The 15th episode of the popular detective drama "AIBOU Season 24" (TV Asahi, Wednesdays at 9pm), starring Mizutani Yutaka and Terawaki Yasufumi, entitled "Someone Else's Face", aired on February 4th, and viewers were shocked by the number of missing children mentioned in the episode.
The story revolves around Saeki Yurie, a girl who went missing 15 years ago at the age of three. A television program featuring Yurie used AI to predict her current facial features. The predicted face was a striking resemblance to Yui (Namiki Sayaka), an instructor at the gym frequented by Kaoru Terawaki's (Terawaki) wife, Miwako (Suzuki Sawa). Learning the circumstances, Ukyo (Mizutani) and Kaoru introduce Yui to Saeki Mayumi (Endo Kumiko), Yurie's mother, who bursts into tears... and so the story unfolds.
Viewers were surprised when Ukyo said, "Every year in Japan, about 1,000 children under the age of 9 go missing." In fact, according to the "Status of Missing Persons Reports Accepted" on the National Police Agency's official website, the number of missing children under the age of 9 was 1,035 in 2024, 1,115 in 2023, and 1,061 in 2022.
On social media, comments such as "1,000 people go missing every year!?", "Are that many children really missing every year...?", "1,000 people going missing... They're really attacking current events with this," "How many unsolved cases are there and what a scary story," and "This is really nasty, the missing people cases that make the news are only a small fraction of the total" were posted one after another.
