Hanzawa Naoki (半沢直樹)

Hanzawa Naoki, Loan Section Chief at Osaka Nishi Branch Office of Tokyo Chuo Bank,

followed Branch Manager Asano's orders, and

secured a loan agreement of 500 million yen from Nishi Osaka Steel.

However, Nishi Osaka Steel, which outwardly appeared to be a company in good standing,

was actually window dressing its financial statements in order to hide its massive debts.

Immediately after getting a loan from the bank, it went into bankruptcy.

Hanzawa and the bank was cleanly cheated out of the 500-million yen loan.

Manager Asano was scheming to

shift the entire responsibility on Hanzawa alone.

However, Hanzawa confronted them head on,

and vowed to recover the 500 million yen

in order to clear his name.

That was the only way for Hanzawa

to survive as a banker.

4 hours after the hearing investigation

What do you think you're doing, Hanzawa?

I heard you said at the hearing that

you weren't responsible for the loan mishap!

The folks at Headquarters were obviously

trying to pin the responsibility of that

bad 500-million yen debt on us, Osaka Nishi Branch.

I merely told them in no uncertain terms that was not the case.

Our responsibility?!

I merely stated the truth.

There was a loss of 500 million because of your fault as Loan Section Chief.

Branch Manager Asano Tadasu

Assistant Branch Manager Ejima Hiroshi

The truth is nothing more nor nothing less than that!

Ejima-kun. He must have his own ideas.

However, after this incident,

I'd be hard pressed to say Headquarters has a very good opinion of you.

You'd better hurry if you want to clear your name.

Otherwise, I don't know much longer I can keep on sticking up for you.

Of course, I don't intend to let them unload all the responsibility

on our Branch without putting up a fight.

Please put your mind at ease, Manager Asano.

I never knew Nishi Osaka Steel was in this bad of a shape.

They sure did a good job of deceiving us.

It's hard even for us bankers to understand

President of the now bankrupt Takeshita Kogyo

Takeshita Kiyohiko

the flow of money with just 3 years worth of off-balance sheets.

Would you mind comparing them to your books?

That's no problem.

Is the situation that bad?

- What's the matter? - This is odd.

We didn't make all this money.

Our proceeds from Nishi Osaka Steel was about 500 million.

But it says they paid...

- 700 million. - 200 million disappeared somewhere.

Show me you books please!

Higashida's mistress Fujisawa Miki

Nishi Osaka Steel President

Higashida Mitsuru

Everything went as planned, huh?

As far as I can see from this, Higashida's been padding his books for at least 3 years.

In other words, he was steadily building up his stash over the past 3 years and

making preparations.

- Preparations? - More than likely, Nishi Osaka Steel's bankruptcy

was intentional.

If that's the case, the fact that they went bankrupt as if it was planned

right after they deceived us out of the 500 million yen loan, and

the fact that Taxation Bureau is on the move, all that makes sense.

Higashida was thinking about profiting, not by

rebuilding his company, but by intentionally making his company go bankrupt.

So, what does that mean?

Are you saying Higashida used me

to commit intentional bankruptcy fraud?

On top of that, he even made my company go belly up...

Does that mean the money he cheated me out of

is in his pocket?

Hanzawa-han.

I ain't an educated man.

Was it my fault for being so stupid

that I was deceived?

No.

It's the deceiver's fault.

That goes without saying, Takeshita-san.

Hanzawa-han.

Let me ask you once again.

Let's find Higashida and recover the money.

I'm the one

who's counting on your help, Shachou-han*!

- I have a favor to ask. - Yes?

Will you stop talking in that weird Osaka dialect?

Hanzawa's wife Hana

Present from Tokyo I asked you to get. Terra Saison's rusks.

Sorry.

I already said I'd bring them to the tea party tomorrow.

Hana-chan. Hana-chan...

Delicious! Hana-chan, this is amazingly good!

These cheap ones won't do.

I gotta go buy something else first thing tomorrow morning.

It's for the Assistant Manager's wife, right? Don't worry about it too much.

I have to! That's the rule around here.

Hana-chan.

Aren't you curious?

How the hearing went.

You did it again anyway, didn't you? I can tell by the look on your face.

That's why I'm trying to suck up to Mrs. Assistant Manager.

Since you're the way you are, Naoki, I have to do what I can to cover for you.

It's not a problem that can be resolved by something like that.

I know that.

But this is about the only thing I can do.

Because other than that, it's all on you...

I don't understand all this difficult stuff, but

whatever you do, don't lose!

I don't want you dragging me with you any farther than here.

Dragging with me...

I shouldn't have married a hard-headed banker.

Getting transferred all the time, moving all the time. Nothing good happens.

Osaka Regional Taxation Bureau

Higashida's whereabouts is still unknown. Currently, we're checking out

- address of his mistress, Fujisawa Miki. -Anything on the hidden stash?

There's one thing that caught my attention.

- What? - Last year on July 3rd,

50 million yen for unaccounted expenditure was withdrawn

from Nishi Osaka Steel's account at their main bank.

50 million?

That's a bit much for spending money.

Do a thorough investigation and find out what is was used for!

Chief, can you take a look at this?

Yamamura-san at Foreign Exchange found it.

- Higashida Mitsuru?! - Yes.

It's dated nearly a year ago.

- The payee is Higashi Asia Resort in the amount of... - 50 million?!

It looks like the money was transferred from his personal account at our bank.

He had a personal account with us when we weren't even his main bank?

Although it's closed now.

This Higashi Asia Resort

is a company that deals with real estate investment properties abroad.

Real estate investment? Does that mean Higashida

acquired a 50-million yen real estate overseas somewhere?

If we can seize that real estate,

it will be a big step forward to recovering our 500 million.

I'm going to go talk to this Higashi Asia Resort.

Hanzawa.

Put this together in a report

for the Branch Managers' meeting by day after tomorrow.

It's an order from Manager Asano.

Going after 500 million is fine, but

we can't have you slacking off on your normal duties.

- Let me do it. - Nakanishi.

If you have time to worry about others, go get a contract for a big loan or something.

Assistant Manager.

You guys too. Go visit the clients or something.

The subordinates are just like their section chief.

At the next personnel change, we'll have to consider reshuffling the whole section.

Why are they doing that...

If Chief can really recover the 500 million, it's not a bad thing for our branch too.

- How can they interfere... - Listen.

Manager's presuming that recovery is impossible, and,

to put it badly, he made a big deal at Headquarters that Chief was to blame.

Just think what'll happen if Chief recovers the 500 million despite that

and he's exonerated.

They'll ask what all that fuss was about and

- may hold the Manager accountable this time. - No way.

I suggest you keep a low profile for a while. If you assert yourself without thinking,

you'll get dragged into the mess...You too.

- Hello. - Hanzawa-han.

I found one. Just one, though.

Got it. I'll be right there. Where's this place?

In order to get an idea of how much money Higashida had stashed away,

Takeshita was checking Nishi Osaka Steel's subcontractors

one by one to see if there were any other companies like Takeshita Kinzoku

whose payments were being padded.

That was the company of a subcontractor called Awaji Kozai

whose chain reaction bankruptcy was caused by Nishi Osaka Steel.

Hanzawa-han. Over here.

I was shocked when Takeshita-san showed me the books.

I can't believe he was cheating 300 million over 3 years from us too.

Akashi Bridge

I went to a few other places too, but

Itabashi-han and I, who had a long-standing business relationship with him,

were the only ones Higashida was blatantly cheating.

He took advantage of our weakness and

mercilessly beat our cost down.

Despite that, we managed to hang on,

Awaji Kozai President Itabashi Heigo

but then they suddenly went bankrupt.

I can let that much go.

But to think they were doing such underhanded things behind our back.

I understand how you feel, Itabashi-han. I feel the same way.

Let's join forces and

try to get back what we can from Higashida.

You've got everything to gain, but nothing to lose.

All right.

- I'll do what little I can do to cooperate. - Itabashi-han.

If I can get the money back from Higashida, I'll do anything.

- Thank you. - We're heartened to hear that.

Let's get started right away. Can you take a look at this?

Apparently, Higashida bought an investment real estate somewhere abroad for 50 million.

50 million?!

Have you heard anything about it from Higashida?

A vacation home abroad?

No, that's news to me.

I see. If we only knew where it is,

we can seize it immediately.

After going bankrupt intentionally,

he's planning to live abroad in leisure, is he? That little shit Higashida!