"Hakozume: Tatakau! Koban Joshi" drama: Episode two recap

 

 Air Dates: July 7th until September ??, 2021 Wednesdays at 10:00 pm on NTV

Also known as Police in a Pod and subs are being provided by Irozuku

Main Cast: The action takes place in the town of Machiyama which is a fictional one but it's supposed to be in the prefecture of Saitama. Bit of a large cast but the top two characters will probably get 90% of the screen time, will update the info as we go along.

Erika Toda as Seiko Fuji.... Thirty year old police woman who has recently been demoted to the main Machiyama police box. We haven't learned what Seiko did to get demoted but it had something to do with a case. Seiko was the ace of the Criminal Investigation Unit and her way to relax is to browse through unsolved cases! It has helped her on the job and in the first episode she was assigned to be the partner and mentor of Mai. 

 Mei Nagano as Mai Kawai.... That Kawai isn't quite the word for cute nor scary so she does take some ribbing. Mai is a twenty year old rookie who just graduated from the Saitama Police Academy. She's now partnered with Seiko, of course Mai is quite inept in this first show and did come so close to quitting.

Tsuyoshi Muro as Shuichi Igasaki.... Commander of the police box where Seiko and Mai work out of. He's kind hearted but would rather not leave the box to go on patrol or answer calls.

Shohei Miura as Seiji Minamoto.... Detective at the Machiyama Police HQ, he worked with Seiko when she was a detective and they have some sort of past which we'll learn about.

Yuki Yamada as Takeshi Yamada.... Also a detective at the Machiyama Police HQ.

Yusuke Hirayama as Tamotsu Hojo.... Another detective at the Machiyama Police HQ.

Nanase Nishino as Miwa Makitaka.... Recently assigned to the Machiyama Police HQ as she'll be taking over Seiko's position in the Criminal Investigation Unit. She's quite inept and is terrified of men as she had gone to only female schools growing up. She's the neighbor of both Seiko and Mai as he trio live in a police dormitory.

Seiji Chihara as Masayoshi Yoshino.... Asst. police chief who always kisses the ass of his superior!

Atsushi Fukazawa as The Chief.... Only goes by 'The Chief', bit of an inept leader.

Link to the drama's NTV site: Hakozume site

Ratings:

Episode one, 11.3% .... Episode two, 11.7% 

Previous recaps:

Episode one

  

 

 Was going to have a pair of posts every other week but seeing as how there's no major storyline will just do them whenever. Added in the ratings above and that's rare in Japan these days when a show's ratings increase after the first episode. Can't say it's been a must watch but perhaps the increase was because it's not one of those inane rom-com shows which viewers are so tired of. Will try to make this a briefer recap as I know it's not always easy to read through these and actually have had success lately in making them shorter. Easier said then done as this was another 51 minute episode but the screenshots can speak for themselves, most of the story revolves around Mei's character of Mai who is a newbie at the Machiyama Police Department. That first episode covered her first few days after being assigned to a Police Box, this show's action may have also been about Mai's first week on the job.

 As was the case in the first show this features Mai and her new veteran partner Seiko doing their patrols and hopefully keeping the peace in the city but there are two semi major cases at the end. Those two seemingly work twenty hour days and besides their supervisor Igasaki Mai and Seiko appear to be the only officers working out of their local police box. We haven't learned what took place with Seiko who had been demoted from working as a detective at the main Machiyama Police HQ. She's a top notch officer and Mai couldn't have gotten a better partner or tutor, think her demotion had something to do with messing up a case fairly badly. But not in the above case where Seiko and Mai had been doing a night patrol and passed by one of the city's high schools.

 Seiko was aware that there had been a rash of school robberies lately and suggested to Mai they check out this school, does Seiko have ESP? That's because there was a burglar in the school but had been tailed by Seiko's ex-detective mates Minamoto and Yamada who were about to nab this man as he departed with his loot. But Mai's presence screwed that plan up, this burglar eluded her when she saw him in the school and he also managed to escape from the other two detectives. But not from Seiko who was waiting patiently next to this thief's bike and once again took credit for an arrest to the mild fury of her ex-colleagues. As mentioned this new team seems to never have a break, it's the following day and the pair had yet to go home. They were about to when a call came in about two potential thugs at a local park roughing up a young man, their work never ceases!

 No need for alarm as the two 'thugs' were the detectives Minamoto and Yamada, seems they too are always on the job. What they had caught was a sixteen year old boy named Yuta who was skipping school and smoking in the park. So he was dragged off to the police box where Yuta's mother had to be called down to bring him home. She was a very quiet woman who looked so beaten down, Mai made the mistake of telling the mother she needed to do a better job as a parent! Mai didn't realize what she said then was uncalled for but Seiko as usual knew what the situation was with the mother and will jump ahead a bit with one other scene with Yuta and his mother. Yuta's father works out of town and is rarely home, staying at the house was also his grandfather. The mother had been working two part time jobs and also had to take care of the bedridden older man, no wonder she was so beaten down.

 In this second scene with Yuta Seiko and Mai had been called to his house as the grandfather had passed away. On occasion an officer from the police box has to assist in the post mortem and the pair were drafted to do so for this death, it'll be Mai's first post mortem. It appeared there were no injuries and the man just died from his long illness but Seiko noticed something very positive about his body. That was of it being so clean and well attended to, the mother had really taken good care of this older man during his two years being bedridden and Seiko let Yuta's mother know how impressed she was with her deeds. But that now made Mai seem a bit low as she realized she should have known more about the case before telling Yuta's mother to be a better parent. Mai is only twenty in age and has been with the force only a week, those little things can only come with experience.

 As you can see above that woman's name is Risa, she came into the police box to report a lost earring to Mai. At first wondered 'Why?' and still do to an extent as how many people would bring it to the police box even if it was found? But that earring and Risa will be be the most major part of this recap and will end off with her mini tragedy. Back to regular police business and there's a known drug dealer named Akagi who has always been able to elude the police. But the force has received a tip about him luring a woman into becoming an addict and the detectives are right on the case. Seiko and Mai have been roped into the case as this dastardly Akagi will be bringing the woman to a love hotel and detectives without a female would stick out like a sore thumb. So this love hotel was staked out, Akagi was in room 507 with the teams of Seiko/Yamada and Mai/Minamoto in the neighboring rooms.

 Kind of a humorous scene even though they were trying to nab a drug dealer. Mai is twenty in age and has never had a boyfriend nor has even been on a date, she had absolutely no clue how to be romantic but really was impressed with the love hotel room. Seiko doesn't have a current boyfriend but seems most men on the force truly like her, her partner for this assignment was Yamada who is a year younger than Seiko but seems she may have had a silent crush on him at one time. That scene is much better to view than read about. So to make this tale shorter Akagi was nabbed as he left the hotel and that woman was quite strung up. If there's one thing we've learned is that you don't mess with Seiko, for the second episode in a row she took a man down in less than two seconds and the city of Machiyama has one less drug dealer to worry about. Now on to the final case which has to do with Risa's lost earring and also about a burglar named Kikuchi who has committed many recent crimes but where is he hiding?

 Final segment and it's not a happy ending for Risa. Seiko's odd hobby is studying recent unsolved cases and she has the memory of a hawk. She recognized the earring Risa had lost and it was one stolen in a burglary a few weeks back. The suspect in that and many other house break-ins was a man named Kikuchi who just happened to be Risa's new boyfriend and had recently moved in with her! That really saddened Mai who had gotten to know the woman but a crime is a crime so it's off to her apartment to arrest this serial bandit. Risa knew zero about Kikuchi's crimes and she wasn't going to be arrested, can't say the same for him as quite a bit of stolen goods were found. Mai can be a bit too emotional in these cases to date, she was so distraught with Risa's situation she couldn't even help search the apartment though with four other officers she may not have been needed.

 But Mai did come to her senses after the search was completed and saw Miwa tending to the needs of Risa. After a search the police will never leave things as they were so Mai returned to Risa's place to put everything back in order and think she did learn an important lesson about how emotions shouldn't prevent her from doing her job. Her partner Seiko was impressed with Mai's cleanup and jumped in to help her, even the detectives from HQ looked on approvingly which brings us to the end of this recap.

 So far, so good for this series and think I will end up recapping this entire drama. Those posts will probably be on a Saturday but still unsure if there have one or two recaps at a time. That's Nanase right above and to date she's just had a so-so amount of screen time. Though she's a massive fave of mine have always said she's only a fair actress, hard to tell that in Nogi dramas but when in scenes with Erika you can definitely see the talent difference. But then again Erika is better than 99.8% of all actresses so maybe that's not a fair comparison, perhaps Nanase's role just needs to be a bit meatier and have plenty of screenshots to end off with.