...the Tokyo Medical Examiner's Office is the leader in forensic medicine in Japan. Osaka, Kobe, Yokohama and Nagoya also have a medical examiner system, but only the Tokyo and Hyogo prefectural governments employ medical examiners on a full-time basis.
... Corpse Autopsy and Preservation Law, was introduced in the country by GHQ [[ MacArthur's General Head Quarters]].
"This system was introduced in seven cities, as GHQ thought it would cover about 30 percent of total population in the country," Fukunaga said. "They also hoped that the system would eventually spread to the rest of the country."
Unfortunately, the system continues to shrink, with Kyoto and Fukuoka having abolished it in 1985..In local governments without medical examiner's offices, doctors tend to designate as "heart failure" or "intracerebral bleeding" those cases in which they are uncertain about the cause of a victim's death....The number of forensic medicine experts in the country is seriously short, standing at only 155....