Taburoido

Tokiwa plays a reporter for a major daily newspaper. She's a sharp dresser with a sharp tongue and she commits the ultimate press club transgression. She asks an embarrassing but pertinent question in a Finance Ministry press conference. Back at the home office, she is reminded of the "rules": don't ask or write about anything sensitive, just farm the press releases handed out. Actual reporting, especially investigative reporting, is not part of the game. As punishment for breaking the rules, she is demoted to a post on Yukan Top, her paper's affiliated sex and sleaze tabloid. It is 120 yen and sold only at newsstands. So, her new editor explains, it must come up with headlines juicy and jolting enough to tempt commuters to opt for a Yukan Top rather than a can of coffee on the way home. The top story the day she arrives on the job revolves around whether a certain young starlet's new nude photo collection will or will not feature hair. Tokiwa is decidedly disgusted, but as the day wears on she also realizes one of the strange truths of the local media world. Despite all their sex and sleaze and silly fabrications, the popular press is one of the few places where one just might read about what is really happening and where an industrious reporter can actually track down a story. Tokiwa soon finds she has the freedom to write about an accused murderer who she just may be able to prove innocent.