Several years ago, veteran emcee Hiroshi Sekiguchi hosted a variety show in which criminal cases, usually two or three decades old, were reviewed in detail. The names of the principals were changed, but the particulars of the cases were often familiar to viewers old enough to remember them. With the help of hindsight, the show tended to look at the crimes from the standpoint of the accused and often raised questions about the the guilty verdicts they invariably received. Many had been punished by death. The show ran for a year.
On June 20, Sekiguchi and the same production company will present something similar with "The Shinso" (The Truth; TV Tokyo, 10 p.m.), an occasional series that looks at high-profile incidents from different viewpoints.
This time, Sekiguchi will cover two topics. The first is North Korea and the problem of the nuclear arms the communist country says it possesses. The second subject is the collapse of the Seibu business empire and the misdeeds of its disgraced CEO.