"Sukeban Deka" season one drama, recap four of 24 episodes

 

Air Dates: April 11 to October 31, 1985 Thursdays at 7:30 pm on Fuji-TV

Based upon the manga by Shinji Wada, there were some differences between the manga and this series such as two new characters but for the most part what took place in the manga was followed... Subs by Mashhamid though a few others have also subbed this series

Ratings: Average for all 24 episodes was 13.04%, the high was 17.0% while 9.6% was the lowest and that happened twice. This episode's rating was 12.9% which was .8 lower than the previous show and this aired on April 25, 1985

 For my first two 'comeback dramas' after taking a four month break picked a pair of ancient ones, good timing for this series as it aired exactly forty years ago! No solid reasons for picking these but thought the pair, the other was "Shoujou Commando Izumi", would be easier to recap as they're both 25 minute shows and though I do enjoy 45+ minute episodes they can take a while to write up. Sure many of you readers may have a basic knowledge of these DEKA series which were very popular back in the 1980's as there two more seasons after this plus some movies. But there were also many films in this genre that were released from about 1970-74 though they weren't nearly as innocent as this show or movies but do recommend those 1970's films which are among my favorites.

 May do a bit of editing to these first few paragraphs though then again may delete them and throw in some other thoughts or info, we'll see how things work out. Did say I was hoping for a pair of easier dramas for my return to recapping but neither one will be as easy as expected. This one especially and have a strong feeling the Bio section will be needing a lot of editing as we go along plus I bet there are going to be many characters who come and go. Will admit I was really confused about many things after viewing the first show which was only so-so until the end and wondered did I make the right decision as this is a long series with 24 episodes. However the second show was so much better and didn't begin writing this up until viewing that one, that does happen often where the first show is working out the kinks. For the previous series did five batches of three recaps as it was a fifteen episode show which worked out well. So was going to continue that with this series and have eight batches of three recaps but now I'm not sure what to do, am leaning on going back to having two at a time and will decide that at the end of the next recap which is the post below this one.

 The heroine in this series was Yuki Saito who was eighteen when the show began in April 1985, she turned nineteen while it was airing. Wouldn't call Yuki a superstar but she's an actress most drama fans should know of as she's been so busy over the last forty years appearing in too many dramas, movies and stage plays to count! Yuki is also a singer who has about ten albums and 25 singles along with doing many other theme songs to dramas, she does the ending song to this show. Yuki is now 58 in age and she was an attractive woman back in her twenties and thirties, not saying she looks bad now but as mentioned is getting up there in age. Enough of an intro as there's always another mini section after the main character bios which are below and will be editing them quite often.

 Most of the action will be taking place at the Takanoha Academy high school but in episode one the setting was St. Annes school which did slightly confuse me. Episode two is when Saki enrolls at Takanoha Academy and we didn't meet most major characters until then or at least the main students. Most of these photos at the top are of Saki holding a Yo-Yo, it's no ordinary one! When it flips open it shows the Police Crest as Saki is an undercover detective and what power it has. The Yo-Yo can smash through steel and if a person gets hit with it they're down for the count, the steel string is very long and can also double as a pair of handcuffs.

 Yuki Saito as Saki Asamiya.... There is so much to say about Saki and not enough space! Saki's mother Natsu is currently on death row for killing her husband Toshiya, that happened when Saki was six in age which was eleven years ago. For the next nine years don't know yet what became of Saki but by the age of twelve she was a delinquent. She did enter high school but was expelled from Takanoha Academy at the age of fifteen and sent to Kanto Kita Juvenile Center but there was something about Saki or perhaps her circumstances which attracted the attention of the two men below this bio, Jin and Shirei. They're the top two executives of the very secret government department Dark Agency, they've recruited Saki to become an undercover detective as being a teen will allow to work much more efficiently at high schools. Of course Saki refused at first but the offer included an apartment, clothes and such plus a huge kicker. Which is that if Saki successfully completed a mission her mother Natsu's death penalty would be voided though would have to finish a prison sentence. To that offer Saki agreed but the Dark Agency did renege on their end of the deal and came up with an excuse for Saki to do another mission which she reluctantly said yes to so think that scenario of Dark Agency using Saki will continue on. Know more changes will be done to Saki's bio but that covers what we learned in the first two episodes. Saki's mother Natsu is in the bottom screenshot, don't think we'll be seeing her too often.

 

Koji Naka as Kyoichiro Jin.... The top agent for Dark Agency and is Saki's 'handler'. Jin was a cool looking man and was very respected by his superior Shirei. Jin is very skilled at martial arts and drives a yellow Porsche 911.

 Hiroyuki Nagato as Kurayami Shirei.... Leader of Dark Agency and the person who recruited  Saki to be an undercover detective at high schools. To me it appears Shirei is the one toying with Saki and saying he'll void her mother's death sentence to keep her doing missions, think Jin does have a soft spot for Saki and doesn't like seeing her used. Shirei had been a judge at one time and was one of the six on the panel for Natsu's murder trial! Perhaps that's why he chose Saki to be a secret detective as he had been keeping tabs on her for about a decade and felt she was finally ready for action! Don't know if it will continue on for the whole series but when Shirei appears in screen we never see him clearly, he is an older man and maybe keeping his face obscured adds to the mystery.

 The remaining characters are all from Takanoha Academy which is a high school, in Tokyo? No characters appeared in the first episode so these bios will definitely need to be edited for future posts, the top characters are the students. Don't think any teachers will be key to the stories but will add a pair in plus the principal. Saki had attended this school when she was fifteen in age but had been expelled in her first year and sent to a detention center, she's now returned to the fury of many who remember her!

Chiaki Watanabe as Miyako Yumekoji.... She too is a delinquent girl but unlike Saki was never sent away to a detention center and is very intelligent though her ego is a bit too large. When Saki had been expelled Miyako took 'control' of the school or in other words has become the leader of the school's undesirables. Who are females and you never see girls have male underlings in these shows or films, of course those henchmen(women?) are Yes People who bully others. None of that group of Miyako's followers will have large roles but we will be seeing them often enough, the names of the main four girls are Tomiko, Hanako, Masayo and Tamami. That's them in the first screenshot below, Miyako is on the left and in the center of the second screenshot. Miyako is a very attractive teen and for now hates Saki with such a passion so a theme for the first half of the series will be of her trying to take Saki down. Of course Miyako doesn't know Saki is an undercover detective and had felt she returned to Takanoha Academy to take control of the female gangs which was not the case.

 Yasuyoshi Masuda as Sanpei Nowaki.... That's an odd name and don't recall ever seeing either of those before. Senpai wasn't at Takanoha Academy when Saki was enrolled there two years ago, when he first saw Saki in present times it was love at first sight for Senpai!!!! Who had no idea of Saki's past but was so enamored with her ultra coolness plus she was attractive. Unsure(doubt) if Saki will ever return Senpai's feelings of love but think he will become a trusted ally. By the third episode Sanpei has become friends with Saki, not best friends yet but he is her only one.

 Jo Onode as Taro.... Haven't seen him to date so have no screenshot for the character but included him for now as this role is supposed to be important. Same goes for Mai Tachihara who plays Kazuko Hasegawa, she too we didn't see in the first three shows. 

 

 Genji Kawai as Miyagawa.... Principal of Takanoha Academy and he probably won't be an important character but should be in most episodes, he's the older man sitting at the desk.

 Hiraizumi Sei as Numa Juzo.... PE teacher at the academy and also the home room teacher of Saki's. Juzo was strongly opposed to Saki being able to reenroll at the school but like all didn't know she was an undercover detective. He also works in  the guidance department and can be extremely strict though usually is fair to all except not at first towards Saki.

Previous recaps

 There is one woman English teacher who may be added in to the above but that should be it for the cast or least for now. There will be some new storylines and characters added into the series as we go along so off course will add in any major characters and keep editing to the existing characters also.  Have said om other dramas how in a way it could be easier to wait until the entire series has been finished or pick a certain show to wait until, say the midway point. Then you could go into one post and click on the links for each episode as doing it that way makes it so much easier to read plus this is the only was you can read them in order quickly as searching could take a while.

Episode one .... Episode two

 You do see those characters at the end of most of these kinds of dramas, ones where the story is ongoing. Those Hiragana characters spell out Tsudzuku which means To be continued, of course it means the story and that car is Jin's yellow Porsche 911. For each recap will have a video for this series and hopefully there can be a new one for each post and there aren't as many as I thought. For today have a really good one which is the drama's theme song "White Flame" that was sung by the show's heroine Saki aka Yuki Saito.  The video has many short scenes from the series and it may help watching as the song is quite good plus you can see a live version of what I discuss in the recaps. Below the video will be a screenshot of what the episode's title was, those you saw in the previous drama I reviewed and was having titles much more common in the 80's?

  

 

 

 To date every episode has been better than the previous one, the trend continued for this show. So that would make it the best of the four and actually this was by far the top episode so it may take a while to beat! While not a ton of action the story was superb with some plot changes, kidnappings, corruption and a lot more was squeezed into 23 1/2 minutes. The show opened up with a very brief scene which was of Saki having a nightmare and she's been having many of them which are of her mother Natsu being surrounded by a raging fire. Not sure what the significance of the fire is but Natsu is in prison and still may be executed for murdering her husband eleven years ago, really nothing else about the mother was in this episode. Every show ends off with Saki saying some coolish lines to the creeps she's just arrested, the bottom one above is what she said to a quartet of mobsters she collared in this episode! Saki also said a few other things which are in the screenshots at the end, she may only be seventeen in age but Saki is very wise for her age! That wraps up this mini intro, didn't need to make any changes today in the bio section which was a first though the video is new and let's get to the action.... as mentioned there wasn't much until the end but the story was so interesting.

 The top screenshot of Saki took place about a minute after waking up from that nightmare but wondered was she still sleeping? For outside her bedroom door she saw a flicker of light and was it an intruder or was Saki possibly still in that nightmare? No, for as she say it's her Dark Agency handler Kyoichiro Jin and he actually was a bit embarrassed about entering Saki's bedroom so it had to be important! It was for Jin popped in a cassette tape such as what used to take place in the old "Mission Impossible" drama. The voice belonged to the Dark Agency director Shirei who we seldom see but often hear via tapes or the phone. As Shirei said three days ago the father of Saki's classmate Nanami Hayasaki was dead due to jumping off a roof, that's the man Yuji in the bottom screenshot. The police ruled it a suicide but not the mysterious government group Dark Agency who felt that Hayasaki was murdered and who would do it? The Dark Agency wasn't sure but do know that the reason they killed Hayasaki was that he had some information about a corrupt company and was going to publish his findings. Which the group couldn't have happen but when Hayasaki was killed he didn't have the documents on him. To Dark Agency it meant that the next target would be his wife Hidari and/or their seventeen year old daughter Manami. That's where Saki comes into the picture for her role was to protect the daughter and it shouldn't be hard as they're in the same class at Takanoha Academy. Once again Saki didn't need to be blackmailed into doing a mission and how did the Dark Agency know so many cases would involve the high school?

 Nanami Hayasaki is in two above screenshots and also many more below. Her name in real life is Masayo Makiguchi who was born in 1966 and was eighteen in age at the time. Bring her up for so many female actresses in the 1980's didn't have long careers, seems the vast majority retired by the age of 25 to get married. While in class there was an announcement over the loudspeaker telling Nanami to report to the principal's office, that sounded suspicious to Saki who trailed the girl there. Saki listened at the door and heard the unbelievable, Nanami was being arrested for the murder of her father! Of course that was so far from the truth, no matter how hard the principal Miyagawa begged for the police not to arrest her it fell on deaf ears and Nanami was dragged away. Back in their classroom Saki finally realized something was not right, should she have stepped in and saved Nanami? But at the time Saki had no clue those two men were not the police, that she learned later when she brought Nanami's books and briefcase to her mother. Who was weeping at home and that's the woman below whose name is Hidari. She was beyond herself with grief for first her husband died and now her daughter was dragged away!!!! That really shook up Saki and while she was there a call came in for the mother, it was from an unknown man who claimed his group had kidnapped Nanami and would only release her if Hidari handed over her husbands notes for that corruption story. Hidari had searched her house high and low without finding them, Saki had heard enough to know she had been tricked into thinking Nanami had been dragged away by the police. She was able to get the phone number of the kidnappers, Saki soon sent the mother away to a relative in Setagaya and now it's time for our hero to jump into action!

 Saki is an unbeatable fighter and especially with her Yo-Yo but she is also quick witted as while talking with the mother she came up with an ingenious plan to find Nanami and her kidnappers. With the mother Hidari out of the way Saki notified the kidnappers and claimed she had found the documents exposing this company's corrupt ways, the company was named Seiun Construction. Just before Hidari departed she told Saki the company was led by a cruel and devious man named Kisaburo Kurosaki and he was the man behind the New Town scandal which was a housing development that Kurosaki bribed his way into building. Yuji Hayasaka did some digging to uncover the truth and naturally he paid for his heroic efforts in a cruel way by being pushed off a roof so that's the condensed version of his death, why Nanami was kidnapped, Hidari sent away and Saki now on the scene to be the savior! That phone call Saki made was to Kurosaki's subordinate Kurobe who we saw more than his boss, Saki claimed to be the older sister of Nanami! Kurobe had no clue of how large the Hayasaka family was so just accepted the fact Nanami had an older sister and agreed to meet with Saki, a trade was set up for her to give Yuji's documents in exchange for Nanami. You can see her tied up above, she was roughed up a bit by those goons and these cowardly wanna-be gangsters had no honor.

 At the meeting Kurobe's goons didn't bring Nanami but then again Saki didn't have that report which exposed the underhanded dealings of the Seiun Construction company. Saki too was roughed up a bit though could have made mince meat of those two thugs but held back as she was hoping to be brought to where Nanami was being held captive. That plan worked and shortly after that Kurobe's three henchmen left this hideaway to return to the Hayasaka house to do another search for those reports. That was quick thinking on Saki's part to pretend being Nanami's older sister and though in the same grade at Takanoha Academy Saki is a year older. But now the problem is how to escape this hideout which appeared to be an abandoned warehouse. Both girls were tied up and least it gave them some time to get to know each other. Nanami did explain more about her father's reports and we'll soon find out why she knew about him writing the article which would expose the corruption at Seiun Construction. Saki talked a lot about Nanami's mother who she had only been with for ten minutes. Saki did show a soft side to her in this scene and Nanami's mother really reminded Saki of her own, she really believes that a mother's love tops everything so when something bad happens to a loving mother Saki becomes more than irate which she was at this moment.

 I don't look at the time too often when viewing an episode but there was probably only 6-7 minutes left and as usual so much was crammed into a small period of time. What took place is in the above screenshots and the first five below. That top screenshot above is extremely important, while both girls were still tied up Nanami was able to show Saki a pendant her father Yuji had recently given her. In the pendant was a microfilm that had all of the data Yuji Hayasaka had accumulated in his reporting of the corrupt Seiun Construction. That's how Nanami had come to know so much about this scandal and of course the Seiun chairman Kurosaki nor his top aide Kurobe had any idea about what Nanami knew or that there was a microfilm. Which had been given to Nanami in case anything happened to her father which did as he's now dead but she didn't have a chance yet to give the microfilm to the police or newspapers. Time was running down in this show so an escape had to be done NOW, in a coat pocket Saki had her trusted powerful Yo-Yo which you can see in the third screenshot above. That Yo-Yo has many uses and in this instance Saki used it as a wire cutter! For it's string is stronger than steel and though it took a while because of being tied up Saki did free herself! But before cutting Nanami free Saki screamed for help and appearing on the scene soon was the goon Kurobe who was alone for he had sent his cronies back to the Hayasaka residence. Saki took him down quite easily, she then freed Nanami and told her to rush to the police and show them the microfilm! Saki herself hid and a recovered Kurobe called his boss Kurosaki who was fuming that the girls weren't killed. Kurosaki wanted Kurobe and his gang to come to his mansion immediately to discuss their next move, trailing Kurobe was of course Saki.

 She had to take that risk at the hideout to battle Kurobe before freeing Nanami in the hope he would lead Saki to his main boss, the Dark Agency presumed Kurosaki was the mastermind of the scandal but had no proof until now. In a surprise to us viewers and Saki joining her outside of the mansion was her Dark Agency handler Jin who is right above. He thanked Saki for her excellent work up until now but said Kurosaki and his goons are very dangerous so perhaps it would be better if Jin brought his troops in to finish up the arrest. "No Way!" was Saki's response which I think Jin was hoping to hear, he soon left in his yellow Porsche 911 fully confident Saki would take care of everything and probably better than Jin's own men could do! Which did happen and that scene is right below, there was only a minute to go in the show and the group of four meeting to discuss the recapture of Nanami were no match for Saki! She's quickly become a master at using that Yo-Yo, within about twenty seconds she smashed up Kurosaki's den and hurt those wanna-be gangsters rather badly as all meekly surrendered. That Yo-Yo's wire string is also very long as Saki used it as handcuffs to tie up the small group of men, as usual she gave them some verbal abuse which they deserved and when that happens it means an episode has come to it's end. Which of course means this recap has also come to it's end, as mentioned in the intro the first ten minutes of this series was only so-so at but but since then this has been one terrific series. I am really enjoying this show and while there hasn't been as much wall to wall action as I was expecting that could be a huge plus as the stories have been so interesting. This was the best show to date and the next pair of recaps should be in four days. **** Don't know how many view the screenshots but I highly recommend doing so, they really help you follow the story so much better.