Mysterious blackmail

When was the last time you had fun playing guessing game? And when was the last time you felt being manipulated to the max that you kept changing your guesses back to back within limited evidence?

It's exactly the feeling that I had when I was watching Majo Saiban (The Witch Trial).

It's a story about a young woman whom death sentence is put in line for murdering her lover. The case was on hold of investigation for a year before put to trial. The line of juror among interested public citizen was recruited after filtration of writing test and interview.

So out of all the candidates, eight public citizens were chose to become the juror.

The juror

Toma Ikuta as Yoshioka Toru, a young man who never cares about social issues but applies to be the juror because he needs money

Kato Ai as Watabe Izumi, one of the juror. Married with one daughter and his husband is always away due to business matter. Because of the trial, she becomes closer with Toru

Higa Manami acts as Motomiya Kaori, Toru’s girl friend and also a reporter. Somehow seeing Izumi being too close with Toru makes her a little jealous

The witch; Ishida Yuriko as Kashiwagi Kyoko

The witch’s daughter; Kutsuna Shiori as Kashiwagi Haruka

The trial started, without anyone knowing (not even the defendant herself) there exist an underground illegal trial manipulator hired by the defendant lawyer in order to win the case. It is a big case and received wide live broadcast across the country. And the mysterious illegal organization team disguised themselves among the group of reporters; they set hidden cameras within the court compound, inside trial room, and in the jury room. However they still remained mystery and then further collected information on all the 8 jurors and start blackmailing them to vote not guilty in the trial; so they call it 'the witch trial'.

The ongoing of trial to get the defendant convicted offers continuous suspense, watching this drama one episode after another, you will gradually change your mind accordingly. This is among the well-directed jdrama I ever watched and if you were to watch it, go on and try using your best instinct to stick till the end whether the defendant is guilty or not. And the most shocking fact waiting at the end of the episode is 'who is the real culprit behind the mask of this underground trial manipulator'.