Japanese Crime TV Shows

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.

The son of a world famous mystery writer, Jimmy Kudo, has achieved his own notoriety by assisting the local police as a student detective. He has always been able to solve the most difficult of criminal cases using his wits and power of reason.

Kenzou Tenma, a Japanese brain surgeon in Germany, finds his life in utter turmoil after getting involved with a psychopath that was once a former patient.

Takemichi Hanagaki is a freelancer that’s reached the absolute pits of despair in his life. He finds out that the only girlfriend he ever had, in middle school, Hinata Tachibana, had been killed by the ruthless Tokyo Manji Gang. The day after hearing about her death, he’s standing on the station platform and ends up being pushed over onto the tracks by a herd of people. He closes his eyes thinking he’s about to die, but when he opens his eyes back up, he somehow had gone back in time 12 years. Now that he’s back living the best days of his life, Takemichi decides to get revenge on his life.

In a world of monsters, adventurers and magic, some of the most gifted healers are subjugated to brute force. Keyaru gains the ability to rewind time and turns the tables on those who’ve exploited him in this dark fantasy tale of vengeance and fury.

Ryotsu Kankichi, or Ryo-san for short, is an unconventional cop working at the local police station who loves money. Together with famous celebrities like Nakagawa and Reiko, his strict boss Police Chief Ohara, and other wildly unique characters, he gets everyone caught up in all sorts of hijinks!

In a dystopia riddled with corruption and cybernetic implants, a talented but reckless street kid strives to become a mercenary outlaw — an edgerunner.

Mikado Ryugamine moves to Ikebukuro at his friend’s invitation and quickly becomes entangled in the city’s dangerous underworld. After witnessing the legendary Headless Rider, he finds himself caught up in escalating violence and gang conflict that begin to throw Ikebukuro into chaos.

The story follows a team of pirate mercenaries known as the Lagoon Company, that smuggles goods in and around the seas of Southeast Asia in the early to mid 1990s. Their base of operations is located in the fictional harbor city of Roanapur in southeast Thailand near the border of Cambodia.

In a world where beasts of all kinds coexist, a gentle wolf awakens to his own predatory urges as his school deals with a murder within its midst.

Kaiji Itou is a good-for-nothing loiterer who spends his days drinking beer and stealing hubcaps—that is, until he ends up being tricked by his former co-worker. Unable to suddenly repay his friend's huge debt all by himself, Kaiji is offered a shady deal to participate in an illegal underground gamble on a cruise ship. This turns out to be nothing more than the beginning of his new life of hell—thrown headlong into a life-threatening roller coaster of mind games, cheating, and deceit.

Izumi Sakuragi is a new police sergeant with the Special Investigations Office, which was set up within the Metropolitan Police in November last year. The new investigation team uses DNA analysis and the latest in forensics science to investigate cold cases as well as cases suspected to involve missing persons.

In the year 2113, people are given brain scans to determine how likely they are to commit a crime. Those who fail are apprehended, or even killed.

24 people enter a survival game. Each has a device called an SCM (slave control method), which can make their opponent into their slave. Each person has their own reason for participating in the game.

Hasegawa is a chief police of big heart who leads a band of samurai police and cultivates reformed criminals as informants to solve difficult crimes.

The story takes place at a certain middle school where several murder cases take place. Kobayashi, a boy who goes to this school, meets genius detective Akechi, who comes to the school to investigate. Kobayashi takes an interest in Akechi and, in spite of his friend Hashiba's worries, he volunteers to be Akechi's assistant.

Yusuke Nogi of Ryosho's Energy Development Division said that 10 times the official down payment was mistakenly sent to GFL, a local infrastructure company involved in a solar energy plant to be built in the Balkan Republic in Central Asia. Suspected of involvement, he heads to the Balkan Republic to collect the difference of $90 million. With the cooperation of his CIA friend Sam, Nogi obtained information that the terrorist al-Zaer had laundered the full amount of the contract money into diamonds and brought it out.

When the world's seven most advanced robots and their human allies are murdered one by one, Inspector Gesicht soon discovers that he's also in danger.

A teenaged gang leader in New York City faces his abuser and rival gangs alongside a photojournalist from Japan as they investigate a deadly new drug.

A rookie lawyer Ryuuichi Naruhodou stands up to save his defendants by proving their innocence from unusual cases! Is the defendant guilty or innocent...? Believing his client's innocence Naruhodou stands in court and battles his rival judges. With the word of "OBJECTION!" and limited evidence, Naruhodou makes a comeback when all odds are against him and seems like there is nothing more he can do. Don't miss out on the comical episodes between him and his mentor Chihiro Ayasato, assistant Mayoi Ayasato, rival prosecutor Reiji Mitsurugi, and numerous unique characters! The anime also depicts the childhood relationship between Naruhodou and his friends. With the skills inherited from his mentor Naruho reveals the truth!

While martial arts champion Baki Hanma trains hard to surpass his legendary father, five violent death row inmates descend upon Tokyo to take him on.

A legendary hitman trained to become the world's best assassin is asked to lay low for a year by the head of his crime family.

The amazing Taichi Keaton works on cases around the globe that always lead to adventure! He combines his arsenal of multidisciplinary expertise in investigation, archeology, and survival with his experience as a professor, a Falklands Conflict veteran and a SAS agent to unravel the often dangerous challenges in each riveting episode.

Humanity has found a way to achieve infinite energy by using coils to draw it from the fourth plane: dimension "W". With the production of coils having been monopolized by the New Tesla energy company, freelance collectors are hired to find and remove any illegal, unofficial coils. This is the story of collector Kyōma, who also happens to have a huge hatred towards coils. During one of his missions he stumbles upon a female android that perceives herself as being human, leading the two to enter an unlikely partnership.

In the future when technological enhancements and robotics are a way of life, Major Motoko Kusanagi and Section 9 take care of the jobs that are too difficult for the police. Section 9 employs hackers, sharpshooters, detectives and cyborgs all in an effort to thwart cyber criminals and their plans to attack the innocent.

Two assassins who never miss their mark must juggle fatherhood with their demanding job when they suddenly find themselves raising a four-year-old girl.

Many years ago, a Great Civil War ravaged Japan, leaving the country fragmented between two regions: Kansai and Kanto. In Kansai, a group of six Akudama carry out missions given to them by a mysterious black cat, while evading the police. But a dangerous journey is about to unfold when a civilian girl becomes twisted into the Akudama's way of life and witnesses their criminal drives.

Furuhata Ninzaburō is a Japanese television series that ran periodically on Fuji Television from 1994 until its final episodes in 2006. It was written by Japanese playwright Kōki Mitani and is often referred to as the Japanese version of Columbo. The series is a police detective drama starring actor Masakazu Tamura as Furuhata Ninzaburo and Masahiko Nishimura as his stereotypically bumbling sidekick, Shintaro Imaizumi. The program aired weekly and featured a guest villain each time, usually a famous talent in Japan. Pop-stars like SMAP, television hosts like Sanma Akashiya and even sports figures like Ichiro Suzuki have been featured on this program. It was one of the most popular television dramas in the history of Japanese television, having spawned several seasons and TV specials.

Yū Amagi is a slightly eccentric detective who has been assigned to the Twelfth Section of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department's First Investigative Division from the Lost and Found Centre. The Twelfth Section is called the "graveyard of detectives" and ridiculed as the "banishment room where hardened detectives who cannot be fired are sent." Its assembled detectives Kōsuke Samura, Takumi Yamashita, Keita Nagasawa, Tamaki Mizuta, and Masatoshi Katagiri are elite and yet oddballs. Amagi appears fixated with time which seems to have no relation with a case. Raising questions about the timelines of the perpetrator and victim derived from the estimated time of death, time of crime, time of alibi, and time limit, he searches for the meaning of "blank time" which arises from this. He obsesses over the weight of every minute and second of time because of some incident.

Yuri Ishikawa and her team try to crack unresolved cold cases in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan.

Yukiko Makabe works at the #3 Special Investigation Team of the Metropolitan Police Department. She has excellent negotiation skills. Yukiko then attempts to negotiate with a hijacker on a bus, but something unexpected happens and her mission fails. Yukiko takes full responsibility and takes a transfer to a special interrogation team "Kintori". Her boss is Katsutoshi Kajiyama and Yukiko has had a difficult working relationship with him in the past. Her other coworkers include Susumu Hishimoto, Zenjiro Nakata and Haruo Koishikawa.

Hiroto Miyama is an unconventional young lawyer who dances to his own tune and gets a little obsessive. For one thing, he’s only interested in criminal cases, and he will never give up in his pursuit of the truth even if offers only a 0.1% chance of being discovered. Japan’s 99.9% criminal case conviction rate leads the world, attesting to a “highly reliable” judicial system. In other words, once a crime suspect is indicted, prosecutor arguments tend to be accepted hook, line and sinker. In the face of those 99.9% odds, there’s no money in being a defense lawyer specializing in criminal cases, but for Miyama, that’s where the interest and kernels of truth lie. From unexpected places, the mold-breaking Miyama stakes his reputation on a prayer of a chance as he clashes with hotshot lawyers who’ll go to any lengths to win in this gloriously fun, legal mystery.

Johnny Bolt recruits a group of ragtag supervillains for one last heist. Their target: A ruthless super-powered crime boss. What can go wrong?

Run by a corrupt and sadistic school council, the “system” at Hyakkaou is based on gambling, with losers who cannot cover their debts being demeaned by their peers and forced to serve their debtholders. And if that’s not terrifying enough, some games can result in losing an eye, one’s fingernails, or even their life! But the system is shocked when transfer student Yumeko Jabami arrives. Dark, mysterious and attractive, she’s a wildcard who plays for the thrill of it…

Akihabara is the center of the universe for the coolest hobbies and quirkiest amusements. In the spring of 1999, bright-eyed Nagomi Wahira moves there with dreams of joining a maid café. She quickly dons an apron at café Ton Tokoton, AKA the Pig Hut. But adjusting to life in bustling Akihabara isn't as easy as serving tea and delighting customers. Paired with the dour Ranko who never seems to smile, Nagomi must do her best to elevate the Pig Hut over all other maid cafés vying for top ranking. Along the way she'll slice out a place for herself amid the frills and thrills of life at the Pig Hut. Just when Nagomi's dreams are within her grasp, she discovers not everything is as it seems amid the maid cafés of Akihabara.

Narrates the events and cases encountered by Kaoru Utsumi, a rookie detective, and Manabu Yukawa, a university associate professor, while the two pair up to solve many mysterious cases.

Cat's Eye is the most notorious group of art thieves in Japan. No one knows their identities, but for most of Tokyo, the mystery only heightens their allure.

For Brandon Heat, death doesn't matter. Driven by his need for revenge, he returns from beyond the grave to cripple Milleneon, the huge mafia organization which uses undead monsters as its enforcers. His ultimate goal is to destroy Harry MacDowel, the leader of Milleneon and, at one time, Brandon's best friend...

Nao Kanzaki is a college student who is known for her honesty and naivete. One day, she receives a black postcard indicating that she has been selected to participate in the "Liar Game Tournament". Along with the postcard is a box with 100 million yen. The goal of the first round of the game is to trick the other player out of their hundred million yen. At the end, the winner would get to keep the hundred million earned, and the loser owes the LGT 100 million yen, which "will be collected by any means and at all costs".

Yoshino’s engagement is far from a dream come true. Her grandfather, head of the largest yakuza group in Kansai, has arranged her marriage to Kirishima, grandson of the Miyama Clan leader, as part of a truce. To Yoshino’s surprise, Kirishima seems kind and charming for a yakuza member. But his warm facade only serves to mask a dark and dangerous truth.