The image of the apex of the Japanese legal system, as portrayed by file video clips on NHK evening news, has remained amazingly consistent over the years: poker-faced judges sit motionless in high-backed chairs, as if waiting to be taken to Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum. With such a stodgy and foreboding appearance, it is hard for us to imagine that exciting events might transpire within those solemn chambers. And yet occasionally a specific case does demand our attention, especially when the controversy at hand is thought to embody, represent, or challenge some of the most fundamental principles ordering the way society goes about its business.