Sakuraba

Sakuraba () is a character featured in Judgment. He is a detective for the Organized Crime Division of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department.
==Profile==
=== Personality ===
Sakuraba is a quiet, dour man, who is never seen smiling and rarely talks. It's apparent that Sakuraba greatly admires Kuroiwa since, throughout Judgment, he only speaks to threaten Yagami when he feels he's disrespected his partner. This admiration extends to the point that he willingly lets Kuroiwa take the lead in all investigations and interrogations the pair conduct, with Sakuraba providing support to Kuroiwa as he spearheads their cases.
Despite being a police detective, Sakuraba is squeamish around gore, since he recoils in disgust when he sees Toshiro Kume's gouged-out eyes at a crime scene.
== Involvement ==
=== Judgment: 2018-2019 ===
In 2018, Sakuraba works as a Detective for the Organized Crime Division of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department's Kamurocho Section. He is the partner to the precinct's star detective, Mitsuru Kuroiwa, and together the pair are assigned to investigate the Mole murders; a series of killings of yakuza members in which the victim's eyes are gouged out and their bodies are discarded in back alleys throughout Kamurocho.
Sakuraba and Kuroiwa conduct an investigation of the scene where the body of Toshiro Kume; the third mole victim, was found. When Kuroiwa removes the sunglasses covering Kume's eyes, revealing they'd been gouged out, Sakuraba winces in disgust and turns away. After their investigation, Kuroiwa and Sakuraba charge Kyohei Hamura, Captain of the Matsugane Family, with the murder, but the lawyers at the Genda Law Office, along with help from PI's Takayuki Yagami and Masaharu Kaito, manage to get him acquitted.
Sakuraba accompanies Kuroiwa when he confronts Yagami at Bar Tender for his role in Hamura's acquittal. He's also alongside his partner when he tries to take Yagami in for questioning with relation to Masamichi Shintani's later murder and when he questions Yagami about information leaks in the police department and the prosecutor's office. Sakuraba and Kuroiwa later charge another police detective; the heavily corrupt Kazuya Ayabe, with Shintani's murder, prompting Yagami and the Genda Law Firm to spring to his defence as well, since by this point they'd determined that the Mole murders were all being committed by somebody in the employ of the Advanced Drug Development Center.
When Yagami starts exposing the conspiracy behind the Mole murders during Ayabe's trial, Vice Minister of Health Kaoru Ichinose sends hitmen after Kuroiwa, hoping to silence him so that he'll not provide further evidence. Sakuraba is present when the Minister's assassins try and fail to kill him in Theater Square, and he later accompanies Kuroiwa when he goes to the ADDC to kill his co-conspirator Yoji Shono under the guise of protecting him.
When Yagami, Kaito, Fumiya Sugiura and Toru Higashi go to the ADDC to stop Kuroiwa, they have to fight their way past several police officers whom Kuroiwa brought along to slow them down. Sakuraba is among those policemen who aid in trying to detain Yagami and his friends, though it is unclear if he knows Kuroiwa's true purpose at the time. Despite his efforts, Yagami and Sugiura defeat Sakuraba in a fight and rush after Kuroiwa.
As Sakuraba is not seen again after his fight with Yagami, is unknown what became of him once his partner's criminal activities had been exposed.
Category:Judgment Characters
Category:Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department