JOKER GAME (ジョーカー・ゲーム)

I've never done anything bad!

Why can you do such a ridiculous thing?

I won't forgive your incivility.

I'll contact my country immediately!

The lieutenant will do hara-kiri here if nothing will be found.

Oh, what impressive resolve!

Japanese warriors don't go back on their word, right?

Go.

Episode 1: Joker Game (Part 1)

Celebrating Going off to war Kobashi

Greater Japan National Defense Women's Association

Hisanaga Yasutake

The army has landed at Qingdao!

This program is a work of fiction. The characters, organizations, locations, laws, names, etc. being portrayed are unrelated to actual events.

The army has landed at Qingdao!

Greater East Asia Cultural Society

Greater East Asia Cultural Society

Lieutenant Sakuma reporting for duty.

Are you stupid?

Who bows while wearing a business suit?

So?

You're the spy General Staff Headquarters sent?

No, sir.

I don't engage in cowardly behavior like spying.

Ah, so spies are cowards, huh?

Autumn, 1937.

The Imperial Army, following Lieutenant Colonel Yuuki's proposal,

established a clandestine spy training agency.

Greater East Asia Cultural Society

The histories, names, and even ages of the prospective agents are all

treated as top-secret information.

They study multiple foreign languages,

medicine, pharmacology,

physics, communications...

Professional thieves and safecrackers teach them their techniques.

Gigolos even teach them the art of seducing women.

They're tested on a wide range of skills.

But, unbelievably,

none of them are graduates of the Imperial Japanese Army Academy.

They graduated from imperial universities or ordinary colleges.

In other words, they're all so-called ordinary citizens.

They easily complete training exercises that push them

to their physical and mental limits.

And then,

finally, only eight people remained.

No...

Eight monsters.

We're going to town. Would you like to come, Sakuma-san?

No, I'll pass.

Unbelievably, there's no curfew here at the dormitory.

Everyone is free to do as he pleases at night.

Everything here is completely different from

the army academy I graduated from.

My academy classmates and I swore that we'd

give our lives for our country if necessary.

I'd gladly give my life to save one of theirs.

But the students here...

Miyoshi.

Kaminaga.

Odagiri.

Amari.

Hatano.

Jitsui.

Fukumoto.

Tazaki.

They all use false names.

They call each other by fake names, respond to fake life stories...

They undergo such harsh training together,

but they don't even know each other's real names.

How can they live like that?

I call. Two pair.

One pair.

One pair here, too.

Cafeteria

You got me.

I'm out.

Oh, you're back?

What're you doing?

Care to join us, Sakuma-san?

Poker, huh?

Sure, I'll play a little.

I'll bet.

I call.

I fold.

Fold.

I call.

I'll raise you.

I'll raise.

I fold.

I call.

Full house!

Four of a kind.

I'm just getting started.

Oh, well. These things happen sometimes.

We'll have to do this again.

Sakuma-san, you didn't lose the poker game.

What do you mean?

I was peeking at your cards

and signaling the others.

What?!

What's so fun about cheating to win?

We...

weren't playing poker at all.

What? Then what were you doing?

We call it the Joker Game.

Joker Game?

Basically...

There's a card game going on at the table,

but it's only a charade.

The goal is to get people in the room on your side,

have them peek at the opponents' hands, and signal you.

However, there's no telling who's on whose side.

The signs may be fake,

or you might read an opponent's signs and change your hand.

Hey, give me a cigarette.

Here.

In the right conditions, you can convince the enemy spy

to betray his side and join yours.

What's so enjoyable about deceiving one another like that?

What's the point?!

Who knows?

It's more or less the same thing as international politics.

International politics?

What's going on?

Just our usual game.

Sakuma-san doesn't like it, that's all.

I'm not complaining about who won and who lost.

My point is that the way you do things is cowardly.

You think all competition should be fair and square, huh?

If they hadn't let you in on the secret,

would you be saying the things you are now?

That's the current state of Japan.

What do you mean by that?

Say this is Washington.

Imagine that table is the stage for an international political meeting.

If your information is leaked, you've got no hope of winning.

The same thing happened to Japan during last year's

disarmament summit in Washington.

The American Black Chamber

Former lead US Cryptologist H.O. Yardley's Shocking Documents

American Govt. Cracks Everything

From the very beginning, the players at that table, the other countries,

knew exactly how much Japan would be

willing to compromise.

Japan was preoccupied with the rules for the façade.

We never even noticed the true nature of the game being played.

Remember, this is a spy training facility.

When these men leave here, they'll be scattered all over the world,

where they'll have to make themselves invisible.

Ten years, twenty years, maybe even longer.

Their job will be to move to a foreign land,

assimilate, and make themselves invisible

in order to gather intelligence on

that nation and report back to Japan.

Can you even imagine what their lives will be like?