Mitsuru Kuroiwa

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Mitsuru Kuroiwa (黒岩 満, Kuroiwa Mitsuru) is a character in Judgment. He is a detective under the Metropolitan Police's Organized Crime division who prefers a more hands-on approach that contributes to the extremely high arrest rate for criminals in Kamurocho.

Personality Edit

Professionally, Ayabe describes him as the "hero" of Kamurocho's police department for being an overall "by-the-book" police officer, a tenet that enables him to be slotted for early promotion. 

He displays a deadly efficiency with every job he is tasked with, both within the force and otherwise. Beneath the "by-the-book" demeanour however lie a sociopathic personality. Kuroiwa is both cold and ruthless, willing to murder anyone who stood across his way. 

Appearance Edit

Kuroiwa wears a standard charcoal black 3-piece suit over a white shirt, a midnight purple striped tie and a pair of black leather shoes.

He has medium length black glossy hair, which he parts to the left; he sweeps his hair behind his ears. 

As The Mole, he wears a black hooded raincoat, leather gloves, and a pair of laced combat boots.

Background Edit

A prodigy in the force, Kuroiwa quickly rose in the ranks under his unnamed mentor; a police informant for the Tojo Clan. However, a snitch within the police reported him to the authorities, prompting Kuroiwa's mentor to commit suicide to avoid prison. In retaliation, Kuroiwa murdered the snitch and made it look like a suicide. Kuroiwa would go on to continue his mentor's informant work, trading police info to the Tojo Clan in exchange for leads on cases, which he would use to advance his career within the Tokyo Police.

Eventually, this service would lead to a partnership with Matsugane Family captain Kyohei Hamura, who became Kuroiwa's main client/source. The partnership escalated when an opportunity to perform a hit arose, which Hamura offered to Kuroiwa in exchange for a cut of the payment. Soon, assassination became the primary work the two did together, with Hamura finding Kuroiwa clients through his underworld connections and the detective handling the actual killings.

Eventually, one of their clients was Vice Minister of Health, Kaoru Ichinose, who wanted the Vice-Director of the Advanced Drug Development Center, Toru Hashiki, murdered for his attempts to sabotage the Alzheimer's drug the center was working on, AD-9. The execution was made to look like a death during a drunken brawl and it was so convincing that Ichinose decided to offer the duo a second job afterwards: The lead researcher on AD-9, Dr. Yoji Shono, was looking into starting illegal, secret human experiments on the drug, since he knew it would be incredibly toxic to humans and thus could not risk a fatality during a legal, public human trial. Ichinose offered to pay Hamura and Kuroiwa to kidnap criminals that Shono could experiment on and later dispose of the bodies, which both men agreed to do.

Since one of the side effects of AD-9 was that the subject's eyes would turn pale blue before death, Shono and Kuroiwa resorted to gouging out the victim's eyes before dumping the bodies in alleyways, in order to hide the evidence of the human experiments. The bodies with eyes gouged out being found all over Kamurocho over the course of a few months led the police to believe that a serial killer was on the loose. Pretty soon, private detective Takayuki Yagami and his partner Masaharu Kaito coined a name that became popular for that serial killer: "The Mole".

Judgment Edit

Kuroiwa serves as the lead detective of the investigation into murders of three Kyorei Clan yakuza. He is the one to arrest Kyohei Hamura, which causes some animosity between he and Takayuki Yagami after his detective work allows for Hamura's acquittal.

Kuroiwa first meets Yagami at Tender, interrupting their chat regarding classified police secrets. This causes Yagami to suspect that Kuroiwa knows of Ayabe's "side-job" as a dirty cop.

When Masamichi Shintani is murdered and his body is left with its eyes gouged out in Yagami's office, Kuroiwa is the first officer on the scene after Yagami contacts the police. He is immediately suspicious of Yagami, believing he knows more than he lets on about Shintani's death. Later on, when Yagami and Issei Hoshino are questioning Dr. Ryusuke Kido at the Advanced Drug Development Center, Kuroiwa and Sakuraba burst into Kido's office, demanding that Yagami accompany them to the police station for questioning regarding Shintani's murder. Regardless of Kuroiwa's threats, Yagami refuses and tells them to get a warrant if they want him to come in for questioning.

Kuroiwa eventually obtains a warrant and forces Yagami to have an interview with Prosecutors Kunihiko Morita, Keigo Izumida and Mafuyu Fujii, seemingly to have him arraigned as the primary suspect for Shintani's murder. However, it's revealed during the questioning that the investigation into Yagami was a ruse to keep the true prime suspect in the case, Detective Ayabe, from realizing he was about to be arrested. While Yagami is being interviewed, Kuroiwa arrests Ayabe in Kamurocho and charges him with Shintani's murder.

When Kuroiwa later finds out that Yagami will represent Ayabe in court, he confronts him on the street outside Tender and tries to pressure him into backing down from the case. He is interrupted, however, when Yagami is attacked by the Cane Man Suzaki, an assassin sent by Hamura.

Eventually, Hamura is captured by Yagami and Kaito and taken to the Kyorei Clan's base in Cabaret Honmauren to be questioned. Fearing that Hamura will reveal the truth about the AD-9 experiments, Vice Minister Ichinose dispatches Kuroiwa to kill Hamura before he snitches. Ultimately, Kuroiwa is unable to kill Hamura and instead ends up killing the Matsugane patriarch, Mitsugu Matsugane. Matsugane's death prompts a grieving Hamura to reveal Kuroiwa's identity as the Mole to Yagami.

Fighting Style Edit

Kuroiwa's style consists of powerful kicks and punches, as well some acrobatic aerial attacks, wherein he runs up walls and kicks off, similar to Yagami. Kuroiwa's combat appears to be a combination of both Yagami's Tiger and Crane styles.

Kuroiwa's aura is purple, and when he charges for his special attack, he performs two tornado kicks followed up with a wheel kick.

He is shown to be proficient with weapons, as shown when he uses a gun and an ice pick, which he uses as if it were a knife.

He also displays a great amount of physical strength, being able to withstand a considerable amount of punishment during his boss fights.

TriviaEdit

• Kuroiwa is one of the few main antagonists to be kept secret until near the end of the game, the others being Tsubasa Kurosawa and Yukio Terada.

GalleryEdit

Body render

Body Render (transparent)

Kuroiwa interrogating Yagami

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