"Hakozume: Tatakau! Koban Joshi" drama: Episode three 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% ... Episode three, 10.8% ... Episode four, 8.9%

Previous recaps:

Episode one .... Episode two

  

 

 Writing this up on the first but it wasn't published until today. This turned out to be a two episode story so didn't want to leave anyone interested in this drama hanging. As you can see above the first three shows drew decent ratings but took a dip in the fourth episode and would have to think it's because of the Olympics, haven't viewed that fourth show yet. On another note after the filming of episode five Mei caught the virus and everything is on hold for now. That was reported on July 23rd so filming may not begin again until August 8th or so, certain that she'll come out of it fine. But wonder if it'll effect filming the last five episodes as perhaps some may not want to get close to Mei even though there's probably nothing to worry about. Erika must be on screen with her thirty minutes each show but she doesn't seem to be the overly worrying type but a week may have to be skipped.

 The first two episodes had many cases form the new team of Seiko and Mai to respond to or solve, at least five each show. This time around there was just three, two minor ones which I'll get out of the way first, the third case is a major one which will continue into the next show. First off though was the weekly martial arts training for the officers at the Machiyama Police HQ though Seiko and Mai work outside of the building at a police box. Even though she may be tiny compared to the men at the station no person in their right mind wants to tangle with Seiko who can take down a man a foot taller than her in less than five seconds. Same can't be said for her new partner Mai nor for the detective that replaced her at HQ, Miwa. Both went up against 'The Master' and were quickly put in their place but Mai did learn some tricks which will help later on.

 First mini case was to respond to a petty robbery at a local market, the older woman above had requested Minamoto(!?) but he was unavailable so off went Seiko and Mai who this woman did not want to deal with. Seems Minamoto had helped this woman out before and had acted quite nicely towards her, she's been so lonely so stole some items to be arrested by him! Seiko saw through this woman's story and who knows what may have happened because soon arriving on the scene was Minamoto. He had her grandson in tow who vowed to spend more time with his grandmother so it was kind of a happy ending and no charges were pressed. Seemed the main reason for that scene was to let us and Mai know how good of a 'people person' Minamoto was and even Seiko said he's the best on the force at interviewing suspects or witnesses. We saw much more of the other characters in this show which was a good thing, even more of Nanase as Miwa and her voice seems so much softer these days.

 Seiko told Mai she was taking the next day off to meet up with some of her old female classmates though Mai thought she was actually going on a date! Seiko didn't do that and nothing was discussed about a one minute scene with her roaming a neighborhood looking for.... I don't know, perhaps a vehicle? Sure there must be some reason for that scene and it will probably be brought up in the next episode. The second mini case which should have been longer dealt with a man scamming the elderly out of the $$ from their bank accounts. But wondered why would the police box be assigned the case? Don't know but they did solve it with a big help from Mai. The police box leader Igasaki made up a flyer to warn the residents but needed a drawing to attract more attention to it. Mai was assigned the task and she's not a adept drawer but did do a picture which looked eerily like Igasaki.

 That non-drawing talent will actually help at the end but first to solve this mini scamming case. The following day Seiko was back from her one day vacation(?), work assignment(?) when an elderly woman strolled into the police box. She had been contacted by an 'officer' named Yamamoto from the box who needed info about the woman's bank account to help stop the recent scamming! Well, that was all a ruse as the police would never ask for those details, Seiko had the woman call this man back to set up an appointment at her house. That's the scammer Yamamoto right above who was easily nabbed as Seiko and Mai were staking out the house, that martial arts training in the beginning paid off for Mai as to her shock she was able to bring the culprit down in one move. That scamming issue could have been a bit meatier but it filled some time up and now on to the main case. Unknown to Seiko for now during her 'day off' Mai had been called into the Police HQ to help out with an interview.

 This is the case that will continue on in the next episode and it deals with an eighteen year old high school girl named Ayana who is right above. She had come to the station to lodge a complaint against an unknown man who had touched some of her private parts and naturally the girl was quite upset. In cases like this the station's best interviewer Mnamoto would let Seiko handle the case as females would be much more comfortable opening up to her. But with Seiko not around Mai was drafted for the interview and it was her first time doing one solo. And what a disaster it turned out to be though Mai didn't realize that at first. Ayane had said some things about what the pervert did but Mai didn't probe that deeply nor did she show all that much compassion as she just read from a list of questions.

 There's no doubt that made Ayana feel quite uneasy and after a few more questions told Mai she had calmed down and would return home. Mai thought she had done a wonderful job but the following day took her first major tongue lashing from Seiko which you can see above. In situations like that an officer needs to be so much more considerate and think what must be going through the mind of an abused person which Ayana was. She just lied to get out of talking with Mai to hurry home and as it turns out Ayana has become too frightened to lo leave her house and return to school. Being a rookie Mai has made some mistakes up until now but this was the biggest one, she's been feeling so guilty she couldn't even look Seiko in the eyes the next few days.

 In that middle screenshot above is the detective Yamada, he's a year younger than Seiko but the pair had gone to police academy together. At times he comes off like a goofball and isn't as solid of a detective as his partner Minamoto but he came through and helped save the day in a way for Mai. He gave her an encouraging pep talk and also one where he gave so much advice on how she should have done the interview better with Ayana. When Seiko heard about that pep talk she calmed down a bit and truly does want to see her partner do well. There happened to be a witness to what happened with Ayana, it was a teen boy who went to a different high school. His name is Hayami and if it wasn't for him Ayana may have been abused even worse. He was able to give a partial description to the police and Miwa turned out to be the best drawer on the force so she made a sketch of the suspect. All of the officers in the area were handed a copy of it but there was zero success in finding this man, to Seiko the problem may be that the drawing was 'too good' and could another one possibly be done?

 Seiko is by far the top officer at the Machiyama station, she's so astute and efficient we need to find out why she was demoted to a police box. Seiko recalled Mai's raw drawing for the scamming poster and that's the kind of pic which would be so much more helpful, why not bring the teen boy Hayami in again to get a description of the suspect? Which is what happened and Mai really hit it off with this young man, she asked many daffy questions but they worked as she was able to draw another raw picture but one that was more life like. Seiko remembers every criminal and the sketch she drew was of a man named Yasuda who had spent time in prison for sex crimes. He was released and with there being a few other abuse cases in the area could this man be a 'serial groper'? We'll find that out in the next show as Seiko and Mai have been assigned to a task force to solve the multiple abuse cases.

 This drama seems to be getting a tad better as it goes along, it's becoming a bit more serious. Not a must watch unless you're a fan of Mei or Erika who really looks so fabulous in this show. Next post is for the fourth episode which I haven't viewed yet and has the conclusion of this abuse case.