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 21, 1988: 6.3% and this was a big decrease from 9.3% .... 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!!!! Biofeedback is the name of the program/experiments she had been doing at the R Agency, Izumi is the only one who completed all of the tests and training who lived to talk about it!
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! Fujiwara does have a secret crush on her but don't think that will be going anywhere. 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. **** In episode six learned that Ishizu is the mysterious person playing pool often at the Burger in Saki shop. He is quite talented and is hanging around there to keep tabs on Izumi. Learned in the eleventh episode that is was Ishizu who had killed the teen girl Reiko three yeas prior. At the time he threatened the only witness Saori to tell the police it was Izumi who was the killer but the truth has been revealed.
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. Wrote that prior sentence up for the first recap and here were are ten episodes later. Am running out of videos for the series but do have a good one below from an eighth episode scene and what a master Izumi is at fencing.... how many can peel apples that way?! 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.
Fifteen shows is long enough to tell a story but back then most of these series had 20-26 episodes, these days usually no more than a dozen. Will explain most of what's right above in this section, we had forgotten that Izumi was now a student at Harumi Academy and seems to be doing well but can someone like her have any kind of normal life? Finally with a lot of screen time is the character in the second screenshot above who is Rinichiro Ishizu and he's the main executive of the very evil R Agency criminal organization. We learned much more about him in the show though I do think he has one leader above him but seems Ishizu calls all the shots. Also learning more about Ishizu was Izumi and you can see her right above, for the first time she actually took quite a beating!!!! Which didn't have to happen but Izumi hates to use her powerful Biofeedback and what that is has been explained enough but it's the kind of training and testing Izumi went through while a hostage of R Agency for three years. Many attempts to recapture Izumi have failed and now Ishizu will oversee that operation by himself, he desperately wants to continue with Izumi's Biofeedback experiments as she's the only captured teen to have survived all of the grueling training and testing at R Agency, all others have died!!!! But they do have an army of soldiers and while inept why are they kidnapping teens for their experiments? We still have four episodes to learn that and let's finally get to the meat of this recap as this paragraph was twice as long as planned.
So now her friends have even more respect for Izumi, very quickly this trio has bonded so closely and could be considered a family. The sixth and seventh screenshots above show Ishizu leading a meeting at R Agency with their other directors who don't seem to have nearly as much power as Ishizu. However all were so incensed with him for allowing Izumi to escape from the R Agency compound which wasn't his fault. But it may have been Ishizu's fault for not brainwashing her better as it may have prevented that escape plus Izumi wouldn't be so difficult to recapture. Ishizu had enough of their complaining and told all to shut up or else!!!! He's become somewhat obsessed with Izumi and vowed to all that he will be the person to take her as a hostage again, within an hour or so his mission began! In those bottom two screenshots above you can see that Ishizu to our surprise and also Izumi's knocked on her apartment door, didn't she wonder where he got her address? Izumi does know Ishizu from the Burger in Saki pool hall/diner which her friend Ken runs, Ishizu is there often playing pool by himself and he is so skilled at the sport. No one there knows his name and because Ishizu was older no one ever struck up a conversation with him, Ishizu had been at Ken's often to keep tabs on Izumi. Ishizu knows about Izumi's Job Agency where she will do any kind of assignment but it's mainly run by Keiko. To our shock and Izumi's curiosity Ishizu wants to hire her as his personal bodyguard for a day, Ishizu said he was going to Shizuoka in two days and wanted Izumi to protect him and his briefcase. For this seemingly easy task he will pay Izumi the sum of.... One Million Yen!!!!
That's what Saori thought, she's the most meek of the trio but has been trying to assert herself much more. She ended up throwing many objects and such at the potential thieves which worked as the men had no clue what to do. That is until Saori made a major mistake and threw Ishizu's briefcase at them, the leader smiled with joy as he said arigato and left! Izumi knew what a boneheaded thing Saori did though she didn't and thought she was the hero, that is until Ishizu paid a visit the following day. It was never said out loud but we all knew what had taken place as Ishizu is still testing Izumi and wants to see at what level of her being furious will activate her Biofeedback, she didn't when the thieves had raided her place. Ishizu said that other briefcase was a decoy(!), he gave it to Izumi to throw any robbers off the scent of the real one and now it's time for their trip to Shizuoka where they never ended up arriving. Shortly after their departure Saori recalled who Ishizu was and the danger Izumi is in. She told Keiko the story and how three years ago it had been Ishizu who had killed Keiko's best friend Reiko and how it was him who had threatened Saori to tell the police Izumi was the killer! Saori was in such a state of panic and right then the Harumi Juvenile Division detective Fujiwara passed by, Saori told him the unbelievable story and now they're on the hunt for Ishizu though that had no impact on the story. Meanwhile the trip for Ishizu was going as planned, he had some of his R Agency soldiers trailing his car and shooting at it, probably not to kill and to see when or if Izumi would revert to being the Ultimate Weapon!
Ishizu was about fifty yards away so Izumi couldn't attack him but she did let him know how she despised everything about the man and his dreaded R Agency, she'll get revenge for all he's kidnapped and killed!!!! With that Ishizu knew he could never get Izumi under his control again, with the police approaching he told his remaining henchman it's time to flee and gave the order to terminate Izumi! Ishizu did mumble that the day when he rules Japan is drawing nearer and had an inkling that's what his major plan was. Soon arriving on the scene was the police who was the detective Fujiwara and he had no impact on what took place. With him were Keiko and Saori who told Izumi about Ishizu being the man who had killed Reiko and had tried to pin that murder on Izumi! So that wraps up the adventures to this episode and it was quite action packed, so much took place and it just may have been the best show to date. Below this is the final recap for today which is for episode twelve and haven't viewed that yet.
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