double agent, but also impossible to keep the faces of German ambassadors and Japanese officers.

- Meanwhile the USSR embassy will probably act as if they know nothing.

- As Schneider's activity concerns three political entities, the Kenpeitai had to consult the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The agreed to secretly arrest Schneider and use him to exchange hostages.

- To prove Schneider guilty they need to first find his contacts and get a solid proof. The mission is passed on to the D-Agency because no one dares take the responsibility.

 Tobisaki's mission.

- When Tobisaki is assigned this mission, Yuuki does not say anything, but he immediately realizes this is his graduation exam.

- Some of the students who's been training with Tobisaki has already graduated.

- For students still under training, nobody knows what mission these graduates are assigned or where they will go or why. Graduates simply disappear one day.

- Before their departure Yuuki always gives them a certain mission. Their subsequent destination and future missions will depend on the results of the graduation exam.

- Tobisaki starts spying on Schneider immediately. As all spies need to send the intelligence they gathered home eventually, Schneider is bound to leave prints somewhere.

- All international telegraphs sent from Japan are transmitted by the Ministry of Communications （逓信省）to the D-Agency. Outgoing phonecalls are transferred to and recorded by the Agency. Outgoing letters, including those from embasssies, are first sent to the central post office, then sent to the Agency. The Agency uses a special traceless method to open the letters and reseal them after copying down the contents. These are all done in secret.

- Tobisaki finds some suspicious telegraph activity from Schneider, and letters with encrypted information.

- He also knows there is an illegal radio station in Tokyo sending out encrypted messages. They located an area within 2 km of the signal range using trilateration, but was unable to pinpoint because the the transmission always ends quickly. Tobisaki stalks Schneider until he confirms Schneider sending radio from a rented fishing boat.

- Schneider's cover is so unusual that even the Agency may have missed him if not for the Kenpeitai. He mets with contacts while hidden in his parties, and uses the loud music to render eavesdropping useless. He gives trivial information for Germans and Japanese, while sending important information back to the Soviet.

- Tobisaki admires his tact. However he finds Schneider dead before he has a chance to arrest him.

 The meeting room.

- Everyone in the meeting room, though dressed in suits like businesspeople, are high ranking officers of the Japanese army. Tobisaki himself is a second lieutenant.

- But the novel then states that everyone's position are also fake. The other agency students in the meeting room are named: Kasai （葛西）, Munakata（宗像）, Yamauchi（山内）, Akimoto（秋元）, and Nakase （中瀬）.

(Note: All D-Agency students seem to be automatically second lieutenants.)

- In the first year the agency was short of money and used the army's abandoned pigeon house as their training space. But now they have ample budget and currently uses a three-story building on the outskirts of Tokyo.

- Tobisaki does not think Schneider ever noticed him. He does not think he had any mistake, but is unable to find an answer for the situation. So he asks Yuuki to hold this meeting so that others may bring light on the case, even though he fears the meeting will become a scolding party.

- There is competition and controversy over jurisdiction among the police, the Tokko, and the Kenpeitai, so they don't usually share information with each other. The police thus determines that Schneider commited suicide.

- Kasai challenges Tobisaki's opinion that Schneider was killed because of his dying letter. The conversation generally follows the anime, except that Kasai's lines are split among Miyoshi, Kaminaga, and Hatano.

- Kasai is described as having long, thin eyes, red lips, and short. He has a reputation among D-Agency students as shrewd and competent.

- Munakata breaks the silence by asking if someone could have entered the room through a window. He is descibed as having thick eyebrows and big eyes.

- Tobisaki states that the window on the other side faces the streets, and the police would have been alerted if someone climbes up the window in broad daylight.

- Kasai mocks Tobisaki by saying this makes the case a locked room mystery, which means an impossible murder.

- Yuuki asks how Schneider died. Tobisaki states he was poisoned by cyanide potassium, easy to find while difficult to trace.

- Akimoto asks if Schneider died of blood loss, mistaking spilt wine in the photo for blood.

- Akimoto is described as very tall, and sitting next to Tobisaki.

- Tobisaki answers that it is wine from Chateau Margaux, a brand Schneider particularly likes. He got the bottle from the German embassy and brought it to Yuriko's flat a week ago.

- Munakata asks how many languages Schneider knows, noticing the double cross in the corner of the letter. (Note: In the anime, this is Amari.)

- Kasai asks if those are just marks drawn when trying out the pen.

- Munakata suggests that Schneider may be a triple agent, also serving either the UK or the US.

- Kasai thinks this is ridiculous, but Munakata disregards him and simply asks for Yuuki's opinion.

- Yuuki tells them to put aside this possibility for now. He then orders Munakata to investigate English speakers around Schneider, Akimoto to investigate the original letter for invisible ink, Kasai to investigate the German and Soviet embassies for espionage activity, Yamauchi to investigate the route of the wine and list anyone who could have touched it. He mentions Nakase but the words trail off.

(Note: In the Anime, Hatano corresponds to Akimoto, even though he is short. Miyoshi corresponds to Kasai, Amari corresponds to Munakata, Tazaki's mission corresponds to Yamauchi's. Kaminaga is ordered to investigate Schneider's aquaintences, possibly corresponding to the left out Nakase's mission, while there is no reference relating to Jitsui.)

- Tobisaki sees that these students are hardly supressing their intrest in the case. For them, Schneider becomes a more fascinating prey after he dies. Or rather they and Schneider are of the same breed. Tobisaki smells the same egotism from Schneider as the D-Agency students.

- His investigation has shown that Schneider was in contact with Nazi officer in order to join the Gestapo, thus travelling to Japan to work for the Soviet. He sends German intelligence to the Soviet and vice versa. The cover is needlessly risky and complicated for the objectives alone. Tobisaki concludes that this can only be explained by Schneider's overgrown ego and his thirst for excitement.

- Again, D-Agency students accept their trainning because they believe only they have the ability complete those missions, with ease.

- Tobisaki feels intense competition to keep up with the other students. As Tobisaki is left alone in the room with Yuuki he realizes he is the oddball.

 About Tobisaki's past.

- The Agency hires from the common and outside the army. Tobisaki is an exception as he attended Cadet Corps （陸軍幼年學校）and then the Imperial Japanese Army Academy, finally becoming second lieutenant, which makes him an army man from head to toe.

- Tobisaki never met his parents. His father is a third rate artist who left for Paris before he was born, and later eloped with some other young woman. His mother left home with another young man not long after giving birth. He never knew what happened to his parents, nor was he interested.

- He was sent to his grandparents as an infant. A young woman named Chizuru Nishiyama （千鶴　西山）from the neighborhood comes to their house to do chores and she was the one who really raised him.

- After some years Chizuru Nishiyama no longer works at their house, so Tobisaki's grandparents sent him to take the cadet entrance exam. They were a noble family in the countryside while Tobisaki is a reminder of their son and daughter-in-law's scandals. Tobisaki thinks his grandparents were distant and didn't know what to do with him. Sending him to cadet school solves everything with just a little money.

- Tobisaki always graduates first place from his schools. He does this for his own ego and not for the opinions of others.

- He was given several positions until promoted to second lieutenant. His first job is to train new recruits.

- Training requires the recruits to memorize their direct commanders' name and title, up to the Emporor of Japan. The idea is to "induce awareness and gratitude of being part of the Emporor's subjects and the Imperial Japanese Army". The army is regarded as a family with the emporor at its head, and requires everyone to be willing to die for the family.

- Tobisaki doubts this as he is a self made man and has never had a positive connection to his family. When recruits would even cry with joy he hides his contempt with indifference, and simply completes his job efficiently.

- During a large milittary exercise, his division was moved to Sapporo. A subordinate who was supposed to be a long range scout in the mission had an inflamed tooth that swelled his face so much he could barely see with his right eye, and in a 40 ℃ fever. Tobisaki informs the battalion commander (Note: typically a lieutenant colonel) to have someone else carry out the mission, but was ordered to report to the commander immediately.

- Tobisaki wrapped the scout in warm clothes and helped him walk all the way. Seeing this the commander thinks they are not taking his orders seriously and states that even if the soldier would die he should still be happy to die for his country.

- The soldier wanted to salute, but Tobisaki stops him. He states that it would be stupid to let the soldier die for an exercise and he would look for someone else fitter.

- The commander is enraged, and attempts to tear off the coat the soldier is wrapped in and order him to go at once. Tobisaki stands between them to stop him, but the commander falls onto the floor. The other soldier passed out.

- Tobisaki is jailed, and then invited by Yuuki to take the Agency's entrance exam.

 Tobisaki's training.

- Tobisaki was shocked by the examination and wonders if anyone would be able to complete it except him.

- In fact quite a few passed with similar grades, some even above him.

- When training becomes physically demanding Tobisaki thinks that the other students won't be able to take it. However the other students look as if it's just piece of cake.

- Not because the training is easy. Even Tobisaki who received army training all his life sometimes felt like it's too harsh. The other students are acting that way because they always believe they are capable enough.

- Yuuki tells them to forget about titles and positions like soldier or ambassador. He tells them to focus only on the facts presented before their eyes. If they are tied to anything other than facts, it will become their weakness.

- Yuuki criticizes how contemporary Japan deifies the Emporor, stating the army should be absolute realists.

- Tobisaki thinks the Agency is a good place for him to stay. Since he was young grown-ups regarded him as cold child, and he was never good at socializing with others. When he was in school he often felt awkward bonding with other students.

- Nobody in the agency will know he is an exception. To not get tied up meant freedom for Tobisaki. The novel uses a past tense.

 Back to the meeting room.

- Yuuki orders him to re-investigate "that woman's" alibi.

- Tobisaki is confused at first thinking about all the woman with a connection to Schneider.

- Schneider's father was German, his mother was Russian. He is described as having blue-grey eyes, a flat nose, overall a crooked look, but very passionate. He is extravagant, harsh-speaking, and often gets drunk, with the coldness of Germans, passion of Slavs, and the carefree of Bohemians. His complicated personality and his charm makes him very popular among women. In Japan alone there are more than 20 who's been in a relation with Schneider.

- Tobisaki realizes Yuuki is referring to Yuriko Nogami. He states she is impossible. But Yuuki forces him to carry out the order by simply keeping silent.

 About Yuriko Nogami:

- During the time when Schneider committed suicide, Yuriko was at rehearsal with her troupe. There is a straight line distance of 5 km from where they are rehearsing to her flat. There is no time for her to go home and kill Schneider and return in 10 minutes. As she is the main supporting actress she was never away from the stage for more than 5 minutes.

- On the day Schneider died, Tobisaki disguised himself as a police and read their report.

- By Yuriko's account, she met Schneider a year ago at the night club she was working at. When she told him she wanted to be an actress he not only encouraged her, but by the next day had already arranged for her to receive professional training. Since then he often visited Yuriko, and also paid for a telephone in her flat.

- The police were particularly suspicious of Yuriko. One reason is that it is unusual for her to continue being in a relationship with a foreign reporter given the tense situation in Japan. The other reason is that she was expelled from girls' academy due to "extremist behavior". Her parents broke relation with her, so she had to work at the night club for a living.

- Tobisaki thinks she is a wise and pragmatic young woman. Which by the standards of Japan, means that she leans too much towards liberallism.

- In her report Yuriko is not embarrassed to state that she loves Schneider deeply. She is soon aware that he has other lovers, but brushes off stating that charming men in Japan and foreign countries are always surrounded by women.

- Other people have confirmed that she is always courteous and friendly to women who are obviously Schneider's lovers. She doesn't complain even if Schneider holds a party late into the night and only tells her to come home after that.

- Tobisaki thinks it is difficult to give Yuriko the motive to murder.

 Other students report to Tobisaki.

- Tobisaki first bumps into Akimoto in disguise. After reporting Akimoto blinks at him and leaves.

- Then he meets Munakata. Munakata states the possibility that Schneider is a triple agent is very low. (Note: this is not shown in the anime. Instead the next person is Kaminaga.)

- Yamauchi about the wine.

- Kasai about the embassies.

- Tobisaki stops Kasai. Their dialogue is the same as in the anime.

- Tobisaki seems to have noticed something he missed.

 Ending.

- Yuuki says he heard that Yuriko Nogami has admitted she killed Schneider.

- Yuuki also says it's uncommon for the Kenpeitai to share this info with them.

- With the results of Tobisaki's investigation the Kenpeitai has decided to use Yuriko as an excuse to take Schneider's case from the police, so that the police won't know they have failed to track down a spy for three years.

- Tobisaki feels disgusted when he remembers the way the Kempeitai looked at Yuriko. He doesn't want to think about how she will be interrogated.

- Tobisaki realized previously that there are loopholes in Yuriko's confession, such as why her friend Miyoko went out to call the police while there is a phone in Yuriko's home.

- Yuriko asked her friend to go to the police station so that she could bring the letter from next to the phone to the dining table.

- She pretends to have thought of a line to use in the next play and asks Schneider to write it down during their call. She does not deny making the call as this will be on record, but the police will not know about the conversation.

- Yuriko said her rehearsal took longer than usual, but a final rehearsal shouldn't be longer than the actual play, at least not long enough for her lover to leave. Tobisaki asked about this in her troupe and was confirmed that the rehearsal ended almost at the scheduled time, so Yuriko was lying.

- Yuriko brought Miyoko back to prove her alibi.

- She killed Schneider because she was jealous of Miyoko. She didn't mind his previous lovers, but Miyoko is her friend and competing with her in the troupe for the same place.

- Tobisaki suspects that Schneider knows about Yuriko's jealousy. He feels himself betraying Yuriko while on the phone with her, and makes the XX mark on the paper. To Schneider, the feeling when he betrays something he values is important. "XX" represents Schneider's inner world, the most unique side of the experienced double agent.

- Yuuki does not know if Miyoko Yasuhara is Schneider's lover, nor does he know that Yuriko has a phone at home. Yet he believes that Yuriko is the murderer. Tobisaki asks why he suspects Yuriko.

- Yuuki answers by asking if Yuriko looked like Chizuru Nishiyama.

- Tobisaki remembers Chizuru.

- Yuuki states that either Schneider was killed or he committed suicide, which ever is the case Tobisaki should have noticed something (Note: in the anime, Yuuki specifically asks if he didn't notice anything when Schneider died). Tobisaki is well trained in the Agency, so if he did not notice he was not looking. Yuuki reasons that the only thing that could distract him and tie him up, would be the ghost of Chizuru.

- Tobisaki thinks about his graduation examination. Rather than Yuuki's testing out the students' abilities, it was more a chance for the students to decide whether they will be able to work under Yuuki in the future. In a way this was Tobisaki's personal case.

- The important thing is to not be tied to anything, which means to not believe in anything, to forsake love and hate as trivial matters, and even betray the only thing a heart relies upon.

- Tobisaki realizes he cannot abandon the image of Chizuru. He wouldn't know what else to live for.

- He also realizes why he always felt inferior to the other students. A true spy is someone who can abandon everything besides himself, betray the ones he love, and still live a lonely life like it's natural.

- Tobisaki feels he is at his limit. This is why he only wrote "resigning for personal reasons" on the last page of his resignation letter.

- Yuuki hands him his appointment letter. The Agency never gives out paper files, everything is either told and heard, or immediately retrieved after reading. Receiving a paper appointment letter means that Tobisaki is no longer part of the Agency.

- Yuuki tells him his new position is in northern China, and he will be promoted to first lieutenant.

- Tobisaki knows he army is giving him a promotion and then a place to die. The cruelest sort of pat on the back.

- When Tobisaki is about to leave he hears Yuuki call out his true name.

- Yuuki stands up from his chair, raises his right hand, and for the first time, salutes to Tobisaki. He said, don't die.

- Tobisaki returns the salute and leaves silently.

@jgfiles 

[salve-teff]

Tobisaki: I'll never be able to become a monster like them.

Me: .... Are you stupid?! Hatano is not a monster.

Tobisaki:

Me: He is a little piece of shit, but he's not a monster. Geez, man! Do your research

Me: He is a cute piece of shit, though

[tsukkilatte]

[microsoftgod]

don’t die

[jgfiles]

Nito Subaru’s new promotional picture for the next chapter as well as the spoilerish image of the cover of said chapter.

I feel like crying, it’s the Odagiri episode, the last of the series... ;_;

[jgfiles]

And this is what Miwa Shiro drew for the Odagiri episode.

これを捨て去ったら、自分が生きている意味がわからなくなる。 #jga

Translation thanks to Google translate:

If I throw it away, I do not understand what I am living for. #jga

Meanwhile Nito Subaru is retwitting the old draws he made when Joker Game was being aired for the first time…

ジョーカー・ゲーム第12話『XX　ダブル・クロス』本日より放送です！ 最終話、士官学校を経て少尉に任官した経歴を持つ、異色のＤ機関員。他の機関員との間にはどこか壁がある小田切が活躍いたします。宜しくお願いします！#ジョーカー・ゲーム

Translation thanks to Google translate:

Joker Game Episode 12 "XX Double Cross" It is broadcasting from today! A final story, a different D institution member with a career who delegated to the lieutenant through a military academy. Odagiri who has a wall somewhere between other institutional personnel will be active. Thanking you in advance! # Joker game.

Meanwhile the JG Twitter is in a Joker Game images reposting mood...

1年前に放送が終了した「ジョーカー・ゲーム」ですが、7月から再放送がありますので、懐かしのカウントダウン画像を再掲載していきたいと思います。 今となっては、あの場面だったのか…と分かるでしょうか。 #ジョーカー・ゲーム

Translation thanks to Google translate:

Although "Joker Game" was broadcasted a year ago, since we have a rebroadcast from July, I would like to re-post countless nostalgia images. Do you know that it was that scene now? # Joker game

Last but not least IG Store is selling a box with the storyboards for the episodes... I WANT IT!

[jgfiles]

EP 12 complete cast

Picture from the Joker Game settei book.

From left to right the relevant guys from the cast:

Amari (EP 7 Utsumi Osamu): 175 cm Jitsui (EP 9 Morishima Kunio): 165 cm Fukumoto (EP 4 Shiozuka Hajime & Kusanagi Yukihito): 178 cm Tazaki (EP 6 Seto Reiji): 173 cm Lieutenant Colonel Yūki: 180 cm Miyoshi (EP 11 Maki Katsuhiko): 168 cm Odagiri (EP 12 Tobisaki Hiroyuki): 172 cm Nogami Yuriko: 160 cm Yasuhara Miyoko: 155 cm Karl Schneider: 178 cm Troupe member B: 165 cm Nishiyama Chizuru (Chizu-nee): 160 cm Kaminaga (Ep 5 Izawa Kazuo): 173 cm Hatano (EP 3 Shimano Ryōsuke): 162 cm

Yes, the picture includes a troupe member (the one with whom Odagiri speaks) but not young Odagiri which is a pity but there are no settei for him through all the whole book. ;_;

[jgfiles]

As it’s the Odagiri’s month, let’s have some little Odagiri’s pictures…

[jgfiles]

Re-watching Joker Game: Ep 12 XX Double Cross

So, as I proposed a re-watching, here I go continuing on doing the re-watching. Hopefully someone else will join! ^_-

Also, hopefully there’s someone out there that read all this stuff… as I know it’s pretty long… shame on me for analyzing things too in deep…

Mind you, what follows are my ramblings over Ep 12, comprehensive of my impression on how the frames were structured and so on with some occasional reference to the other Joker Game media.

Also, for personal comfort, I’ll use the characters’ names even if the anime hasn’t stated them yet. In short, as this is a re-watching and not a first watching, you’ll also get a telling that’s mixed with my knowledge of the future. Consider yourself warned.

And now, let’s start.

And we’ll start with a change compared to my previous ramblings for the previous episodes.

Instead than waiting for Ep 11 to comment the preview for this episode, I’ll do it here as otherwise it would be a random unconnected bit at the end of Ep 11. The same will go for future previews.

Now, the preview, as the one for Ep 2, takes part in an… unknown place with plenty of square tables. From the various previews we’ll see people go here often to drink, smoke, play chess, play cards, even eating. The tables and the chandeliers in it are slightly different from the ones in the D Agency kitchen so it’s a different place. It bears a resemblance with the place in which the spies go drinking together in a recent illustration. As Gamo could get in, we can speculate it’s outside D Agency (though the fact he had two chance meetings with two different spies, Odagiri and Jitsui, feels a little odd so it feels more like it’s just an out of canon thing).

Anyway, back to the preview’s plot. We’ve Amari and Odagiri drinking together. Odagiri starts the discussion commenting he heard Amari broke up with his woman again. Amari confirms and from Amari’s reply we can figure out that Amari didn’t break up with THE SAME WOMAN again but that this woman is just the last of a long list. Amari claims there’s no point in remaining with a woman for too long… which makes him sound like a jerk… but there’s to remember the D Agency boys can’t get attached to someone and this will be the core of Odagiri’s episode. Amari is acting like he’s expected to act. His relationships don’t last long because they aren’t expected to. He’s not supposed to find a girlfriend and remain with her.

Odagiri won’t openly express agreement or disapprobation but we can have the feeling he’s not really that comfortable with this and this is Odagiri’s problem. He doesn’t like how the others can manage to remain completely unconnected, nor he’s capable to do the same. In the preview, to Amari’s reply, he comments ‘We’re all beautiful in passing’ but he’s quoting someone and he’s doing so while staring to his own glass, the wine in it reflecting his image and actually, it’s his image we see talking and not him. All visually hints at how Odagiri isn’t reporting his own thoughts but what he’s saying is just… a fakade.

And now let’s dig into the episode.

We start with what looks like a blizzard… which nicely ties with how snow was also falling in the previous episode. Only it gets obvious soon that the two aren’t placed in the same time period or in the same place as, after showing us a line of people walking in the snow…

…we will soon realize those aren’t Germans but Japanese soldiers, and that their uniform is the one worn PRIOR to the Joker Game episode (which dated 1939) so we’ve to be in 1938 or prior to it.

Thanks to the novel (and to @kyuukancorbie who provided me with info about the novel ^_-) we can actually speculate we’re in September, 1936, watching a scene from the large scale Army maneuver in Sapporo.

The camera focus on the face of a soldier. It’s clear enough he’s not feeling well, that he’s ill and that needs to be supported by another soldier to stand. As we watch the face of this poor soldier, a face unfamiliar to us, someone, clearly a superior officer, is scolding him for ‘the way he acts when he receives an order’.

Why it’s a smart choice? The soldier isn’t obeying and this is bad… but the audience is brought to immediately side with him. We see he’s not feeling well, that he can’t stand on his own, it’s clear that the guy scolding him is asking him too much. Psychologically we’ve already decided his superior officer is the ‘bad guy’ and the anime will continue to work on enforcing this idea (LOL, situation will tie some nice parallels with Ep 1 in which we were helped to figure out immediately that Gordon was the bad guy, actually this episode will parallel Ep 1-2 more often than not, I could almost write an essay about this…).

The camera now pans on the whole soldier’s body, starting from bottom and moving toward the top.

Yes, he’s being supported by another soldier as he can’t stand on his own (don’t you feel sorry for him? Isn’t the one yelling at him a jerk? That’s the hidden message in the whole thing) and it turns out that the one supporting him has a familiar face… though his skin is a lot more tanned so one might not recognize him (evidently he doesn’t usually stay in that cold but was moved there from someplace sunnier) and it doesn’t help that the coat he’s wearing covers most of his head. Anyway guys let’s say hello to young Odagiri.

The scolding voice, which clearly doesn’t belong to Odagiri, goes around talking about how this is for their motherland and that the sick soldier should be content to die for the sake of it, yadda, yadda.

We don’t see the one doing the scolding. He’s just a voice for now, our visual attention is focused on the soldier that’s being sick, on how cruel can sound such words as they’re being said to someone who can’t even stand on his own. Not seeing the speaker is also meaningful because the speaker isn’t just saying his own thoughts. His words are the standard words a superior officer would say to a soldier in such conditions. We don’t really need to see him or to imagine him. Everyone will do, because every superior officer was supposed to say such things.

And here Odagiri speaks up. He seems the voice of reason to us and to our modern mentality but, back then, what he said was probably sounding like heresy. Odagiri complains it seems silly to him to die for what’s just an exercise and that the sick soldier isn’t fit to be a scout.

Sadly, while Odagiri’s words well embrace the modern mentality, back in the past soldiers were an expendable commodity for superior officers. We saw it previously, with Mutō planning to sacrifice Sakuma so as to cover up his mistake and get rid of D Agency. Sakuma was still willing to put up with it and commit Harakiri even if he knew he was being used and, in the novel, he’ll realize his disliking for being used as a pawn isn’t fit for a soldier (the anime will let us believe he’s all right with rejecting the idea… when in the original version he knew it was a thought that wasn’t acceptable for a soldier to have).

So, predictably, Odagiri gets scolded… and, while he’s scolded we hear the officer calling him by his true name. Well, surname. Tobisaki. Which in the novel was merely a name he took for a job. But well, let’s go on. We still don’t see the one doing the scolding, but we see Odagiri’s face shifting when he’s accused of claiming his superior’s orders are ‘foolish’. He figured he made a misstep but it’s too late to take it back.

And we continue with the parallels with Gordon in Ep 1. Remember how they made him look threatening by showing us his yelling mouth with his teeth well visible? Well, guess what? They do the same with Odagiri’s superior’s officer. Close up of his yelling mouth with teeth well visible.

Let’s face it, the visual is telling us this guy is going to bite someone and therefore he’s dangerous and, in short, bad.

You don’t even need to hear what he’s saying. Even if you don’t know Japanese and turns off the subs, it’s clear that this guy, who’s yelling to a sick soldier and to the one supporting the sick soldier, is a jerk.

Also, note the background. Not only the snow is heavily falling and the wind is blowing but the other soldiers are continuing to march. They don’t even dare to turn to watch what’s going on. And the sick soldier is too sick to do anything. The core of the scene is Odagiri. Fundamentally our eyes are focused on him. He’s alone here. The other soldiers are background. The sick soldier is so sick he could as well not be there. And his superior officer isn’t shown.

We’re pushed to focus solely on Odagiri. And now, when the superior officer becomes visible and rips the sick soldier away from Odagiri’s supporting arms, we’re all supposed to react like Odagiri. Get out from the frame, you jerk. We’d like to push him away… like Odagiri does. But this is a luxury Odagiri wasn’t allowed to have.

‘Gyakusei’ [虐政 Oppression] starts being played in the background and the title is rather fitting.

He only pushed away the superior officer and caused him to fall on his ass in the snow… but this is a crime in the Army. We see that now all the soldiers are stopped and staring at him. Even if we’ve no idea how the Army work, this is visually enough to let us figure out that Odagiri has committed something like a capital sin.

Even the superior officer (the credits refers to him as Dai taichō 大隊長 “Commander” but his grades are the ones of a Major…) seems to be shocked… his reaction almost unnatural as Odagiri has merely pushed him, it’s not like he’d tried to kill him… and all this helps to deliver how terrible it is what Odagiri did. Odagiri wasn’t supposed to react at all. Like Sakuma with Mutō, he was merely supposed to bow to his superior’s will.

Also, the fact that the man is finally shown, is a hint he’s actually going to become ‘relevant’ in the story, that we won’t be able to ignore him any longer, in fact, the next that happens is that Odagiri’s superior officer goes into a rage, his face getting red and his expression furious in an almost comical manner. This means he’s going to cause troubles, troubles Odagiri can’t avoid.

Meanwhile poor Odagiri is gazing at him in shock, which is a clear hint he acted out of instinct and not out of will to be disrespectful or to attack the other, the sick soldier lying limp in his arm, a clear hint that Odagiri was right, that poor guy couldn’t take anymore, they would have killed him if they had continued to force him to go on. In short the visual is all for supporting Odagiri’s side… as we hear his superior officer ordering to grab Odagiri because he ‘used violence against a superior officer (he gave him a slight push) and refused to obey (insane and cruel) orders’.

As the officer yells and waves his arm in emphasis, Odagiri evidently grasps the gravity of what he has done as he let his companion go and that one slumps on the ground, either unconscious or unable to support himself, while everyone else is standing still, watching the scene.

There’s to say the anime pulls out beautifully how really, the superior officer’s insistence for the soldier to obey order was asinine, the guy couldn’t move anymore, asking him to keep on going was really asking him to die for a training exercise, and how, despite this, for the Army, Odagiri’s tiny action of disobedience that was meant only to protect a companion and not to really hurt the officer, was so very grave that everyone is standing still around him in shock. The world had stopped around Odagiri because he had slightly pushed a superior officer.

A digression here. Well, two.

First. In this bit we could hear Odagiri talking. I’m not knowledgeable in Japanese but here, his manner of talking and his tone feels different from how he usually talk, he’s more similar to how Sakuma talked with Mutō. In short, he’s sounding like a soldier and therefore he changes his tone.

Second. The superior officer. Admire his design and the manner he moves. He’s ugly, shorter than Odagiri and since he’s wearing a coat this makes him seem even larger. He’s unimpressive and his reaction, which seems a huge overreaction, makes him almost ridicule. He seems a child throwing a tantrum. It’s clear he’s being unreasonable and making a fuss over nothing. This subtly increases the sympathy a viewer is meant to feel for Odagiri a lot. Fundamentally they constructed Odagiri’s superior officer so that we would feel like siding with Odagiri.

And now let’s go on.

The scene changes and the next with see is a construction likely made with wood. It’s not snowing any more but the roof is covered in snow and ice. Either it’s a jail or it just hosts a cell. Anyway, inside the cell, there’s poor Odagiri. They had taken away his coat and he’s wrapped in a cover, trembling, seated on the floor and curled up on himself, his face buried in his knees. He’s just trembling but, since we can’t see his face, we might even been lead to think he’s crying. He’s a miserable thing and I’m sorry for him.

Then, just outside the cell, a familiar cane held by a familiar white gloved hand appears. Yeah, this is Ep 12, and the anime by now know that we can recognize Yūki by his fake distinctive trait.

Yūki asks Odagiri if he’s the one called ‘untrainable’. Because yes, if you take sides with a poor companion against an insane superior officer all of sudden you’re untrainable even if you’ve managed to reach the grade of second lieutenant.

In reply Odagiri raises his head a tiny bit, enough to allow us to see his eye. We can see that no, he wasn’t crying and now he’s frowning hard at Yūki. Even though he has said nothing, it’s clear he doesn’t trust him.

Yūki asks him what he plans to do when he leaves the Army… because I take they’re kicking Odagiri out. Odagiri looks away… and the poor guy seems a little lost… and here I’ve to compliment the guys drawing the scene because we really see little of Odagiri yet they managed to give to that little we see ‘feelings’ it could transmit to us. Also, his cheeks seem a little sunken… did they fed Odagiri while they were holding him prisoner?

Odagiri comments that’s a good question and that he could move to Manchuria and become a roving bandit. From this answer we can guess how lost Odagiri is. Out of the Army he has no place to return if he’s considering to move to Manchuria to become a bandit.

The camera now shows, in reply to Odagiri’s answer, Yūki’s grinning mouth.

Note that we hadn’t seen his full face yet, but who cares, we know it’s him… yet at the same time, the fact his face was hidden to the view, is meant to give us another info. Odagiri doesn’t know this man. Yūki’s ‘lack of face’ is a hint that he’s unknown to Odagiri. Anyway at this Yūki smiles, moves closer and crouches down so as to speak close to Odagiri’s ear.

What Yūki tells him is basically an invitation to try to take his exam (of admission to his spy school).

A time break here. If the incident with the soldier happened in September 1936, there’s to remember D Agency was founded in Autumn 1937 (though its foundation was proposed in 1935). Sakuma joins D Agency in 1938, and watches the guys as they take their entrance exams as well as they trained there. So this should mean some time has gone by the incident and Odagiri’s meeting with Yūki… or Yūki is just preparing his moves knowing they’ll have to allow him to open D Agency. Who knows?

Now… Odagiri clearly had outstanding abilities as he managed to handle Yūki’s training (and the novel says he always graduates first place from his schools… which makes me think Sakuma should be older as they apparently don’t know each other yet Odagiri, being so good, should have been sort of noticeable if he were of his same age). Odagiri is also the one who decides to leave the school, it’s not Yūki that kicks him out. But what I wonder is ‘how did Yūki found him?’ Was he keeping an eye on the untrainable soldiers that were in the Army? To Odagiri in particular because he was pretty good at school? Does this mean that in the Joker Game universe it was Yūki who personally searched for candidates for his school? Did Miyoshi and the other meet Yūki and received the same proposition? Was Yūki searching for a certain type of people in particular? Were they all ‘broken’, rejected by their family, hence they’ve no problems to live completely disconnected by the others?

Anyway, at Yūki’s words, Odagiri looks at Yūki, really looks at him for the first time and we finally see Yūki’s face. Well, not the whole of it but enough of it to say we’re looking at Yūki’s face. Because yes, the visual is telling us now Odagiri is starting to be interested in Yūki and knowing him.

‘Kikan’ [機関 Agency] starts and we gets Odagiri telling us the same shortened version of Sakuma’s explanation of what D Agency is that he gave us in Ep 1. It’s worth to remember this summarized version is the version we hear at the beginning of each episode, each time said by a different spy.

Then this ends and we get…

…the opening. There’s not really anything to mention about it as it’s the same Opening we saw in the past. Odagiri is the third spy that appears in it and he’s walking with his hands in his pockets. Around the end of the opening we also see him removing the headphones he was wearing and that, were apparently, part of a machine to send messages.

Anyway the opening ends and we resume with ‘Joker Game’.

We start… with a scream. What we see (the first floor of a house) is clearly through the lenses of binoculars, a hint we’re watching things from the point of view of someone keeping under surveillance the place. The binoculars focuses on the woman who has just screamed and that was watching something inside an apartment through the open door before running away.

Next we see Odagiri removing the binoculars from his face with a surprised expression. Yes, he was the one keeping the place under surveillance. It’s interesting how the visual shows he was pecking from two curtains, another hint that no, he didn’t just happen to watch out with a binoculars, he was pecking at the house secretly.

The girl who had screamed meanwhile is calling for the police running through the street and under a house. As she passes in front of it, we can see that one is the house in which Odagiri was. Odagiri’s gaze focuses on her. He frowns then returns his attention on the house.

‘Suiri’ [推理 Reasoning] starts being played.

Note how, so far, we’ve seen Odagiri focusing on the girl. We could almost think she was his target when actually it was the guy inside the house. While Odagiri’s actions can seem normal, I’ve the feeling they’re a mistake for a spy as, in order to look at the girl, he’s not focusing on his target’s house.

The scene changes (though the musical background remains the same) and we’re in an apartment. There’s another girl sitting on the floor with an apparently shocked expression and there’s curious peeking from the door, near to which there’s a flower vase with, in it many camomile flowers, the ones Schneider bought.

We can’t see what they’re watching though we can guess something terrible has happened and this is good to keep the suspense but also because we, as viewers, more or less end up on having the same amount of info on the scene that Odagiri is having at the same time in which he’s having it. So, when Odagiri appears on the door as well and pecks inside, finally, we’re also allowed to see what’s happened inside. There’s a dead man lying on the floor and a note on the table. It’s in German but says ‘I’ve lost all hope. I want to die.’

We’re shown again the girl sitting there in shock, a subtle hint we should remember her, that she’s not like the other curious pecking at the door (also note how pretty is the glass behind her… I love Joker Game attention for details like this one)…

…then Odagiri’s surprised face. His voice comments that the target he was watching died, which makes his mission an inexcusable failure. As he thinks so we see again the inside of the room which includes Schneider’s corpse, the girl sitting there and the flower vase.

Note how strict Odagiri is with himself. If the guy committed suicide like the note says, there was little he could do to prevent it. Even if one of the girls had gotten in and… let’s say, then shoot him there would have been little he could have done. Yet he thinks this is an inexcusable failure.

The scene changes again (but we still have the same musical background) and we move back to D Agency. On the screen appears the writing 1939, Spring. Yes, we started this anime series with an episode placed in 1939, spring, and we end it going back to 1939, spring. It’s sort of coming to a full circle. Actually it will be a coming to full circle as we’ll discover at the end of the episode.

And now we’re shown a picture of the corpse, only in the photo he’s not a corpse yet. It’s a not so subtle way to tell us we’re going to talk about him now and yes, Odagiri’s voice starts to talk about the deceased. Also, the picture shows him clearly while he’s doing journalist work. Why this is smart?

Odagiri tells us he was a writer for Berlin Allgemeine. He doesn’t explain what Berline Allgemeine is, but since Schneider is apparently writing on a notepad info from an interview, other journalists around him making questions and taking picture we can easily figure this is not a… let’s say a cooking magazine.

And now we move from the photos (which Odagiri took) to Odagiri himself. It’s a nice visual choice, especially because we see Odagiri when Odagiri says Schneider was suspected of being a (double) spy… like Odagiri is a spy.

Odagiri now tells us what happened on the day in which Schneider died and his day seems normal enough only it’s actually all hints. Schneider brought flowers from a street vendor (and it’ll turn out the street vendor was actually one of Schneider’s spy contacts) and headed for the apartment of Nogami Yuriko, his lover and a theatre performer. And now we know who was the girl who ran away screaming. Odagiri tells us Schneider and Nogami met a year ago THROUGH A FRIEND OF NOGAMI (yes, the one who’ll kill Schneider out of jealousy).

Note that, as Odagiri speak, we see Schneider buying the flowers and Odagiri following him, then the man goes into Nogami’s house and Odagiri spies him from the opposite apartment.

It’s relevant to note how evidently Schneider spent a lot of time at Noriko’s since Odagiri took possession of an apartment in front of it. Well, Schneider isn’t just her boyfriend, he’s the one who even furnished Yuriko’s house so...

Odagiri goes on in his story and explain how Nogami was out that day but came back with her friend, Yasuhara Miyoko, after 3:00 PM as they had arranged to eat cake together. As he says so we see the two women walking closer and then entering in the apartment in a rush under Odagiri’s gaze, which, but maybe it’s just me, seems more focused on following Yuriko than Miyoko.

Let me digress a moment on Yuriko and Miyoko’s look. Note how Yuriko’s skirt is blue and Miyoko’s is red, how Yuriko’s jacket is clear and Miyoko is darker, how Yuriko has dark hair while Miyoko has clear one. They’re set up to be visually opposite. Remember how when discussing Ep 1 I mentioned how people found hard to distinguish the spies and how I commented this was a deliberate visual choice? Here we see how the anime was completely capable to make two relatively similar characters (women, with similar looking clothes) could actually stand out as different. We won’t mistake Yuriko for Miyoko and vice versa.

Next we see Schneider’s face. He looks clearly dead and this visually explains why the girls rushed in the apartment. Odagiri then comments that the police thinks Schneider’s death is a suicide. As Odagiri says so we’re shown the suicide note, which is a subtle way to explain us why would the police think so and then we see again the scene Odagiri should have seen when he went to see the inside of the apartment, Schneider lying on the ground, dead, and Yasuhawa Miyoko sitting on the floor, a subtle reminder she remained in the apartment alone with Schneider and could have altered the place. The vase with the flowers is also visible.

We’re back to D Agency the camera focusing on Odagiri and then moving away from him so as to include Yūki as well (and all the other boys seated at the table) as Yūki asks him if he thinks Schneider could have committed suicide because he figured out Odagiri was spying him and thought he had no chances to escape.

The camera continues to back walk from Odagiri as Odagiri shoots down this possibility, subtly including in the screen the other D Agency members, who’re seated at the same table at which Yūki is seated.

It’s a visual hint they’re going to start to be involved in the action as well. In fact they start with pointing out things. Miyoshi asks Odagiri to explain the suicide note (since Odagiri rejects the idea it’s a suicide) and Jitsui points out (for our benefit) to how the handwriting was Schneider himself. So Kaminaga asks him if Odagiri believed Schneider was killed by someone else and the note was forged. It might seems hard to believe for us (and has someone noticed this would be a closed room mystery?) but Odagiri’s reply helps us to put things into perspective so that Odagiri’s idea doesn’t seem dumb.

Schneider is a double spy, Germany or Russia could go after him. Actually we saw in Ep 6 how Russia killed people who were betraying them... and if we think that’s someone that powerful and possibly well trained, after 11 episodes seeing spies doing amazing things we can accept that yes, someone could have gotten in, killed Schneider and forge the note easily.

Hatano though reminds us of a detail. Odagiri, who’s also an amazing D Agency spy, was surveying the place. If a foreign spy/killer had tried to do all this, well, maybe he could have technically done it but then someone like Odagiri would have had noticed him trying to snuck in (or out).

A couple of words on how the scene is viewed. While the camera is over the D Agency students when they speak, it’s not so below to Odagiri (just barely) we can feel the anime is trying to remark a difference in moral position as it did in EP 1 with Sakuma and the D Agency members. The difference in placement is more because we’re meant to see things from Odagiri’s eyes, a bit like how, when we saw Miyoko and Yuriko, the visual was making sure to let us know that what we were seeing was the same Odagiri was saying through his binoculars.

So let’s go on. Yūki asks how Schneider died. There’s to note that, so far, even if Yūki has spoken, we never clearly saw his face. Even now, his question is made while the camera is showing us Odagiri’s face and, although when Odagiri will reply the camera will look in Yūki’s direction, the camera is high over all of them (Odagiri included) and Yūki is the farthest from it and looking down. We can’t really say we see his face. As for the visual… my feeling is that we get such shoot when Odagiri answers like that (Schneider died of asphyxiation from cyanide poisoning) because that’s a neutral info given by whoever did the autopsy that’s sort of looming over them.

On a sidenote… the big table around which the D Agency students are… is actually formed by four tables put together. I guess in the anime they’re still a bit short on budget so they can’t buy a big one.

And so now we finally see Yūki’s face. It’s his profile and not from Odagiri’s point of view and it’s on an even level. Yūki’s eyes are closed, a hint he’s deep in thinking. At this point Yūki makes the question that, to Yūki, basically answers to how Schneider died. Yūki asks Odagiri if he’s saying that, when Schneider died, he didn’t notice anything.

We’re shown Odagiri’s profile and, from the look on his face, we can see he feels as if this is a scolding. Remember how he felt his mission ended up with a failure?

In truth, Yūki likely isn’t so much interested in scolding him, just in making sure that’s the case. Yūki trained him so it should be technically not possible for Odagiri not to notice anything. If he hadn’t something had distracted him and Yūki knows the only thing that could have distracted him. Sadly, due to the many changes between the novel and the anime this point works on a different level compared to the novel, but it’s still worth something. Yūki, in this precise point, figured out how things went (in the novel he figured out only who was the culprit, but was missing some details, here he has them so he clearly figured out how things went).

Back to the story. After showing us Odagiri looking uncomfortable the anime shows us the other boys… or better only the lower half of their smiling faces. The eyes not only aren’t shown, but there are shadows that implies they’re also kept in the dark. We’re back to Odagiri’s perspective. The other spies are just faceless to him, people who’re making fun of his for his own inability. Though he held his ground during the discussion, the atmosphere is clearly oppressive to him and he feels nervous, inferior. They aren’t his friends, they’re there to judge him and make fun of him.

It’s a bit like how Sakuma saw all the spies smiling when he realized he would have to commit Harakiri because remember? This episode traces quite a bit of parallels with the ‘Joker Game’ episode.

Also something worth mentioning is how the room is filled with smoke. The three ashtrays are filled with cigarette butts, though we see only Miyoshi, Kaminaga and Fukumoto are smoking. Evidently the others had been doing the same previously. The room is as foggy as the kitchen was when Sakuma was playing the Joker Game.

Yet, I don’t think the others are there to really make fun of him and they hadn’t even figured out things like Yūki did as they don’t know about Nishiyama Chizuru and aren’t in Yūki’s league. Actually, later on, we’ll see they aren’t even there to make fun of Odagiri as some of them will try to find elements that can support Odagiri’s theory.

Meanwhile the camera is now high over everyone. We’re practically looking at them from a point high above them all. Enjoy the oppressive and still atmosphere as Odagiri doesn’t know what to say.

The music in the background stop abruptly and, while we see Odagiri’s eyes looking down, Amari starts speaking. He picks up a photo and asks if Schneider was fluent in English. The camera moves on the photo he’s looking, the one of the suicide note and we see that, on its corner, there is a really small sign.

The musical BGM is now ‘Seion’ [静穏 Quiet].

Tazaki wonders, like we could do, if it’s just from testing the pen.

Amari agrees it could be that but we get a close up of that small sign and so we can see that, as Amari will say later, that small sign looks like two X, side by side… which might not tell much to us and, especially to Japanese viewers but Fukumoto comes to everyone’s aid by pointing out that in English double-cross means to betray so it can be that Schneider betrayed someone or was betrayed by someone.

As Fukumoto says Schneider might have been the one who betrayed someone the camera goes on Yūki. Maybe this is a hint that Yūki figured out that Schneider dumped Miyoko in favour of Yuriko and this pushed Miyoko to kill him. Maybe not. The novel and the D no Maou manga can’t help us to figure out things as, in them, the solution to the case is pretty different so do your pick.

Amari asks Yūki what does he think in this regard.

Yūki finally opens his eyes, which is a hint he has finished thinking and has taken a decision and starts issuing orders. They’ll let the matter slide and prioritize taking control of Schneider spy network. He then assigns jobs to all the boys. As soon as he issues an order, the boy mentioned stands up and walk away to fulfil his mission. As the boys leave they pass next to Odagiri. They’re smiling.

To Odagiri, as he stand there, frowning, their smiles likely feels like malicious smiles of someone who wants to make fun of him but I’m not so sure that’s what behind Fukumoto or Amari’s smiles. After all they offered a possibility for Odagiri’s idea that Schneider was killed by someone else to be true, didn’t they?

To be honest though the audio and the visual are a little off as Fukumoto has already left when Yūki made his name… ^_^;; I wonder if this got fixed in the dvd release…

Anyway Odagiri ends up remaining alone with Yūki. The camera is showing him from a side. We can see that now his head is lowered, is gaze is downcast and he’s sweating slightly as he asks Yūki want he wants him to do.

Likely his frowning face was a mask, a way to hide his true feelings from the others. Odagiri is uncomfortable and clearly feels like he failed. He tried to be tough when the others were there but now… we can see he’s not so tough. He even hesitates slightly when speaking to Yūki…

Yūki is also shown by his profile. Him and Odagiri are sort of in opposition, though it’s not like we’re one against the other. It’s just they’re in opposite places, the spymaster and the spy under him who has failed to accomplish his job.

Yūki is shown with his eyes closed. This sort of hint he’s thinking. Since Yūki evidently came to a conclusion on what had happened he’s likely not thinking at the case, but more at what to do with Odagiri, how to shape the order he’ll give to him. We see him opening his eyes and, as the BG music ends, the camera shows us a close up of his face. It’s the sort of scene that tells us Yūki is in control here, that he’s the supreme boss. He tells Odagiri to investigate the woman that was at the scene. Note that he doesn’t make the name of the woman that was at the scene and that actually there were TWO women at the scene. Odagiri is surprised and starts with saying ‘but she…’.

We won’t know what will happen afterward as the scene will switch, but it’s clear that when Odagiri started speaking he had already decided to which one of the two Yūki was referring. Let’s note that Odagiri knew it was Miyoko who introduced Schneider to Yuriko so BOTH women had a connection with him, even if us, viewers, don’t know yet. It’ll turn out though, that Odagiri immediately assumed Yūki was talking about Yuriko.

While this could be due to the many changes between novel and anime, let’s pretend it’s planned. Overall this would mean that Odagiri instinctively defended Yuriko. Yūki’s sentence was meant to be ambiguous on purpose. Yūki figured the culprit is Miyoko but Odagiri is so focused on Yuriko he only worries about her. It would be a nice psychological touch. But well, as I said, the scene switched before Odagiri had the chance to end his ‘but she…’ sentence, so let’s see what happens afterward.

‘Tōryaku’ [韜略 River] starts being played.

Night or very late in the evening. While the camera shows us the Shinjuku Akakaze theatre, we can hear Odagiri’s thoughts and they tell us that Yuriko has an airtight alibi. It’s now that us, viewers, learn he was thinking about Yuriko. It doesn’t come as a big surprise to us as, while it was possible to assume that Miyoko was the friend that introduced Yuriko to Schneider, at the moment we’ve no idea about this so Miyoko feels unconnected to the case… even if actually, if we are to accept that Schneider was killed by a killer or another spy, we should suspect of her all the same.

Anyway, Yuriko was busy with a dress rehearsal when Schneider supposedly died and was never off stage for more than five minutes. As we hear this we see that Yuriko is at the theatre, acting. The BGM is the one of the theatrical piece, a violin playing a sad melody.

Her role is fundamentally a sad one. She’s a flower girl, the man she loves buy flowers from her to hand them off to another girl. He tells this other girl that, although he has to leave and might not come back, he’d like for her to wait for him and the girl, which is impersonated by Miyoko, says she will.

As they embrace Yuriko tells that she loved that man so much she is okay with him to be happy with the other girl and that she is willing to disappear from his life even if her life will be one of darkness and solitude as this will be a proof she lived. She says so smiling.

The story of the theatrical piece might seem irrelevant right now, just a sappy love story, same as Yuriko delivering her lines with a smile. We’ll learn of its importance later on.

Anyway the play ends and the scene switches.

We’re in what is a dressing room, which is filled with flowers of various types (this episode definitely has a flowers theme), and everyone in it is focused on Miyoko, praising her.

Miyoko thanks for the praises but claims Yuriko was the real star in spite of what happened. The visual shows us that Miyoko turns on a place that was likely Yuriko’s spot, only it’s empty and there are only the clothes Yuriko wore during the representation, a sign Yuriko has already left.

While one might assume from this that Yuriko has gotten over Schneider’s death, as Miyoko speak we see that Yuriko is actually standing in front of the signboard of the play with a sad expression on her face and a troupe member, who’s likely talking with Miyoko, wonders if Yuriko is all right.

‘Yōkō’ [陽光 Sunshine]starts being played, though at the beginning one might think this title isn’t really fitting…

The visual shows Yuriko’s sad face reflected on the signboard and, on the corner of the signboard that’s visible the tiny draw that represent the character Yuriko acts in the play. The connection between the two starts to get more obvious. Now that Yuriko has lost Schneider (even if not to another woman) now a life of darkness and solitude awaits her as well.

She leaves, her head lowered, and we can see Odagiri looking at her from behind a corner. Hum… okay, they might exchange him for a fanboy so it could still not be overly relevant but really, it’s quite obvious how Odagiri was staring at her here. That’s not good for a spy, Odagiri…

Odagiri’s expression is sad, as if he was sharing Yuriko’s pain.

The scene switches to show us a flower field and two figures walking through it, a woman and a child, holding each other hand.

We can’t see the woman’s face, a hint that so far she’s a stranger to us…

…but the child smiles adorably at the woman and then the two walk away. It’s here that the BGM title seems fitting. Also, the whole scene is honestly beautiful, one of the best of the episode.

As the two figures are about to disappear, a voice says ‘excuse me, sir’.

We comes back to the present to see that Odagiri is startled. The voice was speaking to him and now it’s clear what we saw before was his memory and he was the cute child. That person asks Odagiri if is anything the matter. Really, Odagiri isn’t acting at the best of his abilities as he let himself be caught on staring at Yuriko by someone who was behind him and that he didn’t even realize coming closer.

This is a HUGE hint that Odagiri might have missed clues on what happened to Schneider because too focused on Yuriko to take notice of everything else.

Anyway the person speaking to him is someone who works at the theatre and he’s carrying flowers that admirers sent to Yasuhara Miyoko. Actually, apparently all the flowers placed there (there are a lot and of many types) are for Miyoko so Odagiri hurries to assure he’s all right and quickly switches the topic claiming, while starting at them, smiling, that Yasuhara-san is quite popular.

The guy thanks him and claims that Miyoko got better and better until she became their marquee actress. Odagiri asks him if the flowers he’s carrying are for Miyoko too and bends down to sniff at them, claiming they’ve a calming scent.

The man confirms, stating they’re Miyoko’s favourite flower. He then adds that the flowers, after a while, are handed off to a nearby florist.

Note that Odagiri sniffed the camomile but those weren’t the only flowers the man was holding, there were also roses and other types of flowers… all for Miyoko.

All this discussion seems pointless and just Odagiri’s way to distract the other from how he was staring at Miyoko… but it’s actually all something we’ve to keep in mind as it’ll turn useful later on.

Odagiri leaves the Shinjuku Akakaze theatre while ‘Seion’ [静穏 Quiet] starts again being played in the background and we see him walking through the streets. When he stops to a crossroad someone that was seated there starts on speaking to him before walking away. It’s Hatano that reports him on his finding in regard to the suicide note, which he investigated as Yūki asked him. He’ll cross other D Agency members, who all will make their report to him in a similar manner (speaking as they cross him then walking away). We see that Odagiri grows uncomfortable at this.

In the end, when Miyoshi reports that nothing unusual is going on at the German and Soviet embassies but someone new might have taken over Schneider’s spy network, Odagiri snaps.

The BGM pauses as Odagiri grabs Miyoshi’s shoulder and forces him to turn, angrily asking him why he’s reporting to him.

It’s like he’s feeling mocked by their actions. Miyoshi is clearly surprised by his action, a hint that this was not the case and that he doesn’t even get why Odagiri is asking him that.

Then, he frowns and angrily pushes away Odagiri’s hand…

…informs/reminds him that this is HIS case…

…surprising Odagiri as he evidently hadn’t realized this is (still) his case.

As ‘Seion’ [静穏 Quiet] resumes on being played Miyoshi walks away, leaving a surprised Odagiri standing there thinking ‘my… case?’.

It’s either morning or afternoon and ‘Yōkō’ [陽光 Sunshine] is playing in the background. The florist is taking away the flowers from the theatre. Let’s give this guy’s back a good look. Isn’t he dressed in the same way as the florist from which Schneider bought flowers in Odagiri’s memories?

Anyway, attentive viewers might have noticed there was a car parked at a short distance, half hidden by a building, and that the car started moving when the florist left, a hint that the car was going to tail the florist.

Although we’re back on evening/night and to the Shinjuku Akikaze Theatre ‘Yōkō’ [陽光 Sunshine] continues being played.

We move to the dressing room and to Yoriko, already in her acting clothes, staring sadly at a photo of Schneider and herself together before being told she should get ready to go on.

We’re again in the theatre and they’re again playing the same scene we saw previously. At first it can seem an annoyance to see the same scene being replayed but then, as Yoriko is making her monologue, she stops talking, her mouth open and trembling as if she were finding hard to say what she had to say.

The visual shows us that the viewers are surprised and that Miyoko slightly opens her eyes. It’s a hint that something is wrong, that things aren’t going as planned. We see that a tear trails down on Yoriko’s cheeks and then she falls on her knees, weeping. She manages to finally say her line but we know that previously she saw them smiling so we know that her tears aren’t an act. She spontaneously couldn’t help but start crying.

The viewers don’t realize it as her tears too can fit the mood of the scene and start clapping.

A door open and someone is leaving the stall. It’s Odagiri, who’s walking alone toward the exit. He pauses as Miyoshi’s voice comments that Yuriko wasn’t the murderer in Schneider’s case.

We see that Miyoshi was behind him, leaning on a wall. It’s hard to say if Odagiri deliberately pretended not to notice his presence of if Miyoshi managed to surprise him because Odagiri was still distracted by Yuriko.

Anyway Odagiri agrees with Miyoshi claiming no actor could fake such tears. Then he turns to Miyoshi and demands to hear his report on what he found about Schneider’s accomplices. Odagiri is calm and in control here, quite a difference from his last meeting with Miyoshi.

Smiling Miyoshi tells him it was exactly as Odagiri thought.

Evidently he isn’t angry that Odagiri was right in his theory making even though when Odagiri reported to D Agency he questioned his suggestion and, later, he got angry when Odagiri asked him why Miyoshi was reporting to him.

But let’s go back to the story. As ‘ Yogiri’ [夜霧 Night fog] starts playing, Miyoshi explains he tailed the florist… so he was the one on the car which moved after he left the theatre. The guy stopped at what looked like a florist shop but was actually a secret post for Soviet spies to exchange intelligence. Miyoshi says they communicated in code using a specific flower. A flashback shows us it’s the flower Schneider bought before dying, the chamomile.

The flashback also confirm that the florist who took away the flowers from the theatre was the same that sold the flowers to Schneider.

Miyoshi goes on claiming two spies made contact with Schneider, one was the florist, the other was…

Odagiri ends the sentence for him, claiming it was Nogami Yuriko’s friend, Miyoko.

Miyoshi asks him what tipped him off and Odagiri turns away from him as he claims it was simple. He just connected the scent of flowers that was in Nogami’s apartment just after the murder with the one of the flowers delivered to Yasuhara Miyoko.

Now… allow me a little digression here. This connection is… a little cringe worthy. I mean… Miyoko had a lot of flowers delivered to her, not just chamomile. Chamomile was only the one Odagiri happened to sniff and her fave flower but she’s receiving so many different flowers that at this point the connection becomes a little too loose. Whatever flower could ‘draw a connection’, not specifically chamomile. At this point Odagiri could have said she was the only one connected to flowers… only not really because the guy at the theatre was connected to flowers too as he moved around Miyoko’s flowers.

There’s to say thought that, due to the many changes done by the anime, this part is a complete original scene (in the novel the culprit is Yuriko and there’s not flower connection or Russian spies involvement in Schneider’s death) so it’s possible that the problem is simply that the anime authors weren’t as good as Yanagi Koji at mystery writing and ended up making a choice that doesn’t work as well as his own. Who knows.

Odagiri goes on claiming that Schneider planned to become a triple spy, and hand info to the British so the Soviets decided to assassinate him making it look like a suicide. Odagiri is smiling as he says so, evidently liking this solution.

Odagiri explains that in order to make it looks like a suicide they needed Miyoko to be on the crime scene and have some time alone there. This bit too is a bit shaky.

According to Odagiri’s theory, after seeing Schneider dead Yuriko rushed off in panic to the police station… but this wasn’t something Miyoko could actually anticipate. Yuriko could have been so shocked she wouldn’t be able to walk away, falling sit like Miyoko pretended to do. Or, as the novel remarked, could have decided to use the phone to call the police a phone that is well visible in the anime and couldn’t be removed because it needed to play a part in the anime plot as well.

Anyway, according to Odagiri, Miyoko used her time alone to place the suicide note on the table and added the double cross as a message to the English-speaking side (as if to say that Schneider was killed for attempting to betray the Soviets for England).

Miyoshi, still smiling, asks how she got the note as she surely couldn’t have him write it.

While all this is for our benefit, so as to explain things to us and let us see Miyoshi as he was killed off in the previous episode and we were all mourning him, it feels a bit weird Miyoshi hadn’t figured out. We’ve otherwise to assume he figured out but, for his own reasons, Miyoshi wanted Odagiri to voice it out. Note also how they’re talking in a public place and, since the play has just finished, people should actually get out now… unless a lot of time has passed and Odagiri was the last to leave after everyone has left? Still, people working in the theatre could and should be around. They could be overheard easily. In short although I’m happy this extra scene let me see Miyoshi again… well, it’s not really well planned.

Back to the plot. Odagiri claims it was a hint for the next code they would use… which again is shaky as writing down such code would be risky for Schneider… and, as a spy, he should be capable to remember it without writing it down. Really, for this to work we’ve to assume Schneider sucks as a spy.

Anyway the logic is that Miyoko knew Schneider would be in that apartment (let’s assume they agreed to this previously), called him and told him that what was written on the note is what she would tell him at their next meeting… and that Schneider felt compelled to write it down. Then, Schneider would decide he’ll have a glass of wine… which we’ve to assume Miyoko or someone else managed to poison… and here too the logic is shaky again because Miyoko couldn’t be sure Schneider would drink wine after talking with her at the phone, unless it was a habit of his but we’re never told about this.

Anyway the explanation ends here.

We’re back on D Agency.

We see Odagiri’s profile as he’s standing in Yūki’s office, likely staring at Yūki as the man says he was informed Yasuhara Miyoko confessed murdering Schneider and that the police thanks them, which is quite a rare occurrence. Odagiri seems… just there, as if his thoughts are actually distant. He doesn’t look firm or determinate. He’s… maybe sort of sad, tired, an inner sort of tired, lost in his own thoughts. It’s like he’s looking at Yūki but not really seeing him.

Yūki then asks if Nogami Yuriko resembles Nishiyama Chizuru.

As Yūki says so, we’ve a close up of Odagiri’s eyes. His gaze, that seemed unfocused and emotionless, changes abruptly as his eyes widens in surprise…

…and then he lowers them sadly as ‘Hifū’ [悲風 Sorrowful wind] starts being played in the background.

Odagiri remembers that, when ordered to monitor Schneider and Odagiri first laid his eyes on Yuriko he couldn’t believe how much she resembled Chizuru. As he thinks so we see a flashback. Odagiri is outside a house, peeking in it from behind a tree through the window. Odagiri must have good eyesight as he doesn’t seem close enough to see the people inside well.

Anyway, Odagiri sees Yuriko seated on a couch and Schneider coming close to her and kissing her. At this Odagiri’s eyes widen. It’s actually the surprise because that woman reminds him of Chizuru but, since he notices this only when Schneider kisses her it feels as if he was affected by the kiss.

Another flashback starts, one with little Odagiri who’s busy drawing or writing something. As we see him doing so we hear Odagiri admitting he never knew his parents’ faces, that he was left with his paternal grandparents but they were so old they couldn’t be expected to care for a child. As he says so we see the grandparents, who’re actually glaring at little Odagiri.

They don’t look like grandparents who would have a hard time looking after a quiet child like Odagiri seemed to be but as grandparents who do not want that child around… which is exactly how they were in the novel. I wonder if their expression is due to some change in the original script for the anime scene.

Odagiri claims due to this it fell on the young daughter of a nearby family to raise him. That girl was Nishiyama Chizuru, the girl we saw walking with him in the previous flashback. She calls little Odagiri ‘Hiro-chan’ and, as soon as little Odagiri sees her, his face lights up. Her face is finally shown and we see she has a striking resemblance to Yoriko.

For Odagiri she was the only one person in the world who accepted him… which hints that the rift between him and his grandparents was a little bigger than them just finding hard to raise a child.

As we go back to the previous flashback of Chizuru and Odagiri walking together, Yūki comments that Chizuru practically raised Odagiri, then eloped with a man who abandoned her and she never returned to her hometown but died of tuberculosis.

Yūki goes on and says that when Schneider died Odagiri said he didn’t notice anything wrong. At this Odagiri raises his head and looks outside the window, to the sky. His expression is… I don’t know, a little dead on the inside, as if he’s longing for something he can’t have, as if he were a trapped man.

Yūki goes on claiming the only thing that could distract a man trained by D Agency is Chizuru’s ghost so it was a simple deduction.

Odagiri agrees as he claims that he was so focused on Yuriko he didn’t notice the other woman in the equation, Miyoko. We go back to the flashback in which Yuriko and Schneider kiss. The camera moves away from them and we see, among the many people there, there’s also Miyoko, frowning angrily at them.

Yūki then asks Odagiri if he won’t reconsider. The camera shows us Odagiri’s resignation from D Agency.

Yūki’s sentence in a way it implies Yūki knows Odagiri won’t reconsider but still he’s offering him the possibility to change his mind. Odagiri merely nods to confirm his decision. At this Yūki asks him if he knows why they don’t accept women and explains that’s because women kills when it’s not necessary.

This too is shaky in this setting (and misogynist as hell as there’s plenty of men who kill for reasons similar to Miyoko or worse and therefore unnecessary… Wind Agency anyone? Oikawa anyone? Yoshino anyone? SMERSH killer anyone? but well, that was a misogynist time…) as Schneider’s death was decided by the Soviets. It might work if Miyoko wasn’t a spy previously and decided to become one only to kill Schneider, like Synthia Grane did (she became a spy… or better an assassin, to kill the man who caused her husband��s death even if this meant betraying her country and risking of losing her child)… but we’re actually told Miyoko WAS a spy working for the Soviets, which decided on Schneider’s death so it’s not like she killed unnecessarily… she obeyed to an order, like Gamo would have done in Ep 9 when he tried to kill Jitsui. The fact that she also found pleasure in that order because Schneider dumped her for her friend is secondary. She would have to kill him just the same.

This sentence would have worked better in the novel (no idea if it’s in it) where Yoriko is the murderer and she killed Schneider because he betrayed her with her friend when she had no problems accepting his other lovers. In that case it was no order that moved her, nor job, just personal feelings.

Odagiri reasons that being completely unencumbered requires not believing in anything else in the world and abandon trivial things like love and hate, betraying what’s in your hearts that supports you and casting it aside and this is something he can’t do as no matter how hard he tries, he can’t rid himself of Chizuru’s memory… or better, if he were to abandon it, he would no longer be sure of his reason for living.

He remembers the other D Agency students and Yūki as they were seated on the table discussing Schneider’s case and admits that in the end he couldn’t become a ‘monster’ like them.

‘ Yōkō’ [陽光 Sunshine] starts playing again and we see that the signboard at the Shinjuku Akakaze theatre is being covered with a writing that says they’ll reopen soon with a new cast. The guy doing this is the same that was carrying Miyoko’s flowers around. Odagiri appears behind him, holding a suitcase in his hand and asks him if Yuriko will not perform any longer.

The guy recognizes Odagiri and then inform him Yuriko quit because after losing her boyfriend and having her friend arrested… well it was a little too much to bear. Odagiri is surprised then lowers his head sadly as he says he understands but then the guys goes on, surprising him when he says they won’t see Yuriko perform again in Japan. Odagiri can’t help but ask where is she going with quite a bit of interest. Turns out Yuriko is going to Manchuria, which surprises Odagiri greatly.

Flashback back to when Odagiri was in Yūki’s office. Yūki tosses an envelope on the table (Yūki’s table too is scratched, I’ve to admit I love those little details in Joker Game)

…and claims that’s Odagiri’s dismissal. Odagiri bows slightly (nowhere as deep as Sakuma did as that’s not a ‘saluting’ bow) and Yūki tells him he’s assigned to be a First Lieutenant (he got promoted as previously he was a Second Lieutenant) in Kwantung, Manchuria. Yes, the same place in which Yuriko went. In short it’s not like Odagiri is free to go now, he still belong to the Army, just not anymore to D Agency… but apparently Yūki at least had him assigned to where Yuriko went.

Odagiri takes the letter and moves to walk away, and maybe it’s just me but now he’s walking like a soldier.

Yūki calls him ‘First Lieutenant Tobisaki Hiroyuki’ making him stop and turn in surprise…

…then Yūki basically orders him ‘Don’t die.’ The scene loses a bit of its importance as while it’s copied from the novel, in the novel Odagiri was assigned to the first line because the Army deliberately used this method to kill off the ones that left D Agency as they knew too much… so Yūki saying so was much more meaningful since Odagiri in the novel faced a concrete risk to die… while here he’s not put in such a dangerous situation… at least at the moment (fights in Manchuria will start in May and this episode is placed in April), so it seems he’s just reminding him part of D Agency’s motto.

Odagiri turns to him, stands at attention and then bows in what is the Japanese military salute, a sign he still took Yūki’s words like an order.

Yūki asks him if he’s stupid and then asks him who bows while wearing a suit. I take it as a hint he still views Odagiri as one of his men, of his spies, even if he’ll be assigned somewhere else.

Of course, for us viewers, the story of Joker Game came to a full circle. Those words were the first that Yūki said in Ep 1 to Sakuma, who just came to D Agency from the Army, and now they become the last Yūki will say to Odagiri, who’s just leaving D Agency for the Army. They’re an anime addition but they make sense in the anime contest as give it a good sense of closure.

And with this scene ends ‘Joker Game’ Ep 12 and the whole ‘Joker Game’ anime series… which I truly hope will be continued anytime soon.

Ending theme.

Overall, while Odagiri’s episode is a good episode… well, I think the changes to the plot didn’t really help the mystery story in it. I still enjoyed the many parallels with Ep 1-2 and the whole idea of coming to a full circle but maybe this episode too would have worked better if they had turned it into a two parts story. But well, I guess it couldn’t be helped. What I seriously mourn in this episode is the absence of Sakuma. This episode takes place short after his own… and in his own it wasn’t said that Sakuma would be assigned elsewhere, so it feels weird to have him completely cut out. Sure, Sakuma wasn’t in this episode in the novel, but with the many changes the plot of the novel underwent adding Sakuma in the background, maybe just standing there during the boys’ reunion or being the one who hands to Yūki the letter that says where Odagiri would be reassigned… or just being there in the study, wouldn’t have changed things drastically. Instead the anime merely had Sakuma go just ‘POF’ and didn’t even include him in the OAV, even if his voice actor is willing to work in Joker Game some more (in the OAV he dubs the cat, Yoru) and Sakuma is sort of an iconic figure in the series as he gets included in all the drama cds (excluding the first as that one focuses on Hatano only) differently from Gamo who’s not part of the drama cd.

So… well, I’m sad he just disappeared without an explanation.

On the opposite side, I’ve to say the anime was a lot nicer with Odagiri than the novel so at least I’m glad for him.

I’m also glad they give Miyoshi a role as our poor Miyoshi didn’t really get to do much in what was supposed to be his episode… and well, it sort of helped us to mourn him, showing his still alive. Sure, we know that this episode is chronologically placed prior to his death but well… it’s still nice to think that ‘Joker Game’ ended with Miyoshi still alive.

And this was Joker Game Ep 12. Thank you to everyone who was brave and patient enough to sit through my long, long ramblings for the whole episode. I hope other people will feel like sharing what they had observed while watching it!

[jgfiles]

Odagiri/Tobisaki Hiroyuki’s character profile: Part 1 (Joker Game Universe)

Odagiri/Tobisaki Hiroyuki’s character profile: Part 1 (Joker Game Universe)

(Very tentative version as no translation for 'XX Double Cross' novel or D no Maō version had been released)

Spy Surname: Odagiri - 小田切（おだぎり） Spy Name: Unknown Real name: Tobisaki Hiroyuki - 飛崎 弘行（とびさき ひろゆき） (Only according to the Anime) Rank: Army Second Lieutenant (陸軍少尉 - Rikugun-Shōi) [prior to joining D Agency], Army First Lieutenant (陸軍中尉 - Rikugun-Chūi) [After leaving it] Role at D Agency: Spy (スパイ - Spy) Direct superior officer: Lieutenant Colonel Yūki (結城中佐 - Yūki-Chūsa) Affiliation: D Agency (Ｄ機関 - D Kikan) Height: Unknown (172 cm according to the Anime) Age: Unknown Impersonates: Military Police Superior Private (上等兵- Kenpei Jōtōhei), Geisha (芸者- Geisha) (According to D no Maō), Tobisaki Hiroyuki (飛崎 弘行) (According to the Novel and D no Maō) Appearances: Novel: Vol. 1 Chapter 1 “Joker Game” (ジョーカー・ゲーム - Joker Game) [mentioned], Vol. 1 Chapter 5 “XX Double Cross” (XX ダブル・クロス - XX Double Cross) [as the spy Tobisaki Hiroyuki] D no Maō manga: Vol. 3 chap 4-6 XX Double Cross” (XX ダブル・クロス - XX Double Cross) [as the spy Tobisaki Hiroyuki] Anime: Ep 1-2 “Joker Game” (ジョーカー・ゲーム - Joker Game), EP 12 “XX Double Cross” (XX ダブル・クロス - XX Double Cross), OAV “Adventure of Black Cat Yoru” (黒猫ヨルの冒険 - Kuroneko Yoru no Bōken) Joker Game The Animation Manga: Chap 1, 2, 3 “Joker Game” (ジョーカー・ゲーム - Joker Game), 5 “Miscalculation” (誤算 - Gosan), 10 “Asia Express” (アジア・エクスプレス - Asia Express) Drama cd: “Joker Game” Drama CD Metropolitan Police Department D Section Investigation Files (「ジョーカー・ゲーム」ドラマCD 警視庁D課捜査ファイル - “Joker Game” Drama CD Keishichō D-ka sōsa files), “Joker Game” Drama CD Go For It! Year 2 Class D Sakuma Sensei (「ジョーカー・ゲーム」ドラマCD それいけ！2年D組佐久間先生 - “Joker Game” Drama CD Sore ike! 2-Nen D-gumi Sakuma sensei ) Live Action Movie: Joker Game Voice Actor: Hosoya Yoshimasa - 細谷 佳正（ほそや よしまさ） Live Action Movie actor: Yamamoto Hiroshi - 山本浩司（やまもと ひろし） Stage project actor: Abe Kaisei - 阿部快征（あべ かいせい）

Brief introduction

In the novel Odagiri is mentioned merely as one of the twelve (twelve, not eight as in the anime) D Agency students belonging to the first batch of trainees, and he probably took part to the search in Gordon’s house (though we’ve no confirmation about this). The D no Maō manga doesn’t mention him at all.

The anime though (and, as a consequence of this, the ‘Joker Game The Animation’ Manga) decided that Odagiri is also the spy who appears in the novel chapter ‘XX Double Cross’ (also transposed in the D no Maō manga) giving him his backstory, through slightly altered.

So, while in the novel Odagiri and Tobisaki Hiroyuki likely weren’t planned to be one and the same (and Tobisaki Hiroyuki is just the identity a D Agency spy takes during his mission) and the D no Maō manga makes clear the spy taking the alias of Tobisaki Hiroyuki couldn’t be involved in ‘Joker Game’ by placing his recruitment chronologically after ‘Joker Game’, in the anime they’re one and the same and Tobisaki Hiroyuki is Odagiri’s true name.

So, according to the Anime, Tobisaki Hiroyuki’s parents died, his grandparents didn’t really want to take care of him and first entrusts him to Nishiyama Chizuru, then inscribes him to the Military school. However when a soldier falls ill and Tobisaki’s superior officer still insisted he should keep on training, Tobisaki (who was a second lieutenant back then) argues with the officer and hits him. This causes him to be put under military trial. That’s when he meets Yūki who invites him to join D Agency.

Tobisaki agrees, passes the selection and takes the name of Odagiri. He takes part to the investigation of Gordon’s house, then, later, he is tasked with the duty to keep Karl Schneider under surveillance in what will become his graduation case. In fact Schneider dies but Odagiri continues to investigate and discovers who murdered him (Yasuhara Miyoko in the anime, Nogami Yuriko in the novel and in the D no Maō manga).

Odagiri realizes his judgement had been compromised because Nogami Yuriko reminded him of Nishiyama Chizuru and understood he couldn’t become a D Agency spy because he couldn’t completely detach himself from others. He therefore asked to quit D Agency and was reassigned by the Army with the grade of First Lieutenant (in Kwantung in Machuria in the anime, in north China in the novel and in the D no Maō manga).

In the Live Action Movie, which is only inspired to the novels, Odagiri is a spy tasked with supporting a spy named Katō in retrieving the Black Note by providing him equipment. He seems to die in an explosion but it turns out he survived and merely faked his death as he will meet up again with Katō. His spy tools though are stolen by a female spy named Rin. Later he will be assigned for a mission in Germany.

Personality

In D no Maō, Tobisaki cared for his Army companions to the point he attacked his superior officer to protect one of them and didn’t seem to get along well with the other spies. He’s also more prone to tears than his anime version.

According to the Anime, Odagiri still cared for his Army companions to the point he attacked his superior officer to protect one of them, though he only pushed away the man while in D no Maō he punched him. Anime Odagiri is silent and hardly smiles. Although he goes out with the others and take parts to their same activities and Fukumoto gets along well with him, Odagiri feels as if there was a wall between him and them.

Odagiri can still be considerate. After seeing that Sakuma didn’t realize he’d been tricked when playing poker he told him the truth and he also seemed to care for Yoru, who obeyed and trusted him and to whom he smiled.

He holds dear the memory of Nishiyama Chizuru, who raised him, to the point that when he sees Nogami Yuriko and realizes she resembles her, he loses his objectivity and his concentration. This helps him to realize he can’t cut tie with this memory.

Odagiri is strict with himself. When he realizes Schneider, his target, died, he labels the mission as an INEXCUSABLE failure, as if there was something he could have done to prevent it.

In the Live Action Movie Odagiri is shown always in a good mood and likes to make fun of the spy going by the name of Katō (whose back story is ironically based on the one of novel Tobisaki Hiroyuki) because he comes from the Army while Odagiri, as everyone else in D Agency, is a civilian.

Physical appearance

We can’t see how Odagiri looks in D no Maō, though we can see how the spy who goes under the alias of Tobisaki Hiroyuki looks like. He’s tall, slender, handsome and has a mole under his left eye.

In the Anime Shirō Miwa decided his character design would be quadrangle-like in attempt to bring out a seriousness that was different from Sakuma and to make him look like he doesn’t know how to swim with the tide. He’s therefore less slender and with broader shoulders compared to D no Maō, he has no mole and his face isn’t oval but more ‘quadrangle like.

In both version he has black hair, though they’re longer in D no Maō and cover his right eye while in the anime both his eyes and his forehead are clearly visible.

During his time as second lieutenant in the Army he wore an uniform, in D no Maō a Type 98 while in the anime it’s a Type 5. Since in the Anime we see him acting in cold weather though, we see that his uniform is covered by an Army coat.

After joining D Agency he starts to wear a suit. In D no Maō it’s a two piece suits, in the Anime it’s a three piece suit.

In D no Maō he also disguises himself as a geisha, wearing their typical kimono and wig while, when keeping Schneider under surveillance, he wore typical Japanese clothes.

After he left D Agency he returned wearing a Military uniform, a Type 98, with the ranking of First Lieutenant.

In the Live Action Movie Odagiri almost always wears glasses, he’s shorter than Katō and smokes.

In the Stage Project he still seems to wear a three piece suit, only much clearer compared to the one he has in the anime.

Relationships

Mutō

The two never interacted but we know that Mutō finds D Agency a thorn to his side and sent Sakuma there in the hope one of Yūki’s students would make a mistake that would allow him to close the place.

Yūki

In the novel and in the D no Maō manga we don’t see Yūki and Odagiri interact, just Yūki and the spy who took the name of Tobisaki.

In the anime Yūki is the one who seek out Odagiri and invited him to try and see if he could pass his exam to be admitted as a D Agency student. He also hands him the Schneider case and, after Schneider’s death, he’ll instruct him to investigate on the woman on the crime scene (in the novel and in D no D no Maō this happens to the spy who takes the name of Tobisaki Hiroyuki). In the Anime when Odagiri will resign Yūki will tell him he’s reassigned in Kwantung in Machuria (in north China in the novel and in the D no Maō manga). Odagiri will bow to him and he’ll be told not to bow while wearing a suit.

In the Live Action Movie Yūki, supported by Kaminaga, gives him the task to cooperate with Katō and Jitsui to retrieve the Black Note.

Sakuma

Sakuma’s interaction with Odagiri is extremely small.

In Novel Odagiri is merely listed as one of the D Agency students while Sakuma is being the liaison but we don’t know if they ever interacted. He’s never mentioned in D no Maō.

In the Anime, during the Joker Game, Odagiri is the one who peeks at Sakuma’s cards and give signs to everyone, but he’s also the one who confesses this, revealing to Sakuma how the other had defeated him at poker. When the others laugh at Sakuma Odagiri doesn’t.

Odagiri’s smile, if so can be called, was also the weakest among the spies when it looked like they couldn’t find the cipher and Sakuma would have to commit Harakiri.

In a strip from Miwa Shirō we see that, after deciding to leave D Agency, Odagiri and Sakuma went to drink together and discussed what Yūki told Odagiri when Odagiri was about to leave (who salutes while wearing a business suit?). During this moment Sakuma will confess to Odagiri he was also told the same and that Yūki made him pay fines for insisting on saluting.

Miyoshi

There’s no known interaction between Miyoshi and Odagiri in the novel beyond that they’re both D Agency students and Odagiri likely took also part to the raid at Gordon’s house in which Miyoshi played the role of interpreter.

A character named Odagiri doesn’t appear in the D no Maō manga and the spy taking the name of Tobisaki Hiroyuki, as far as we know, doesn’t interact with Miyoshi and, although they are both trained at D Agency, Miyoshi likely completed his training way before Tobisaki Hiroyuki joined D Agency.

In the anime in Ep 1 Odagiri, Miyoshi, Kaminaga Jitsui and Amari play poker (or the Joker Game) until Odagiri surrenders.

Miyoshi was also likely one of the spies who used Odagiri’s signals to beat Sakuma at poker. As it’s Miyoshi the one who invited Sakuma to play poker with them, it’s possible Miyoshi went so far as to stage up the whole thing, giving Odagiri the role of spying Sakuma by making it look like Odagiri was leaving the game because he lost one of too many times.

In the Joker Game The Animation Manga, when Miyoshi informed the others he had Sakuma agree to be the captain of their fake Military Police team when they would inspect Gordon’s house, Odagiri looked none too pleased.

In the Joker Game The Animation version of Ep 4, when Miyoshi and Hatano are talking about rats playing the antagonist in western fairy tales, Odagiri surprised them by mentioning Japanese fairy tales involving rats (which apparently aren’t evil). When Miyoshi asks him if he’s implying Japanese rats are different Odagiri says he’s fine with them widening their insight from books but dinner time is up and they should hurry and come because if their meal will get cold Fukumoto will make a fuss.

In Ep 12 Miyoshi demands Odagiri to explain Schneider’s suicide note, since it seems Odagiri is supporting the idea that Schneider was killed.

Miyoshi is later tasked to investigate the latest developments at the German and Soviet embassies and, reported the results of his investigation to Odagiri. In his report he says nothing unusual had happened at the German and Soviet embassies, but someone new might have taken over Schneider’s spy network. Odagiri, who had no idea he would report to him, was surprised by this and, being confused by this and by all the others who had reported to him, gripped Miyoshi’s shoulder, stopping him from leaving and forcefully turning him toward himself and demanded to know why he was reporting this to him.

Miyoshi is first confused by Odagiri’s question then irritated, pushes away the other’s arm and inform him this is his (graduation) case before leaving. Odagiri is very surprised by this.

Successively the two meet at the theatre, after Nogami Yuriko’s performance. Miyoshi comments (looking pleased) that she wasn’t the murderer in the Schneider case to which Odagiri agrees, claiming her tears couldn’t be faked before asking Miyoshi what he discovered about Schneider’s accomplices. Miyoshi will report Odagiri’s theory was right and that by tailing the man removing the flowers from the theatre he discovered the guy stopped to a florist that doubles as a secret post for Soviet spies to exchange intel who communicate among them using a flower called chamomile. Miyoshi also discovered that two Soviet spies contacted Schneider, one was the florist who collected the flowers the other was Yasuhara Miyoko.

Miyoshi then asks Odagiri what tipped him off and Odagiri replies it was simple as he connected the scent in Schneider’s apartment with the one of the flowers delivered to Yasuhara Miyoko, which, to him, hinted to another connection between the two of them. Odagiri then proceeded to explain Schneider likely planned to become a triple spy and pass information to the British so the Soviets set up his assassination as well as the whole plan for the assassination. Though his explanation Miyoshi smiles and asks up how Yasuhara Miyoko got the note written by Schneider and Odagiri explains this as well.

In the Live Action Movie Miyoshi and Odagiri (along with Jitsui and Katō) cooperate to retrieve the Black Note, though Miyoshi had a rather different task from Odagiri and the two meet up only at the end where Miyoshi will hand him his next assignment.

Kaminaga

There’s no known interaction between Kaminaga and Odagiri in the novel, beyond that they’re both D Agency students.

A character named Odagiri doesn’t appear in the D no Maō manga and the spy taking the name of Tobisaki Hiroyuki, as far as we know, doesn’t interact with Kaminaga (nor with Izawa Kazuo who, in the D no Maō manga, is clearly NOT Kaminaga) and, although they are both trained at D Agency, Kaminaga likely completed his training way before he joined D Agency.

In the Joker Game The Animation version of Ep 3, I might be mistaken as they’re both giving their back to the viewer, but the two who fought together seem to be Odagiri and Kaminaga, with Odagiri having successfully pushed on the ground Kaminaga.

In Ep 12 since it seems Odagiri is supporting the idea that Schneider was killed, Kaminaga asks him if he believed the note was forged. He’s later tasked to investigate whoever got inside Schneider’s house and reported the results of his investigation to Odagiri, telling him that there was no suspicious activity from the people who went into Schneider’s home. Odagiri, who had no idea he would report to him, was surprised by this.

In the Live Action Movie Kaminaga, along with Yūki gives him the task to cooperate with Katō and Jitsui to retrieve the Black Note.

Hatano

There’s no known interaction between Hatano and Odagiri in the novel beyond that they’re both D Agency students.

Characters named Odagiri or Hatano or Shimano Ryosuke don’t appear in the D no Maō manga.

In the preview for Ep 3 Hatano and Odagiri talk together. Hatano asks Odagiri if he can remember that incident, to which Odagiri answers he can’t. At this Hatano says memories aren’t important and he took the right choice. We don’t know which was the incident they’re talking about though.

In the Joker Game The Animation version of Ep 4, when Miyoshi and Hatano are talking about rats playing the antagonist in western fairy tales, Odagiri surprised them by mentioning Japanese fairy tales involving rats (which apparently aren’t evil). When Miyoshi asks him if he’s implying Japanese rats are different Odagiri says he’s fine with them widening their insight from books but dinner time is up and they should hurry and come because if their meal will get cold Fukumoto will make a fuss.

In Ep 12 when Odagiri is supporting the idea that Schneider was killed, Hatano points out they should reject the idea considering the information Odagiri himself has given to them (the women screamed just after they entered inside the house and no one else got out from the door). He’s later tasked to double-check Schneider’s suicide note and reported the results of his investigation to Odagiri, informing him that no invisible ink was used and the paper was bought from a local store. Odagiri, who had no idea he would report to him, was surprised by this.

Amari

There’s no known interaction between Amari and Odagiri in the novel beyond that they’re both D Agency students.

Characters named Odagiri or Amari or Utsumi Osamu don’t appear in the D no Maō manga.

In Ep 1 Amari was one of the spies who used Odagiri’s signals to beat Sakuma at poker as Odagiri pulled out a cigarette pack and then acted as if it was empty and asked him a cigarette, to which he replied by handing him a full pack which seemed to hint at how Amari won Odagiri on his side (the manga seemed to imply how he was on Jitsui’s side before).

In the Joker Game The Animation version of Ep 3, Odagiri, seeing Amari and Jitsui together and Amari laughing, asked them what they were talking about, to which Amari replied they were saying it would have been good to have a mission in France where the charming ladies are.

In the preview for Ep 11 Odagiri and Amari talk together and we learn that Amari broke up again with his woman as he sees no point in remaining together with them for a long time.

In Ep 12 Amari was the one who, studying the photos of Shneider’s murder scene, observed that Schneider was fluent in English and that on a corner on his suicide note there were two XX. He’s later tasked to investigate the native English speakers living next to Schneider and, likely, reported the results of his investigation to Odagiri.

Jitsui

There’s no known interaction between Jitsui and Odagiri in the novel beyond that they’re both D Agency students.

Characters named Odagiri or Jitsui or Morishima Kunio don’t appear in the D no Maō manga.

In Ep 1 Jitsui was one of the spies who used Odagiri’s signals to beat Sakuma at poker. In the manga it’s implied Odagiri ‘betrayed him’ and made an allegiance with Amari when he asked Amari for a cigarette.

In Ep 12 Jitsui points out that Schneider’s suicide note was written by Schneider himself, since it seems Odagiri is supporting the idea that Schneider was killed.

In the Live Action Movie Odagiri and Jitsui support the investigations of Katō in order to retrieve the Black Note. They seem to get along well together.

Tazaki

There’s no character named Tazaki in the novel.

Characters named Odagiri or Tazaki or Seto Reiji don’t appear in the D no Maō manga.

In Ep 12 Tazaki is tasked to investigate into the wine import channels and reported the results of his investigation to Odagiri, telling him that no wine importing company was connected to an intelligence agency. Odagiri, who had no idea he would report to him, was surprised by this.

Fukumoto

There’s no character named Fukumoto in the novel.

Characters named Odagiri or Fukumoto don’t appear in the D no Maō manga and it’s never said if the spy going by the name of Tobisaki Hiroyuki and the spy going by the name of Shiozuka Hajime ever met, although they were both D Agency students.

In the Joker Game The Animation version of Ep 3, when Odagiri, sees Amari and Jitsui together Fukumoto is right behind Odagiri and Odagiri is saying ‘that’s all for today’ a hint that Fukumoto and Odagiri might have been working together till a moment before.

In the Joker Game The Animation version of Ep 4, when Odagiri tells Miyoshi and Hatano to hurry coming eating their dinner he reminds them that if their meal will get cold Fukumoto will make a fuss. Also, in one of the covers for the episode, Fukumoto and Odagiri are shown eating together at a restaurant, with Odagiri ordering something else to a maid.

In Ep 12 Fukumoto is the one that tells that two cross in English can be read also as ‘double cross’ or betray, and comments this could mean that Schneider either betray or was betrayed by someone.

In a set of cards we have Fukumoto and Odagiri ‘talking’ together. To be exact Fukumoto talks to Odagiri but Odagiri never replies.

It seems that in the ‘Joker Game talk show’ it was said that when Odagiri accompanies Fukumoto to get groceries… though we don’t see this happening in the OAV.

John Gordon

John Gordon is merely the target of D Agency’s investigation. The two don’t really interact, Odagiri was merely just one of the D Agency men who inspected his house (it’s unclear if he did the same in the novel and in D no Maō).

Karl Schneider

Karl Schneider is merely the target of D Agency’s investigation. Odagiri and Schneider don’t really interact, Odagiri was merely keeping him under surveillance (in the novel and in D no Maō this was done by the spy going by the name of Tobisaki Hiroyuki).

Nishiyama Chizuru

In the novel and in the D no Maō manga Nishiyama Chizuru is the girl who raised the spy going by the name of Tobisaki Hiroyuki, in the anime she’s the girl who raised Odagiri. Although she’s dead he can’t forget her and her memory still affects him to the point he understand he can’t get rid of him and that, therefore, he’s not fit for being a spy.

Nogami Yuriko

Due to her strong resemblance with Nishiyama Chizuru, in all the medias Tobisaki Hiroyuki/Odagiri loses his impartiality when she’s involved and ends up being distracted. In the Anime they won’t really meet although he watched her perform more than once, in the D no Maō manga she’ll confess him she murdered Schneider.

Yasuhara Miyoko

Odagiri/Tobisaki and Yasuhara Miyoko won’t really interact. In the anime he’ll figure out that she’s the culprit, in the other media, as she’s innocent, he only will understand that Nogami Yuriko decided to murder Karl Schneider because she caught Yasuhara Miyoko and Karl Schneider having sex together.

Gamo Jirō

In the preview for Ep 9 Gamo and Odagiri are playing chess. Gamo asks Odagiri what’s wrong to which Odagiri replies that in chess one has to destroy the adversary’s composure to win. Gamo replies that chess isn’t about winning or losing but about living or dying.

Yoru

When Yoru intrudes in D Agency’s kitchen Odagiri picks him up. The cat at first is not pleased by this development but, as soon as Odagiri tells him to calm down, Yoru does. Odagiri gently puts him outside D Agency, smiles at him and tells him next time he should hide himself better or the ‘demon king’ (Yūki’s nickname) will eat him.

Osanai

In the D no Maō manga Osanai is the one who will do what Miyoshi does in the anime during EP 12, demanding Tobisaki to explain Schneider’s suicide note, since it seems Tobisaki is supporting the idea that Schneider was killed. Osanai will also points out about the double cross on Schneider suicide note and will be tasked with investigating some aspects of the Schneider case and will report his findings to Tobisaki. Tobisaki, who had no idea he would report to him, was surprised by this and, being confused by this and by all the others who had reported to him, grips his arm, stopping him from leaving and demanding to know why he was reporting this to him.

Osanai will push away the other’s arm and inform him this is his (graduation) case before leaving.

Munakata, Higuchi and Akimoto

In the D no Maō manga Munakata, Higuchi and Akimoto get the roles Kaminaga, Jitsui, Hatano, Amari, Tazaki and Fukumoto have in the anime.

Katō Jirō

In the Live Action Movie Katō and Odagiri cooperate to retrieve the Black Note. Odagiri provides him spy tool and, occasionally, makes fun of him for having been an Army soldier or for his interest in Rin.

Rin

In the movie Odagiri has no interest for Rin’s survival and Rin manages to steal Odagiri’s spy tools.

Abilities

In the opening Odagiri is showed handling a communication system. It might be a coincidence as we know all the students were trained to use one but it can also hint he was particularly good with them (and a nod to how in the drama cd he’s using LINE to communicate).

In a preview Odagiri is shown playing chess with Gamo, a hint he evidently knows how to play this game.

When Odagiri picks up Yoru, the cat, and tells him not to be scared, Yoru immediately obey to him and calm down.

In the OAV Odagiri is shown as he’s about to drive a car.

Trivia

During the lessons Odagiri sits on the first row.

We never see Odagiri smoking though he asked for a cigarette to Amari during the Joker Game and received a full pack. As a result the I.G. store used Odagiri as ‘testimonial’ for the "GOLDEN KITE" cocoa cigarettes, chocolate shaped as cigarettes and sold in “Golden Kite” cigarette packs.

During the Joker Game Odagiri looked like he was reading a book. While this was probably a way to disguise the fact he was tattling out Sakuma’s cards to the others, likely Odagiri loves reading (as many others in the cast).

When inspecting Gordon’s house Odagiri was the one who confirmed that the garden was clear.

After the spies declared they couldn’t find the ciphers in Gordon’s house, which would mean Sakuma would have to commit Harakiri, they all smiled. Odagiri though is the one with the smile less pronounced and in the original draw for that scene one can speculate he’s not smiling at all. It ties nicely with how, in the manga, he didn’t seem happy at all with Miyoshi involving Sakuma in the mission.

In the Joker Game The Animation version of Ep 5, it seems that Odagiri was among the ones at whom the truth serum was injected and that he’s dealing with the effects of it by covering his face with his hands.

In EP 12 we hear the other spies using “Kisama” (貴様 “you”) when talking to Odagiri. In contemporary Japanese, “Kisama��� is insulting and rude (it’s often translated as “you, bastard”) but it wasn’t always like that. "Kisama" was originally a respectful term for a higher ranking person, and had been used by the warrior classes mainly (you might have noticed how it ends with ‘-sama’ 様, which is usually a very respectful suffix) but, by the middle of the 18th century, the respect which this word expressed had considerably weakened and in the first half of the 19th century it was a formal expression used by officers of the Imperial Japanese Army to address to each other. It also often appeared in military songs and literature and was probably similar to today's お前. Outside of the army, it was considered a very rough but friendly expression. In short, while addressing to someone using ‘you’ in Japanese is always less polite than using that person’s name, the guys aren’t being jerk and calling Odagiri ‘you, bastard’.

Same as Sakuma, when Odagiri bowed and remained bowed to Yūki , he wasn’t just bowing at him in greeting like any ordinary Japanese man. That was the military salute, which prompted Yūki ’s question "Who bows while wearing a business suit?" (probably a better translation would have been "Who salutes while wearing a business suit?") which is probably meant to be a hint that, although Yūki had just called him First Lieutenant Tobisaki Hiroyuki, he still doesn’t consider him just a soldier but one of his men.

In the Joker Game the Animation manga Odagiri is familiar with Japanese folklore tales involving mice.

In a couple of chibi pictures Odagiri is shown being completely plastered which might be a hint to him having low alcohol tolerance.

Itazu Yoshimi, the author of the end cards, said that when instructed to draw the end cards he was told to “Draw the spies in their daily lives that aren’t seen in the main animation” and that Director Nomura gave him information on the character’s personality and whom they get along with. In his end cards we see Odagiri walking in the Asakusa district with Fukumoto, Hatano and Tazaki, at Ueno-Hirokuji with Fukumoto and Tazaki, in front of Shibuya station with Tazaki, Hatano and Jitsui and then him walking in Ichigaya with Fukumoto, Kaminaga and Amari. The last card he drew is a ‘group picture’ of some sort as all the spies, Yūki included, are in them. Although ultimately Odagiri is seen in the end cards with most of the cast, he’s definitely drawn more frequently with Fukumoto and Tazaki (4 times), second comes Hatano (3 times), third Jitsui, Kaminaga and Amari (2 times). It’s worth to note he’s drawn with Miyoshi only in the last end card (the one with the group picture). While this is no proof, we can speculate Odagiri, in addition to the canonically confirmed Fukumoto, was meant to better get along with Tazaki and Hatano and had the worst compatibility with Miyoshi.

In the Live Action Movie there’s a spy going by the name of Odagiri. Ironically the main character, a spy going by the name of Katō Jirō, received as a background story, a story pretty close to the one of Tobisaki Hiroyuki (he’s a soldier who, to protect another soldier from a superior officer, attacked his superior officer. The man died and he was condemned by a military trial to be executed when Yūki appeared and invited him to join D Agency).

[jgfiles]

EP 1-2 complete cast

Picture from the Joker Game settei book.

From left to right the relevant guys from the cast:

Odagiri (EP 12 Tobisaki Hiroyuki): 172 cm Amari (EP 7 Utsumi Osamu): 175 cm Jitsui (EP 9 Morishima Kunio): 165 cm Fukumoto (EP 4 Shiozuka Hajime & Kusanagi Yukihito): 178 cm Tazaki (EP 6 Seto Reiji): 173 cm Miyoshi (EP 11 Maki Katsuhiko): 168 cm Lieutenant Colonel Yūki: 180 cm First Lieutenant Sakuma: 176 cm John Gordon: 180 cm Colonel Mutō: 165 cm Kaminaga (Ep 5 Izawa Kazuo): 173 cm Hatano (EP 3 Shimano Ryōsuke): 162 cm Lieutenant Colonel Kazato: 178 cm Geisha: 152 cm

Yes, the picture includes Kazato too even if he doesn't appear in Ep 1 & 2. Maybe he was meant to? Who knows?

[jgfiles]

Joker Game Timeline

So this is a tentative timeline for Joker Game. Corrections and new info might end up being added in the future… and, of course, everyone is very welcome to let me know if they’ve corrections or new info!

Some dates were found by doing some math. Some other dates might not be that relevant as they’re dates referring to the identities the spies take.

To find out all the dates I’ve used the official timeline for the anime, the anime itself (dates appear often on newspaper in addition to the ones mentioned in dialogues), the novel and… well, history.

I didn’t use D no Maou as it follows its own timeline.

So… let’s start…

…but before beginning let’s remember everyone which is the anime official timeline as I won’t quote it all the times I use it…

And now… let’s start with the timeline I’ve reconstructed.

1875?: Ernest Graham’s birthday. “She was about forty-five, almost twenty years younger than Graham himself.” [Novel] (The story takes place in 1940 so 1940-45-20=1875) [Ep 8]

1889: Arisaki Akira supposedly had birth (Akira applied to the Military preparatory school at 13 and this school lasts 3 years, after which one applies to the Imperial Japanese Army Academy. He started the Imperial Japanese Army Academy in 1905 therefore 1905-3-13=1889) [Ep 10]

1895?: Jane Graham’s birthday “She was about forty-five” (The story takes place in 1940 so 1940-45= 1895) [Ep 8]

1896 (Winter): Viscount Arisaki brings to his home in Mejiro Akira [Ep 10]

1902: At 13 Arisaki Akira applies to the Military preparatory school (Rikugun Yonen Gakkō) (He entered in the Imperial Japanese Army Academy in 1905, the Military preparatory school last 3 years hence 1905-3=1902) [Ep 10]

1905: Arisaki Akira enters in the Imperial Japanese Army Academy (Rikugun Shikan Gakkō) [Ep 10]

1906: Arisaki Akira leaves Japan to study in England [Ep 10]

1909: Britain’s security service became an independent secret intelligence service [Ep 10]

1911-1913?: Sakuma had birth in between these years (Sakuma graduated from the Imperial Japanese Army Academy. This would happen when one is around 21 and he would be given the grade of Second Lieutenant. Sakuma, by 1938, is a First Lieutenant, which means he was promoted, which is something that usually takes at least three years. He likely hadn't been just promoted as Mutō seemed to know and trust him enough when he assigned him to D Agency in 1938. This should make him over 25 in 1939, likely older. In the Anime, at the beginning of Ep 2, we see the photo of a baby, his father wearing an uniform that was in use from 1911 to 1938. If the baby is Sakuma this means that, at most, he can be 28.) [Ep 1] [Ep 2]

1912: Viscount Arisaki dies [Ep 10]

1912: Maki Katsuhiko has birth (the episode takes place in 1940, by then he’s 28 so 1940-28=1912). Note that Maki Katsuhiko is just a fake identity Miyoshi took. We’ve no idea if they shared the same birth year. [EP 11]

1914 (August 23): WW1: Japan declares war to Germany [Ep 11]

1914 (August 25): WW1: Japan declares war to Austria

1915?: Odagiri/Tobisaki Hiroyuki might have had birth (Odagiri first job, once he graduated, was to train new recruits and he ends up taking part to the Military exercise in Sapporo in 1936. Students usually graduated at 21 and Odagiri always graduated top of his class therefore it’s unlikely he lost a year so 1936-21= 1915) [Ep 12]

1917 (July 31 - November 10): WW1: The Battle of Passchendaele [Ep 10]

1918: Yūki begins stealing German intel. [EP 11]

1918: After 6 months of Yūki stealing German intel Yūki is captured and Wolff and Yūki meet. [EP 11]

1918 (end of October, beginning of November): Yūki escapes (after he escapes the Kiel mutiny takes place.) [EP 11]

1918 (November 3): Kiel mutiny [EP 11]

1918 (November 11): End of WW1

1918: Morishima Kunio has birth [EP 9]

1923 (September 1): Great Kantō earthquake

1924: Yataro Maeda opened this photography shop when he arrived in London 15 years ago. (1939-15) (Novel) [Ep 5]

1930: Price starts living in Japan (the episode takes place in 1940, by then he’s been living in Japan by 10 years so 1940-10=1930) [Ep 10]

1931 (September 18): Mukden Incident

1932 (February 18): The Manchukuo State is proclaimed [EP 6]

1935: D Agency is proposed (novel)

1936: John Gordon comes to Japan at a major trading company invitation [Ep 1]

1936: Karl Schneider comes to Japan as a writer for the German newspaper “Berlin Allgemeine” (Novel) [Ep 12]

1936: Oikawa Masayuki gets stationed in Shangai (the episode takes place in 1941, by then he’s been in Shangai by 5 years so 1941-5=1936) [Ep 4]

1936 (September): Odagiri takes part to the “Special Large Scale Army Maneuver” in Sapporo, Hokkaido. [Ep 12]

1937 (July 7): Start of the 2nd Sino-Japanese War.

1937 (Autumn): Founding of D-Agency [Ep 1]

1937 (November?): Sakuma is assigned as Liaison for D Agency “Colonel Mutō had summoned Sakuma and transferred him to the “office for preparation of affairs established for the facility of development of intelligence service officials” a year and a half prior. His assignment had been to become a liaison between the agency and General Staff Headquarters.” (We’re told that a year prior to when Joker Game took place it was April 1938 so a year and a half prior to when Joker Game took place should be November 1937) (Novel) [Ep 1]

1938 (January 9-10): Japanese ships crowing Quingdao bay while its streets were filled with IJN Special Naval Landing Force (SNLF) marines and IJA soldiers on the 9th and on the 10th started Operation “B” - The Seizure of Qingdao during which the Japanese took Quingdao without a struggle. [Ep 1]

1938 (April): Sakuma starts working at D Agency “Sakuma first met the man a year ago in April, the 13th year of the Showa Period (1938).” (Novel) [Ep 1]

1938 (April?): Nogami Yuriko and Karl Schneider meet (the episode takes place in 1939, they met a year before it so 1939-1=1938) [Ep 12]

1938 (July?): Honda investigated on Shiozuka Hajime (who will be later impersonated by Fukumoto) on charge of operating on a left-wing magazine (the episode takes place in 1941, July, he investigates him 3 years before it so 1941-3=1938) [Ep 4]

1938 (November): Sakuma is involved in the Joker Game. “That had been about half a year ago.” (Novel) (April-6 months= November) [Ep 1]

1939 (January): Anton Morozoff’s history of lavishing money on a Harbin nightclub girl is “burned”. (It happened 6 months before the episode takes place so 1939 July-6= 1939 January) [EP 6]

1939 (Spring - April): “Joker Game” (If a year prior to this episode we were in April 1938 this should mean now we’re in April 1939) (Novel) [Ep 1]

1939 (Spring, in between “Joker Game” and “XX - Double Cross”): D Agency have ample budget and currently uses a three-story building on the outskirts of Tokyo instead of the place they used previously. (Novel only as in the anime they’ll remain in the same building which already counted three stores… though yes, we learn that, after the Gordon case D Agency will manage to squeeze from the General Staff Headquarters more money) [Ep 12]

1939 (Spring): “XX - Double Cross” [EP 12]

1939 (April 11): Odagiri resigns from D Agency [EP 12]

1939 (May 11): The Battles of Khalkhyn Gol start.

1939 (June 15): Hatano as Shimano Ryōsuke is in France, Marseille and is supposed to stay there for one year. [Ep 3]

1939 (June?): A German merchant raider sinks the English cargo ship that had Emma Grane’s father aboard [Ep 7]

1939 (July): Fukumoto learns that classified info was being leaked from the Japanese army in Shangai (the episode takes place in 1941, so 1941-2=1939) [Ep 4]

1939 (July 23): Morozoff prepares the newspaper for the information exchange. [EP 6]

1939 (Summer July 25): “Asia Express” [EP 6]

1939 (August): D-Agency learns that confidential Imperial Army intel is leaked to the British (It happened 3 months before November, 16 hence 11-3=8) [Ep 5]

1939 (Between August and September): Kaminaga leaves for London, as photographer Izawa Kazuo [Ep 5]

1939 (Between August and September): Miyoshi leaves for Berlin to study art as Maki Katsuhiko and later start working as art dealer. [Ep 11]

1939 (Between August and September): Jitsui starts living in the Shirahata’s house as Morishima Kunio [Ep 9]

1939 (Between August and September): Fukumoto leaves for Shangai. [Ep 4]

1939 (September 15): The Battles of Khalkhyn Gol end.

1939 (middle of October): Kaminaga arrives in London. (When Kaminaga was taken by the SIS he wasn’t in London by a month yet) [EP 5]

1939 (Around October 26): The SIS start surveying Kaminaga. (They kept him under surveillance for two weeks before arresting him) [EP 5]

1939 (Autumn): “Robinson” [Ep 5]

1939 (Around November 9): Kaminaga is taken into custody by the SIS (we know he escaped after a week and the newspaper when he escaped was dated November 16). [EP 5]

1939 (November 16): Kaminaga escapes. According to the novel it’s after a week of entrapment. [EP 5]

1939 (December): “Valkyrie” (Novel only)

1940 (March): Kazato and Akutsu meet and decide the founding of Wind Agency (the episode takes place in September 1940, the meeting happened 6 months before so 9-6=3) [Ep 8]

1940 (June 21): The Tokimaru starts its travel. [Ep 7]

1940 (June 22): France is occupied by Germany. [Ep 3]

1940 (Early summer, probably June, 26): “Code name: Cerberus” (The Tokimaru has almost reached Honululu from San Francisco. Back then it would take five days to go from San Francisco to Honululu, while to go from San Francisco to Yokohama, the final destination would take 15 days) [Ep 7]

1940 (Summer): “Pursuit” [Ep 10]

1940 (Summer): “Miscalculation” (we can’t know when this happened but it’s more than a month after France was occupied by Germany as when the episode takes place, Marie has been blackmailed by the Germans by a month already… so it’s likely we’re in August) [Ep 3]

1940 (Summer): Tazaki and Hatano are among the Military Police who arrested Price (I’m assuming for this to be possible that “Pursuit” started sooner than “Miscalculation” but actually spanned over a longer time, enough for Hatano to return in Japan) [Ep 10]

1940 (between July and September): “French Indochina Strategy” (Novel only)

1940 (September 17): The "Hakusan Maru" is recruited by the Japanese Navy [Ep 3]

1940 (September 22): Japanese invasion of French Indochina

1940 (September 27): Tripartite Pact [Ep 3]

1940 (Early fall): “Double Joker” [Ep 8] [Ep 9]

1940 (September 10): Gamō spies Graham. [Ep 8]

1940 (September 30): Gamō reports to Kazato. [Ep 8]

1940: Kazato raids Shirahata villa. Hatano and Kaminaga deal with his men. [Ep 9]

1940 (November 10): 2600th anniversary of Japanese Empire

1940 (November 10): “The night of the ball” (Novel only)

1940 (Fall): “Coffin” [EP 11]

1940 (December 13): After the train incident in the outskirt of Berlin, Wolff arrests Otto Frank and inspects Maki Katsuhiko’s house (The date on the newspaper that was printed the day after the incident is Sonnabend, Dezember 1X, which translates as Saturday, December 1X. As the only Saturday that started with one in December was the 14 the episode likely starts on the 13)

1940 (December 14): Wolff discovers Yuuki managed to anticipate him, retrieve the list of Maki’s accomplices that he was carrying with himself and warn them. (The date on the newspaper Wolff was reading is Sonnabend, Dezember 1X, which translates as Saturday, December 1X. As the only Saturday that started with one in December was the 14 the episode likely starts on the 13)

1941 (Spring): According to Oikawa a spy starts leaking Military Police information… Oikawa is lying though… (according to Oikawa it’s short before Honma was stationed in Shangai) [Ep 4]

1941 (April): Honma starts being stationed in Shangai. (Honma and Oikawa meet in July and this happened 3 months before so 7-3=4) [Ep 4]

1941 (July 12): Mortars destroy south are building in Shangai (The date is on the newspaper, as it’s the evening edition the news in question are likely daily news) [Ep 4]

1941 (Summer): “City of temptation” [Ep 4]

1941 (July 13): Oikawa and Honma meet (the incident with the mortars happened the day before Honma met Oikawa) [Ep 4]

1941 (December): “Black Bird” (Novel only)

1941 (December): “Paradise Lost” (Novel only)

1941 (December 8): Bombing of Pearl Harbor

P.S.: Novel’s translations were done by @imayooshi. Other info about the novels come mostly by @kyuukancorbie

[jgfiles]

Odagiri/Tobisaki Hiroyuki’s character profile: Part 4 (Alternate version from drama cd 3)

Odagiri/Tobisaki Hiroyuki’s character profile: Part 4 (Alternate version from drama cd 3)

(Tentative version)

“Joker Game” Drama Cd Go For It! Year 2 Class D Sakuma Sensei (「ジョーカー・ゲーム」ドラマCD それいけ！2年D組佐久間先生”Joker Game” Drama CD Sore ike! 2-Nen D-gumi Sakuma sensei )

Surname: Odagiri - 小田切（おだぎり） Name: Unknown Job: Student (学生 - Gakusei) School: Yūki Academy Middle School (結城学園中等部 - Yūki Gakuen chūtō-bu) Year: 2 Year (2年 - 2-nen) Class: Class D (D組 - D-gumi) Club: Virtual Scientific and Cultural Research Club (バーチャル科学・文化研究クラブ部 - Bācharu kagaku bunka kenkyū-bu) /Personal Computer Appreciation Club (パソコン愛好会- Pasocon Aikō-kai)

Brief introduction

Odagiri is one of the students of Yūki Academy Middle School. He’s at the second year and belongs to D Class, whose students are all considered a thorn in Vice Principal Mutō’s eyes, who’s trying to have them expelled.

Personality

Odagiri is a shy guy who has communication problems and therefore uses his smart phone to communicate and refuses to talk in any other way. Odagiri is constantly staring at his phone, to the point it makes him sick when he’s on a bus and Fukumoto will say that Odagiri, when separated from his phone, even for a short while, have violent seizures that would eventually lead to his death. It’s unsure though if it’s true or if they were tricking the robber who wanted to steal Odagiri’s phone (and the phones of the other boys).

Odagiri is technically a member of the Virtual Scientific and Cultural Research Club but actually he was the only member of the computer appreciation club. Since clubs need three members to survive he formed a joint club with Tazaki’s magic trick appreciation club and Jitsui’s manga appreciation club. Due to this though, and due to the fact he can’t oppose to Jitsui’s threats, he’s forced to help him with Jitsui’s manga, by cutting and playing screen tones and, since Jitsui pushes on him (and Tazaki) a lot of work, he almost snaps.

When making the horror house Odagiri plays the role of a zombie and he’s naturally awesome at this.

Physical appearance

We’re supposed to assume his physical appearance remained the same as the one he has in the Anime only way younger as in the anime he’s over 20 while here he’s supposed to be around fourteen. It’s not said what he wears usually but on the cover for the cd we can see the students wear a Gakuseifuku, which is a typical uniform for Japanese students and even Shirō Miwa, in one of his strips, drew him with one.

Relationships

Mutō

We don’t really see Mutō and Odagiri interact, we only know that Mutō thinks the D-Class is a thorn on his side and hopes all the students inside it will end up getting expelled.

Yūki

We don’t really see Yūki and Odagiri interact, we only know that Yūki is the school principal and that, in his own way, he cares for the D Class students and doesn’t want them to be expelled.

Sakuma

Sakuma often worries for Odagiri (he thinks that talking through LINE might be troublesome for him, personally go to buy him medicine when he feels sick and entrust him to Fukumoto, and worries Odagiri is too integrate in his role of zombie). Odagiri on his part doesn’t interact much, he only denies it’s troublesome for him to use LINE to communicate.

When Sakuma is taken as a hostage Odagiri refuses to part from his phone, even when the robber threaten Sakuma’s life, prompting Sakuma to ask if his life is less important than Odagiri’s phone.

Miyoshi

Miyoshi and Odagiri’s interaction is extremely small.

Odagiri makes fun of Miyoshi how Miyoshi bumped into Sakuma by thanking him for ‘triggering a flag’ (it’s what happens in video games when the same situation happens). Miyoshi doesn’t comment though.

Kaminaga

Kaminaga and Odagiri’s interaction is extremely small.

When preparing the haunted house, Kaminaga, Odagiri and Hatano are tasked with the role of pretending to be monsters. Kaminaga is amazed by Odagiri’s ability to pretend to be a zombie and he’s told by Tazaki that he should take Odagiri as a model.

Hatano

Hatano and Odagiri’s interaction is extremely small.

When preparing the haunted house, Kaminaga, Odagiri and Hatano are tasked with the role of pretending to be monsters. Hatano is amazed by Odagiri’s quality of his make-up and costume that makes him look like a real zombie and he’s told by Tazaki that he should take Odagiri as a model.

Amari

Amari and Odagiri’s interaction is extremely small.

When the robber takes Odagiri’s phone causing him to start screaming and look like he’s having seizures Amari calls Odagiri a ‘Poor thing’ and suggests the robber that, since Odagiri is like this, he should return the phone.

Jitsui

Jitsu and Odagiri’s interaction is small.

Jitsui requests from Odagiri to stop using LINE and speak out normally, to which Odagiri replies, via LINE, that it’s troublesome to open his mouth. Jitsui and Odagiri, alongside with Tazaki, are also members of the same club and Jitsui forces Odagiri and Tazaki to help him complete the manga Jitsui draws by scaring them into submission. The work Jitsui hands them is so much that Odagiri risks to lose it due to how many screen tones he has to cut.

When Odagiri feels sick on the bus, Jitsui comments it’s just because he keeps on staring at his smartphone but when Odagiri gets worse he warns Sakuma that ‘Odagiri-kun is about to throw up’.

Tazaki

Tazaki and Odagiri’s interaction is small.

Tazaki and Odagiri, alongside with Jitsui, are members of the same club. When Odagiri risks to lose it due to the insane amount of work Jitsui forced them to complete, Tazaki tells him to get a grip on himself.

In regards to Odagiri Tazaki tells Sakuma that he is a shy guy who has communication problems and that’s why he uses his smart phone to communicate.

When Tazaki sees Odagiri is feeling sick on the bus ride he hurries to ask the others if they’ve a bag.

Tazaki scolds Odagiri for laughing too much when Kaminaga commented Tazaki was like a mob character… to which Odagiri claims the idea of ‘Mobzaki’ (モブ崎) made him laugh. Laughing though makes him feel even more sick.

Fukumoto

Fukumoto and Odagiri’s interaction is small.

When Odagiri felt sick during the bus ride Fukumoto is the first to notice it and worries for him, handing him Hatano’s bag in case he were to throw up. Sakuma will also entrust a sick Odagiri to Fukumoto when he’ll leave them to go buy medicines.

When laughing at the idea of ‘Mobzaki’ (モブ崎) [Tazaki being like a mob character] made Odagiri feel even more sick, Fukumoto told him not to talk anymore in a manner that resembled what one says to a person that’s about to die. Fukumoto will keep on worrying for him though.

Robber

As the robber tries to take Odagiri’s phone this causes him to scream and look like he’s having a seizure. Fukumoto will explain to the robber Odagiri will eventually die from it. This causes the robber to panic and return Odagiri’s phone which causes him to feel better immediately… which causes the robber to comment he felt better a tad too soon.

Abilities

Odagiri finds easier to talk with LINE than speaking, he’s amazing at playing the role of the zombie and he can cut and apply screen tones well since Jitsui entrusted to him this task. He was in the personal computer appreciation club so we can assume he’s good with it.

Trivia

Odagiri, along with Jitsui and Tazaki is a member of the Virtual Scientific and Cultural Research Club. In truth the Virtual Scientific and Cultural Research Club is a joint club for three different clubs and Jitsui was in the manga club, Odagiri was in the computer appreciation club and Tazaki in the magic tricks club. However since a club would get dissolved if it doesn’t have three members, they just joined their club together to form one.

Odagiri helps Jitsui by applying the screen tones for Jitsui’s manga.

In a strip by Shirō Miwa we see that Odagiri uses his phone in class to try to vote multiple time for the Anime Fan Awards (likely for ‘Joker Game’ ^_-) and Sakuma has to remind him that he can vote only once… and that they’re having lessons right then. On Odagiri’s phone we can see a phone strap shaped as a chibi (maybe it’s a chibi Odagiri? Though someone suggested it can be a Chibi version of Nishiyama Chizuru and this seems even more likely as there’s definitely a resemblance between the two).

[jgfiles]

Insp.

“Here’s your dismissal. You’ve been assigned to Kwantung. Apparently you’ll be a First Lieutenant in a Manchurian unit. First Lieutenant Tobisaki Hiroyuki. Don’t die.” [Yuuki from “Joker Game Anime: XX Double Cross” Ep 12]

More from A Softer D Agency.