Synopsis

Three 13-year-olds murder Shoko, the wife of cafe manager, Hiyama Takashi. Their motive is money. The detectives cannot hold them criminally responsible because they are protected by the Juvenile Law due to their age. On the other hand, Hiyama and his mother-in-law, Sumiko, are hounded by the mass media and everything about their lives are exposed. Four years go by. Ignoring the warnings of his daughter’s nursery school teacher, Hayakawa Miyuki, and cafe employee, Fukui, Hiyama privately starts to look into the outcome of the “rehabilitation” and “current situations” of the youth who have returned to society. But right after that, the youths are attacked one after another and one of them is killed. Detectives come to visit Hiyama, who had said to the mass media “If the state cannot punish the criminals, I want to kill them!” right after his wife’s murderers were discovered. He is their prime suspect. Hiyama searches for the truth of the youths’ motive while facing attacks from the police, a human rights lawyer and a journalist. What emerges is his wife’s unexpectedly dark past and several traps which lie behind the case … … The truth that was hidden by the Juvenile Law is laid bare. And then the story heads towards a jarring conclusion as it questions what is right and wrong.