"Shoujo Commando Izumi" drama: Episode one of fifteen recap

 

 Air Dates: November 5, 1987 to February 18, 1988. There were a total of fifteen episodes which aired though it had been scheduled to have twenty but was cancelled due to poor ratings. It aired on Fuji-TV at 7:30 pm on Thursdays, originally it was planned on being the fourth "Sukeban Deka" series though the story/plot was very different from those shows.

Average rating: 7.12%   Rating for this episode that aired on November 5, 1987: 9.0% which was the second highest.... Subs done by Big Nova Subs who also have done a few other older series. An episode lasts for 25 1/2 minutes but the last two minutes are for the credits, think it was longish so fans could hear more of the theme song sung by A-Jari who were a true rock group and somewhat popular.

 After taking a needed break from Japanese dramas this show signals my return, thought I would start out with a simple show but upon further reflection much more will take place than I thought. After viewing so many hundreds of dramas from Japan and Korea over the last fifteen years I was so burnt out with them which is why the longish break was needed. Hope I can get back into the swing of things and have so many series to recap, had almost all of the dramas before the break began. Won't be in any kind of hurry to finish many such as this one which is over 37 years old so what's a few more weeks?!

 

 As mentioned in the beginning there's a total of fifteen episodes so will have five batches each containing three recaps which means there's two more after this one. Will leave this intro section here but will be making some changes to it along with many edits for the below character section, after two shows we haven't met everyone yet. That average rating of 7.12% doesn't seem too bad to me and what did they expect from a 7:30 pm show? Izumi also happens to be the first name of the main character and think it's just a coincidence, Izumi Igarashi was a somewhat popular actress and this was her first main role. At the time she had just turned nineteen in age, she was busy up until 2001 which was the year she got married and then retired, over 23 years later she's never made a return to acting.

 That's Izumi on the left above, she was one tough chick(!) but also had a very soft side to her plus was quite attractive. On the right side is Keiko Yuasa, will give some bio info on all below and at first her main objective was to.... see Izumi killed!!!! That never happened and near the end of the second show a slight friendship began. Most of the action will take place at the Harumi Academy High School and the surrounding area, Harumi is a region of Tokyo. This series began in November 1987, in the show it's also that time frame and to be more exact it was November 5th which was the date Izumi returned to Harumi after three years.... where did she disappear to? There will be many students in each episode but only the top three listed below are key characters, many will be coming and going plus at 23 minutes a show you can only have so many main characters. Wrote most of this up after viewing the first two shows, know there will be a lot of editing to the info as we go along plus a few more characters may be added in.

**** Briefly here's the storyline in a few sentences, it will be explained better in the recaps. Three years ago(late 1984) the 'heroine' Izumi Gojo was a fifteen year old delinquent who got into many scraps but for the most part didn't commit any crimes. One evening she got into a fight with her rival Reiko and beat her badly but the girl was living when Izumi departed. Coming out of the shadows was a man who finished the job as he strangled Reiko to death, unknown to all watching the fight and then murder had been a fourteen year old girl named Saori Saegusa. She knew that Izumi hadn't killed Reiko and that the unknown man had done the cruel deed but shortly before Saori could go to the police another man stopped the young girl. This man was also unknown, like the killer this man was a henchman for the evil R Agency organization and threatened to kill Saori unless she told the police it was Izumi who had slain Reiko!

 Which Saori did so soon the police were after the young Izumi and cornered her on a pier. She held her own against a dozen officers but of course the numbers were too overwhelming for Izumi who jumped into the bay, the main detective Fujiwara presumed Izumi had drowned and it was case closed. **** Now it's three years later and Izumi has made her return to the Harumi area of Tokyo, where had she been for three years? When she jumped into the bay divers from R Agency rescued Izumi and for three years she was held captive by them. During that time Izumi was being trained to be the Ultimate Weapon for this evil organization, she had the code name of Prototype #1. In the first episode Izumi escaped from their compound, now her goal in life is to bring down R Agency who also secretly develop superweapons and to also find out why Saori fingered her for Reiko's murder. So that's most everything in a nutshell, more details and info are in the below character bios and of course in the recaps.

 Izumi Igarashi as Izumi Gojo.... The main 'heroine' who is eighteen in age, she had been missing for three years and was presumed to be deceased. There will be a couple of main focuses of this series, where and why did Izumi disappear for three years, why/how has she returned and also a main part of the story will be of Izumi seeking revenge for what had been done to her those three years! Did talk about that just above and Izumi does have the nickname of Ice Doll as she appears to be a cold person but really wasn't. Izumi grew up alone as her parents died when she was ten in age but never moved into an orphanage and had lived on her own. One positive about Izumi being held prisoner is that she became such a ruthless fighter at the R Agency 'prison/training facility', now she'll use those skills they taught her to bring them down! Seeing as how I wrote this up after viewing just two shows sure more will be added in.

 Yumi Tsuchida as Keiko Yuasa.... President of Harumi Academy's student council, she too is a tough young woman though not in Izumi's class. For two shows Keiko couldn't strand the sight of Izumi and wanted to see her dead(!) but once the truth came out about Izumi being framed for Reiko's murder Keiko did begin to warm up to her, this will be another character where much more info will be added in. Yumi in real life is like the below character who had a very short show biz career as she retired at the age of twenty or two years after this show ended.

 

 Masami Katsuragawa as Saori Saegusa.... As far as I can tell this is her only acting role and has no Ja.wiki page so who is she? Don't know but even though we didn't see Saori until halfway through the second episode she is an important character and was the reason the police were hot on Izumi's tail three years ago! That's because in 1984 Saori had secretly witnessed the brutal fight between Izumi and her bitter rival Reiko so knew Izumi wasn't the killer. However the R Agency forced Saori to tell the police Izumi was the killer and in episode two Saori finally was able to tell the true story to all, including the police. Saori has recently transferred to Harumi Academy from Tsukiura high school and mainly it was to get closer to Izumi whom she has a crush on! 

Takeyuki Yue as Ken Kuwabara.... Runs the pool hall/diner Burger in Saki, Ken is just eighteen in age but doesn't appear to be a student. As of now don't know who owns the pool hall which happens to be the hangout for many Harumi Academy high school students, especially Keiko and her cohorts. To me Ken seems like a decent young man and someone you can rely on.

 Takeo Chii as Eiji Fujiwara.... Detective at the Harumi precinct in Tokyo, he mainly works in the Juvenile Division. Fujiwara has a female partner named Moe Muto but haven't seen her in the first two shows. He was the main detective for Reiko's murder and had tried arresting Izumi but to no avail as she jumped into the Harumi bay. So Fujiwara naturally thought Izumi was dead and was shocked by her return, he was doubly shocked when he found out that Izumi was innocent after hearing Saori's tale. So over time he does become Izumi's ally and Fujiwara wondered if R Agency has a mole at his precinct for the file on Izumi had gone missing....

 Hiroyuki Watanabe as Rinichiro Ishizu.... The most known of the cast, Hiroyuki was a very busy actor up until 2022 when he passed away and was just 66 in age. In this series he's the president of Ishizu Industries which appears to be a legit company, what isn't legit is the organization he's a top exec at. Which is a very underground team called R Agency which develops superweapons(!) and were responsible for Izumi's three year disappearance. They were the group who saved her from the police in November 1984 but did some cruel things to her such as trying to make Izumi into their.... Ultimate Weapon! Not much is known so far about Ishizu and R Agency but know they will be very important to the story so will edit this section plus may add in another character if needed.

 For now that's it as far as characters go but know that section above will need editing for most episodes. For each recap will also try to have a different video, there aren't too many but there could be enough for each post and the one for today has many highlights of Izumi in action.... what a tough cookie! The first screenshot below shows the air date and title of the episode, will have a new one for each recap.

 

  The above always takes a while to first write up but it's worth it as the section does look impressive plus explains so much about the storylines and characters. This is the first recap I've written up in over four months and that break from watching shows was needed. However I may be very rusty when it comes to writing these up so bear with me at first and hope the style I was using can continue as it was working well for so long. EDIT: Everything did go much smoother than I expected and writing up a recap is much easier when you enjoy an episode which I did for this first one.

 Not much more to add in and did put at the top the subs are courtesy of Big Nova subs. They've done a few other older shows such as "Strada F" which I did recap, that show was just so-so but the subs were solid. For dramas that are less than thirty minutes have been able to keep the recaps at three segments, two paragraphs for each segment. Should be able to do so with this series but as mentioned am a bit out of practice to hopefully by the end of this one the rust will have worn off....

 There was so little dialogue for the first four to five minutes so wasn't quite sure what had taken place as I didn't know the story so well. The above screenshots are from the first five minutes and it's when we met the show's 'heroine' Izumi Gojo who is eighteen in age and how the Japanese love superheroes who are teen girls! We first saw Izumi escape a building guarded by heavily armed soldiers, she did so by slithering up an elevator shaft and barely was able to dodge an elevator car zooming up. The roof was Izumi's destination, as you can see in the second and third screenshots above she shot a wire gun across that roof to another which was part of the same building. Izumi was kind of James Bondish in these opening minutes, once she landed on the opposite roof it was silently down the stairs to a weapons room, that too is above. Silently for as you can also see above a small group of armed guards were on the hunt for Izumi, they were ordered not to kill but capture Izumi alive for she was a test subject. That's what the mysterious man above whose name is Ishizu was telling his R Agency colleagues, Izumi was being trained to be the evil organization's Ultimate Weapon but through two episodes still don't know much about them or their leader.

 At the weapons room Izumi stocked up on supplies, not just for her escape but what she'll be needing afterwards! All of those above screenshots are from the first five minutes where Izumi only uttered one sentence so in a way she was also like Nami Matsushima from the "Female Scorpion" films, silent but deadly! By now Izumi had fled the building and was near the exit to the heavily guarded grounds. Approaching rapidly was a truck hell bent on nabbing Izumi but before they could fire a shot or attack her Izumi fired a bazooka(!), end of the guard's lives(!) and what a silent but exciting first few minutes. Below is what took place the following day as Izumi returned to her old haunting grounds of Harumi which is an area of Tokyo. The first pic below is Izumi standing on the pier that she jumped off of three yeas prior and had been saved in a way by R Agency scuba divers so she had been on their radar a while before November 1984. Izumi is now an elite fighter even though she doesn't appear to be all that powerful but then again very few Sukeban females are. You can also see in that first screenshot how Izumi wants to reclaim her past three years, she remembers just a little of what happened to her but knows she was treated cruelly and wants her revenge!!!!

 Also wanting revenge is the girl above in the bottom two screenshots along with the third one above, her name is Keiko Yuasa and has the second largest role in the series. Keiko is an eighteen year old senior at Harumi Academy high school and is highly respected as she's the president of the Student Council, don't know all of the details yet but think they're kind of shady. The place where Keiko and her revolving door of cohorts hang out at has the odd name of Burger in Saki, don't know where the name came from yet. It's run by an eighteen year old boy named Ken who is in four screenshots above, to me he's seems like a decent guy you can rely on if you need help and as of now don't know why he's not in school. Or who owns the place, perhaps his family and one other thing about the diner is that it has a pool table and Ken is quite adept at the game. In those above screenshots it's after school ended, Keiko and some of her pals visited Burger in Saki and she was stunned to see that in the diner was Izumi! Keiko had never met the girl before and like most others presumed Izumi was dead, Ken was making her the best burger in town(!) and even he didn't know for a few minutes that he was serving the long-forgotten-about Izumi!

 Keiko Hates Izumi with that capital H and that's because of Izumi killing Reiko three years earlier but the truth will be revealed in the next recap. Izumi and Keiko are the same age(18), when Reiko was murdered by that unknown R Agency thug she was eighteen in age and Keiko fifteen. Reiko was like a big sister to Keiko and that death crushed her severely, Keiko figured she would never get the chance to avenge Reiko's death but it just may happen! But before Keiko could introduce herself to Izumi there was a warning that the police were just outside, which was true and entering was the feared Juvenile Division detective Eiji Fujiwara but Izumi was able to slip out without him seeing her. Three years ago he led the investigation of Reiko's murder and was so close to nabbing Izumi before she threw herself into the bay, along with everyone else in Harumi Fujiwara thought she was dead! Fujiwara did grill Ken but the lad wouldn't utter a word and said how could the ghost of Izumi be at his diner(?!), Fujiwara too will learn the truth about Reiko's death in the next show. Above Keiko and Ken visited the pier where Izumi presumably had met her fate, that's when Keiko revealed her hatred towards Izumi for killing her 'older sister' Reiko.

 This recap is going much smoother than anticipated, there's about seven minutes to go in the episode with the above ones and first three below showing what took place. You would hate to be in Izumi's shoes as it seems the whole world is or will be after her! There's Keiko who wants to avenge the death of her friend Reiko, then there's the detective Fujiwara who right at the end of the show seemed to have discovered Izumi is alive! The third on the hunt for Izumi is the one she should fear the most which is the group who had held her captive for three years and want her back at all costs, that's the R Agency. The day after her escape from their facility a small group of henchmen made an attempt to nab Izumi, she escaped in a matter of seconds. But towards the end of this first episode a more brutal attack occurred and it kind of reminded me of a Sentai or Kamen Rider series where the hero is outnumbered but always comes out as the victors!

 In a way it was kind of a lopsided fight as these goons from R Agency barely had any punches connect and Izumi easily defeated this quartet but they'll get tougher as time goes on. Bit of the short melee is right above and like a Sukeban girl Izumi also has a small arsenal of weapons which she had stolen on the night of her escape from R Agency. Izumi had one weapon in this scene that resembled a yo-yo but with a spool of steel, those four thugs never stood a chance against her! Arriving towards the end of the fight was a helicopter which I presume had the top executive from R Agency Ishizu who probably thought he could come and collect the limp body of Izumi but that wasn't to be and the copter quickly zoomed away. We're down to a minute to go in this show and how I much prefer these that are ~25 minutes in length. Watching the action from a different pier were the pair of Keiko and Ken, he was shocked at what he had witnessed and now knew the legend of Izumi's return was no myth. Doubly shocked was detective Fujiwara right below, of course he had been thinking that Izumi had perished three years ago when she took a swan dive into the bay, how could she have returned???? With that this episode did come to it's conclusion and a lot was crammed into a short show. An episode does last for 25 1/2 minutes but the last two are for the credits which are a bit longer than most shows and that had to be so most of the theme song could be heard and will have a video of that in the next recap. This series had a solid beginning and what happened in episode two is the next post.