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 December 17, 1987: 8.9% which was a large increase from the past two shows.... Subs were 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 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. The one for today is from the opening scene of the first episode and didn't know it was on YT until now. 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.
Am a bit brain dead though not like Izumi in the above screenshot so may make this intro a bit shorter but could come back to add in some more musings. Speaking of Izumi there she is smiling at us though smiling is what she's certainly been making me do during this drama, it may be hard to tell from the screenshots because they're so old but she is close to being the most attractive woman 😍I have ever seen though not in an obvious way if that makes sense. In this episode the only regular cast member we saw much of Izumi as five guest stars(!) had quite a bit of screen time. One is the above boy whose real name is Naoki Hosaka, he was very popular in the 1990's and continued acting until just a few years ago, he's had an interesting past so it's worth checking out his Ja.wiki page. Some people don't like changes but not me as I'm glad when something different takes place in a drama which is what happened in this show. Not as much action until the end but what an odd and interesting storyline which took place at a different high school and so much did take happen. So we saw very little of Keiko, Saori and Ken plus after having the main role in the last show the Harumi detective Fujiwara never made an appearance in this episode and this paragraph was longer than planned so let's get to the action!
Hokuyo high school is where Izumi's assignment will taking place, somehow(!?) Keiko and Saori had snuck into the school's record office and were able to create records that Izumi was a student there! That made me scratch my head and not because of dandruff, they also inserted her photo onto documents and at Hokuyo high school Izumi will be known as Hiroko Inagaki but will still refer to her as Izumi. The time is Saturday and this story was lifted from the "Breakfast Club" movie that came out three years earlier. Five students, three boys and a pair of girls, had been sentenced to spend a day in detention and none knew each other as friends, same plot for both with a slight difference. Which is that Izumi was sent to protect a student who Keiko said was going to be sent to a battlefield.... to her it sounded like the R Agency was involved and she was right with that theory. So as mentioned Izumi will be one of the five students and is undercover with the name of Hiroko, that's just below. Above are the rest of the students with the teacher's name being Hoshino, what an annoying inept lady she was. Also above is the other female student Yuuko Miyazano, the three males are the 'brain' Hiroshi Murayama, Yohei Tsahiro who though big is such a wimp and the final boy is Shintaro Fukamachi. He's the lad that Izumi is supposed to protect and why would anyone(R Agency) want to recruit this boy to be on a battlefield?
Another thing that reminded me so much of the "Breakfast Club" was that all five students were different from each other and to an extent were outcasts, why were they all assigned to detention? Of course for Izumi it was because her friends Keiko and Saori had forged some documents to get her there to protect Fukamachi. He's such a punk and had just done so many unlawful acts at school to get him thrown into detention which he seems to have attended many times before. But all in all he did turn out to be a decent kid and had moaned that no one understood him which was correct. The other girl Yuuko was an ace swimmer but while far in the lead in her last race gave up just before the finish line and ended up last(!).... you get detention for that? Then there was the brain Murayama who handed in a blank test for no apparent reason, the fifth student was the biggish boy Tashiro who was someone that was easy to pick on and it was never explained why he was there. But all had something in common which even could include Izumi as all had become outcasts and had stood up to protest their lives in their own ways. Izumi did truthfully confess about her parents dying when she was ten in age and how she had been all alone since then, being Alone was another common bond between the five students. Though she had no access to computers Saori is one intelligent young girl as she had found out that Daidoji was connected with R Agency and had abducted other students from a fake detention. Saori rushed to Hokuyo high school to alert Izumi but guess she didn't stick around to help out.
Daidoji kept saying how Fukamachi would be nothing but a failure in the future and even his parents wanted to disown him, somehow those words connected with Fukamachi who said he would become an R Agency trainee! But luckily arriving on the scene was our heroine Izumi who tried to talk some sense into Fukamachi but to no avail as he attacked her with a knife, that too is above. It doesn't matter who you are as it doesn't seem any person or even perhaps an ET can defeat Izumi as she ended up getting the best of Fukamachi and even stabbed him though not too seriously. Up next was Daidoji who proved to be a better fighter but there was a reason Izumi was known as the R Agency's Ultimate Weapon so he too was bested though not killed. We never do see what becomes of the R Agency goons that Izumi beats so don't know if she's ever killed someone or just hurt them bad enough so they would be out of commission for a while. The pair zoomed back to the classroom and to the shock of the 'teacher' Hoshino all fiver students were there at 3:30 when the detention ended and all even handed in their tests. Outside the school Izumi did hook up with her now two best friends Keiko and Saori, Izumi had asked did they get paid for the assignment which Keiko said no to and she didn't even know who had 'hired' them? That wraps up this recap and it's nice to have a different kind of story now and again though Izumi defeating the R Agency again didn't make their top executive Ishizu too pleased for when the show ended he said capturing her again is his #1 one priority! The next post has the recap for the eighth episode which I haven't viewed yet.
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