Yuko Iwashita

Rei Kiriyama is a 17-years-old shogi (Japanese chess) player. He debuted as a professional shogi player when he was in middle school. He lives by himself in Tokyo, because his parents and younger sister died in an traffic accident when he was little. One day, Rei Kiriyama meets three sisters who are his neighbors. The three sisters are Akari Kawamoto, Hinata Kawamoto and Momo Kawamoto. This is his first meeting with someone outside of the shogi world in many years. Having meals with the Kawamoto family brings warm feelings to Rei Kiriyama. As Rei Kiriyama continues his shogi career, his interactions with his neighbors allows him to grow as a shogi player and as a person.

The time spent between professional Shogi player Kiriyama and his three stories helps to heal his wounds. As he prepares to secure another win in an upcoming tournament, the father who left the three sisters appears and disturbs the peace.

Detective Ukyo Sugishita confronts crime on the basis of his own convictions. He has a partner that works for him in the Special Task Unit. For the first 7 seasons, Ukyo’s first partner is Kaoru Kameyama. He is a good-natured, hot-tempered, straightforward and somewhat scattered detective. Beginning in Season 8, Takeru Kanbe replaces Kameyama. Contrary to his predecessor, Takeru is a lanky, cool, conceited and confident detective. From Season 11 to Season 13, Ukyo’s partner is a young detective Toru Kai. Toru is a son of Deputy Director-General of The National Police Agency. But he became a detective by his own effort. And starting with Season 14, Ukyo’s current partner is Wataru Kaburagi, an elite bureaucrat who came to the Metropolitan Police Department on temporary assignment. As the first partner without any career of a police officer, he will face challenging cases together with Ukyo.

Mariko is a forensic scientist working at the Kyoto PD Crime Lab. Her credo is “science never lies” and she delves into the truth of the case with her colleagues with their specialized skills and knowledge in forensic medicine, physics, chemistry etc. Mariko’s steadfast belief in science makes her stand against conventional institutional ethics of the police department, diehard detectives averse to scientific investigation and sometimes even with her own colleagues, but she stays faithful to her belief in science and continues to pursue the truth.

Akira Suzuki is the home room teacher for 2-A. After graduating from college Akira did not work for 3 years. Instead, he spent his time thinking about ways to solve problems once he works as a teacher. Because of this, Akira has a knack to solve problems and the principle trusts him. Mr. Suzuki always listens to his students' problems and gives them creative solutions. Due to this, Mr. Suzuki is popular among the students. Meanwhile, Akira dates Asami who works at a travel agency. They met through a blind date. Akira often talks to Asami about troubles that occur at school.