Air Dates: November 5, 1987 to February 18, 1988. There were a total of fifteen episodes which aired but 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 January 7, 1988: 8.0% and there was no episode on December 31st and probably because it was New Years Eve .... Subs were done by Big Nova Subs who also have done a few other older series such as "Strada 5" which I did recap. 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 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. It's now two episodes later, not much has changed save for the fact that Izumi has enrolled at Harumi Academy but will she be staying there? In episode six Izumi moved into her first ever apartment, after helping the detective Fujiwara out in a duel against a thug the local residents donated enough moolah to pay for a year's rent!!!!
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. In this series Keiko does have many cohorts who she bosses around but none seem to mind, the only two with any kind of screen time are named Mako and Shoko. Did learn in episode four the student council is called SSG but don't know yet what those initials stand for but there's little doubt there could be something sinister about the group. SSG stands for Shadow Student Government, we learned that in the sixth episode. They're an offshoot of the student council who try to maintain the peace in Harumi though very secretly.
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 November 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 which was an elite school and mainly it was to get closer to Izumi whom she has a crush on! In the fourth show Saori got a part time job at Ken's Burger in Saki poolhall/diner, think it's because Izumi often goes there!
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 was supposed top have a female partner named Moe Muto but haven't seen her through four shows. We did in the sixth episode but don't think we'll be seeing much of Moe who is one cutie! 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....
Takeo is an actor I know so well and he's one of my faves from the 1970's and 80's. Did recap his "Strada 5" drama last year but sadly. it was just so-so however not to be missed are the two 'Stray Cat Rock' films, all five in that series need to be viewed!!!! He was in many other films and dramas worth seeing, sadly he died in 2012 at the age of seventy.
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. Did learn in the fourth episode R Agency has been recruiting teens from all over Japan and have been training them to also be ruthless but according to Ishizu none is as skilled as Izumi is and most shows will deal with trying to recapture her.
Previous recaps
Do recommend reading a few of these and actually all as they are easy to breeze through plus it will help you follow the storylines so much better. In a way you could wait until I have finished recapping the entire series, go to the final post and start reading from the first link!
For each recap will also try to have a different video, there aren't too many but there could be enough for most posts. Have a real treat for today and this should be the best of all the videos! It's from 1988 and a half hour video of Izumi titled "Marine Blue" but it doesn't appear to be from one of her photobooks though who cares as she looks so unbelievably perfect!😍 As I've said a few times the character of Izumi reminds me so much of Nami Matsushima from the 'Female Scorpion' movie series who is so quite yet very lethal plus is so overly attractive!!!! The first screenshot below shows the air date and title of the episode, will have a new one for each recap.
Think I'm a day late with this trio of recaps but no big deal as it did air 37 years ago! Had wanted do get the series done by the end of March but thinking April 3rd will be when the final recaps are done, once again will say no big deal! Right above you can see some screenshots from this episode, the band A-JARI was a real one that had some moderate success in the late 80's. They did the theme song for this series or at least it was for episodes one to nine, then Izumi had the theme song for the final six shows. It was explained in the show where the name A-JARI came from, his manager in this episode told us but in real life he wasn't their manager. JARI means Child/Kids according to the manager, the A was short for Class A so in a way the name meant Classy Kids. Did check their Ja,wiki page but they had no info on that.
The main story revolved around A-JARI which was a bit of a negative. Their music is okay and we did hear a few tunes by them, if you know that 80's sound then you can imagine how the band was but they did have a few upbeat songs which were their better ones. But with them being the main story it meant we heard zero about the dreaded R Agency organization, Izumi getting revenge for what they did to her was supposed to be the focus but it hasn't for two episodes. We also didn't see the character of Eiji Fujiwara who plays a Harumi PD detective and I like the actor who does that role. All in all this was a decent show but others were better, after today there's just six episodes to go and I have no clue how this series will end. The next trio of recaps will be in 4-5 days, enough of my rambling and let's get to the action.... the highlight was when A-JARI backed Izumi singing a song!
Back then Yaoi was a talented guitarist who was on the brink of becoming a star, when he refused to be bullied by Otsu his hand had been stabbed thus the end of his career. Since then Yaoi has been working hard to develop bands in the Harumi and Ginza area, he's done well and one goal was to make sure the younger kids became respectable adults and didn't end up in Otsu's gang. Yaoi has done well for himself but is far from rich but that could change as A-JARI has become so popular and is on the verge of signing a recording contract. Which Otsu nor his boss Yamashita want to see as they have no control over the band or Yaoi, if they can't see a lot of money from A-JARI then they'll make sure the group never hits it big! If you've read these recaps you know that a few shows ago Keiko and Saori began a new business where Izumi would solve any of your problems as long as she was well compensated! That didn't please her at all and refused to help out, not sure why as it is a legit job where she could make a decent amount of cash. This time around Izumi did say yes when Keiko and Saori said the trio would be the bodyguards of A-JARI, their manager Yaoi agreed to that!? Why he would to three high school girls is beyond me though Izumi by herself can be more powerful than a small army!!!!
Yaoi had been on the pier where the band practiced, he hadn't told them yet of Otsu's threats nor of cancelling the next evening's concert. But Yaoi did tell all to Izumi, Keiko and Saori who had visited the pier and wondered why A-JARI wasn't rehearsing for their big show? The trio were a bit disappointed in Yaoi's decision but Izumi did notice the scar on his hand and had a strong idea why he wanted to cancel the concert which was to protect the young men. Boomboxes such as the one Saori is holding above were quite common in the 80's, so weren't cassettes and she popped in one of A-JARI's. Hearing their music changed something inside of Yaoi who soon told the girls 'The show must go on!' and before we knew it the time was the next evening. The band was in their dressing room, prepping for the concert while their three 'bodyguards' would make sure they remained safe from Otsu's gang.
Izumi had zero problems against Otsu, his goons and Yamashita who was an all talk, no action type of guy. However there was one slight problem which was that high above on a warehouse passageway was a sniper and the tied up Honda was a sitting duck for the shooter! When Izumi wants to get into High Gear she can somehow summon the inner powers of Biofeedback and is the only teen student to have gone through the training at R Agency and be able to do that. Which is what Izumi was doing in the above bottom screenshot, after gathering up more power she somehow picked up a huge metal barrel and threw it 25 feet up to knock the sniper off the passageway! That's the first screenshot below and what Izumi had done was a bit unbelievable, that went by so quickly and if I do have a beef it's the fighting scenes aren't long enough and will Izumi ever meet someone who can give her a challenge? Back at the venue A-JARI began to play and were wondering where their singer Honda was, a few seconds before he would begin singing Honda jumped onto the stage and the band gave a rockin' show for the sold out crowd. So three episodes in a row have had happy endings and the intensity will need to pick up as there's only six more shows to go, we need to see more of Izumi battling the evil R Agency as to me those episodes have been the best ones to date. Will be back in 4-5 days with the next trio of recaps and haven't viewed any past this episode.
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