http://www.tokyograph.com/news/id-4568

I’m not sure where you get the idea that there are “career criminals” in Japan. Such a career path is inconsistent with Shinto morals and ethics and it is unimaginable that even one individual resident of Japan would make such a choice. That crime exists in Japan gives strength to the argument that Japanese immigration laws should be reined in even further. Personally, I don’t think they should let anyone in or out of the country at any time. Too risky.

I also think that the main reason we don’t have a lot of insight into the career-criminal viewpoint here is that in Japan such people don’t make helpful rap music to tell us what their viewpoint is in colorful and entertaining language.

The lack of consultation seems to be more an aggravating factor, a catalyst for the anger rather than a cause of it.

Also, the fact that the average person seems far more concerned about how the system would affect them _as a juror_ than how it would affect them _as a defendant_ says a lot, I think, about how people view their relationship with the legal system. I would be very interested to read about what career criminals think about the plan, for example, because presumably they would identify with a different actor in the process.

But I think it could be groundbreaking, in a way. It reminds me of the Mitani Kôki-scripted film 12人の優しい日本人. Back in ’91 that was just a joke; of course it looks prescient now. But that film could work because Japanese audiences knew Twelve Angry Men. My point is that many Japanese are familiar with, or think they’re familiar with, the jury system because they’ve seen it so often in foreign movies. Leaving aside the question of what ramifications that particular kind of knowledge has for the real-life jury-system, it makes for an expectation, I think, that Japanese courtroom dramas are going to evolve. That’s what it sounds like these manga are trying to do.

IMHO it’s just more “manga about stuff on the news”; nothing so groundbreaking, really.