Kanji Yokozawa

Kanji Yokozawa is a veteran homicide detective who heads the Forensic Department and commands broad respect. In the investigation into the murder of a local snack-bar owner, he meets Jake Adelstein at the search site, where the reporter has slipped past the police line to photograph investigators. Yokozawa’s manner is courteous and his guidance practical, but that courtesy does not prevent him from recognizing Adelstein’s deception later. The episode presents him as both a disciplined forensic chief and a man capable of turning an embarrassing breach of trust into a long-lived personal joke.

Position and Introduction

Yokozawa appears while investigators are searching brush beneath an embankment. Adelstein has crawled through a culvert to get close enough to photograph the work, and is taking pictures with a large camera and telephoto lens when he senses someone standing over him. Yokozawa identifies him as a reporter and asks how he got past the yellow tape. The exchange makes clear that Adelstein has crossed a police boundary, but Yokozawa does not immediately threaten or detain him.

His appearance marks him as part of the forensic team: he wears dark blue scrubs, a modified baseball cap, square-cut frameless glasses, and latex gloves rolled down to his wrists. The narrator identifies him as the department’s chief and a respected homicide veteran. His authority is therefore present in the scene before he exercises it; he can question Adelstein about trespassing while remaining composed and civil.

Conduct at the Crime Scene

When Adelstein says he is hoping to photograph the discovery of the murder weapon, Yokozawa responds with a practical offer: if the investigators find it, he will let the reporter know and even pose for a photograph. He immediately pairs that lightness with a clear instruction. If Adelstein comes across something that could be a weapon—such as a bat, metal rod, or other blunt object—he must leave it where it is and notify the police. The advice establishes the boundary between observing an investigation and interfering with evidence.

Yokozawa also allows Adelstein to ask questions, while cautioning that he may not be able to answer all of them. Asked about the likely killer, he avoids naming the victim’s daughter’s boyfriend as a suspect. He does, however, offer a qualified assessment: the boyfriend is Iranian, and Yokozawa says that many Iranians in Japan had military backgrounds, including service in the Iran–Iraq War. He further reports that some police officers regarded Iranians as more intimidating than yakuza. This is presented as Yokozawa’s account of police perceptions, not as proof of the boyfriend’s guilt. On the question of who locked the victim’s door, he reasons that the person probably already had a key; the alternative—that someone killed her, took a key, and locked the door to delay discovery—seems possible to him but unlikely.

Recognition and Reprimand

Yokozawa’s measured approach changes after Adelstein disguises himself as an Iranian while pursuing the case. Police respond to the supposed suspicious associate by producing a composite drawing, assigning detectives to look for him, and placing others on surveillance at a gym. Around midnight, Yokozawa studies the drawing and realizes that the person depicted is not an Iranian suspect but Adelstein, the foreign reporter for Yomiuri Shinbun, pretending to be Iranian. He angrily alerts the detectives to the mistake.

The discovery makes the cost of Adelstein’s stunt plain. The next morning, the reporter learns that several detectives have spent the day on a fruitless search, and the police are angry enough that some are prepared to lock him up. Yokozawa, who had been accommodating at the scene, is now personally displeased. The contrast does not make his earlier courtesy insincere: it shows that his patience has limits when a reporter’s deception diverts investigators from their work.

Apology and Recurring Joke

Before a press briefing, Adelstein apologizes to Saeki; afterward, he finds Yokozawa at a first-floor vending machine buying a can of apple juice. Adelstein bows so low that his forehead scrapes the floor. Yokozawa accepts the apology and pats him on the head, but makes clear that forgiveness will not erase the incident. His response is neither a formal punishment nor a return to unqualified friendliness. It converts the breach into a personal memory that can be recalled later.

More than a decade afterward, Yokozawa still refers to Adelstein’s supposed Iranian heritage whenever they meet. The recurring joke is the aftermath of a specific professional mistake: Adelstein’s impersonation wasted police time, and Yokozawa never lets him forget it. Their connection thus extends beyond this single investigation, held together by the reporter’s apology and the detective’s continuing teasing.

Narrative Role

Yokozawa serves as a point of contact between the reporter’s access-seeking and the police department’s responsibility to protect an investigation. At the murder scene, he permits questions without promising information and gives explicit instructions about possible evidence. Later, his recognition of the composite drawing exposes the practical consequence of Adelstein’s disguise: detectives have been sent after the wrong person. His shift from courteous guide to angry supervisor supplies the episode’s reversal, while his acceptance of the apology keeps the conflict from ending in simple hostility. The enduring reference to Adelstein’s false Iranian identity gives that reversal an afterlife in their relationship.