"Hakozume: Tatakau! Koban Joshi" drama: Episode five 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%

Episode five, 12.5% .... Episode six, 11.1% ....

Previous recaps:

Episode one .... Episode two .... Episode three .... Episode four

  

 

 It's understandable if you've forgotten all about this drama as the last pair of recaps was done five weeks ago. First on July 23rd Mei caught the virus but was back to her normal self rather quickly. It didn't affect the filming schedule too much as the series was delayed for two weeks and probably because of the Olympics. So really not that far behind and it's not a drama that has an ongoing storyline, at first wasn't going to recap the entire series but if I've gone this far why not? There was supposed to be a total of ten episodes but heard it's been cut down to nine, not sure why but some think it's because a second season may be in the works and why not as the ratings are quite solid. So while not an ongoing storyline won't be talking about what's taken place up until now but the links to the prior episodes are right above and may help to skim through them.

 After I wrote that intro up had a few hours break and changed my original plans. Will only be doing this one post today and there's a solid reason for that which I'll discuss at the end of the recap. In all honesty this was just a so-so episode and the main reason is because our two heroines didn't work on any police cases. There was some minor events with an elderly couple who did get a lot of screen time and will end off with their tale. The main story which was somewhat okay involved romance for the first time with the twenty year old rookie Mai but sadly for her not much came out of the two possibilities. Mai has never had a date in her life and the only romance she knows about are from reading mangas and she's a big fan of them. Her senpai Seiko is thirty in age and it appears she's been around the block a few times though her past has never been revealed.

 Seiko had plans to go on a mixer with her old friend from the police academy who had to bail out, she asked Mai if she would like to attend her first mixer? Though quite nervous Mai readily agreed and she truly has no idea how to act around men. So she was going to let Seiko do most of the talking and one thing she told Mai was not to let on they worked for the police which is a turnoff to men(?). They did keep it hidden until the end but the double date just wasn't going well as Mai and Seiko are really two boring women whose only hobby(!) seems to be working. And to throw more of a damper on the date was that in the next room at this restaurant were their two co-workers from the Kyoto Police HQ, Minamoto and Yamada. They too were on a mixer but unlike Mai and Seiko the pair were hitting it off with their dates as women appear to really adore detectives. However an emergency call came in for an arson case so all four had to abandon their dates which was really no big loss.

 The four really weren't needed but scene they were there all were assigned a task, Mai and Seiko were on traffic duty all night around the burned out building. By the next morning Mai was dead on her feet as the pair also had to work their regular shift. Not really a complaint but these two aren't Superwoman so how can they work twenty hours almost every day? This time around the lack of sleep got to Mai as when attending a call for a fire she fell down rushing to it and it appeared she would fall asleep right on the street! But along came her Knight in Shining Armor who was a fireman named Takeda who Mai instantly fell in love with. He sent her to the hospital to rest up, wasn't long until she saw Takeda once again as a few days later he gave a first aid class at the Kyoto HQ. 

 Mai was quite inept at the training and in all honesty though she tries so hard she's not an officer you could depend on if you were in danger. But thanks to Seiko and two others at the training Mai traded phone numbers with Takeda who called after a few days to set up their first date for that weekend. That would have been Mai's ever first date too but unfortunately for her it had to be aborted. The reason was because of that elderly couple I mentioned earlier and am about to get to their story. So as their date was beginning Mai told Takeda something very pressing came up and couldn't go through with the date. But Mai wasn't all that disappointed as she did help this couple plus she learned later on that Takeda is quite a ladies man who had pics of his numerous dates on his social media account.

 Before we hit that other story there was a brief scene that had a pair of Seiko's friends from the police academy. Think we'll be seeing more of them as we didn't learn much about the two women as the scene was only for a few minutes. But the trio were talking about a fourth friend they had, her name was never mentioned but it appears some tragedy may have happened to her. So I'm thinking whatever may have taken place could be the reason Seiko was demoted from the Kyoto Police HQ to working at a police box with a rookie. That's another minor story which was touched on in some earlier episodes and would think we would be hearing much more about it.

 Those two friends are in the middle screenshot above, the bottom one has a 71 year old man named Yuzo Miyake. He had come into the police box complaining that his 69 year old wife Sachiko was beating on him, had a younger boyfriend and wanted to send him to a nursing home. Sadly this Yuzo man was suffering from dementia and Seiko could tell that right off the bat. His wife was contacted and though Sachiko is such a nice woman caring for him 24 hours a day was getting to her. Her part time helper had talked about putting her husband into a home which she wouldn't hear of but then again would it be better for him? That's because just a few days later the man was wandering the streets and his dementia was getting out of control, Sachiko does give him medication but it's not working as well and she's becoming quite frazzled.

 On the day of Mai's big date with Takeda she had left her apartment building with Seiko when the pair ran into the couple. Yuzo told them they were headed to a hot spring and that Sachiko had told him the medicine wasn't needed anymore. That should have raised suspicions then for Mai who didn't realize what may be taking place for a while, she put two and two together when she rushed to their house. But of course nothing escapes Seiko who had gone to the hot spring and brought them back to their house. It was never said out loud but you can see above what Sachiko's intention was as she had left a suicide note for their daughter! Luckily our two heroines were there to save the day and it was kind of a happy ending though the couple will be separated as the husband will be going to a nursing home.

 On occasion when I write a recap up the episode turns out to be a bit better than I thought which was the case for this show. No episode past the sixth show has been subbed so thought it would be better having two sets of two recaps for the sixth to ninth shows which will end the series, expect the first pair in hopefully a week. A bigger reason for not wanting to view and then write up episode six is that I wanted to get cracking on the "Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken" movie which I've had for a month but haven't watched any of it yet. It's going to take 2-3 days to view it and then write up two posts so that's my #1 priority now and hope to have those posts  by the end of the weekend.