Obata Wataru

In Fuji TV's 2015 miniseries Murder on the Orient Express (オリエント急行殺人事件 - Oriento kyuukou satsujin jiken), Obata Wataru is the parallel of Lieutenant Dubosc in the original novel. Obata sees Suguro Takeru (Poirot) off at the railway station at Shimonoseki where the Orient Express to Tokyo is about to depart.

Some internet resources including IMDb list this character as "Shimonoseki police" but the character is in army uniform. Japanese wikipedia lists him as from the Kokura Army Arsenal. This is more accurate as later in the dialogue, Suguro says he has just been to the Kokura Army Arsenal to solve a case there. Noto Iwao (Arbuthnot) also says he is in Shimonoseki after visiting the arsenal on official business. The Kokura arsenal is an actual historical location just south of Shimonoseki across the staits on the island of Kyushu. It existed from 1916 to 1945 as a government arsenal producing small arms and artillery for the Japanese army.

From the insignia on Obata's uniform, it appears that he is a captain. Like Lieutenant Dubosc, he thanks Suguro for solving the case and remarks that his general is very relieved and pleased. Obata gives a bit more detail about the case than Dubosc. He says that it is a strange case, one where a suicide had been disguised as a murder (a plot device like in The Market Basing Mystery).

Since Suguro is going to Tokyo to which he is no stranger, there is no opportunity for Obata to discuss tourist sites like Dubosc did with the St Sophia in Istanbul. Instead, Obata highly recommends some overnight dried puffer fish (ふぐの一夜干し - fugu no ichiyaboshi) He goes off to buy some despite Suguro's protests that he doesn't like dried fish. Suguro tries to give the fugu away but repeatedly fails and this is a running gag in the early part of the show.

Obata Wataru is portrayed by Aijima Kazuyuki.