What are the Judgment games?
Kamurocho from the other side of the law: a disgraced lawyer turned detective, played by one of Japan's biggest television stars.
Judgment (Judge Eyes in Japan, December 13, 2018; the West June 25, 2019) and Lost Judgment (worldwide September 24, 2021) follow Takayuki Yagami, a defense attorney who freed a murderer and quit in disgrace, now working Kamurocho as a private detective. The games keep the city and the real-time brawling the main series gave up, and add investigation: tailing suspects, chasing, drones, and courtroom evidence. Sales passed one and then two million.
THE STAR AND THE SCANDALS
Kimura, Taki, and the PC fight
Judgment · Western cover
Yagami's face through shattered glass: the detective branch's visual signature, and the likeness at the center of the series' strangest business story.
Takuya Kimura
Yagami is played, voice and face, by Takuya Kimura, formerly of the idol group SMAP and one of Japan's most bankable actors for three decades, represented by the famously protective Johnny & Associates agency.
The Pierre Taki affair
In March 2019, actor Pierre Taki, who played the villain Hamura, was arrested on suspicion of cocaine use. Sega halted Japanese sales of Judgment entirely, recast the role with Miou Tanaka, re-recorded and remodeled the character, and relaunched: a demonstration of how completely a likeness-driven production is hostage to its cast.
The PC standoff
In 2021, Japanese reporting said Kimura's agency was blocking PC releases over its rules on talent likenesses online, and that Sega considered ending the series rather than skip PC. The standoff resolved quietly: both games reached Windows in 2022, and the branch survives.