"Sukeban Deka" season one drama, recap eleven 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 15.6% which was the highest rating to date and this aired on July 11, 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 though we haven't seen him in a physical fight through eight episodes 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 one 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.

  

 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 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. Edit after episode twelve: Am a bit shocked no new characters have been added in and not sure if that's good or not?! 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 .... Episode three .... Episode four

Episode five .... Episode six ... Episode seven .... Episode eight

Episode nine .... Episode ten

 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. So it is getting tougher so may have to leave a video up for two recaps or perhaps have some of Yuki's J-Pop songs. For today to have a Yuki tune which is titled "Yume no Naka e" aka Into a Dream. The single was her biggest seller to date with over 400,000 copies sold and was released on April 21,1989 so she was 22 in age at the time. 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?

   

 

 

 That's a decent Yuki tune above and will have more in future posts, as mentioned before I enjoy the J-Pop songs from the 1980's and early 90's more than the ones these days. Am a few days late with today's pair of recaps but it's no big deal as this drama aired forty years ago! Once again didn't need to update the above bio section as not many new things have been learned about the main characters. Still haven't added in any new characters but think that may be changing soon. In the last set of recaps had been musing on whether I would finish this series and am now 100% certain that I will. Was just getting a bit burnt out from writing so many up in the same vein as the previous series I recapped was so similar to this show. But have caught my second wind and will try to wrap up the entire drama in a month, the pair of recaps for today could be the best two episodes to date.

 This is also the first time the a story has been a two-parter, the first screenshot above shows the title. It's an odd one to me and was it a misprint(?) as it says "Part 2: The Evil Three Sister Enter introduction" and part two should have been one but it was also the way the title was listed at the drama's Ja.wiki page. The boy Sanpei above did get more screentime which I was glad for, the setting was our heroine's Saki's regular high school Takanoha Academy. As you can see above Saki had just joined the Kendo club and that other girl will be very important to the story. There seemingly is nothing Saki can't do well except to play Volleyball as she was quite adept at Kendo from the start. However what made these two episodes so much better is that Saki may have finally met her match and she even said that to herself twice in the next recap. Enough of an intro so let's get to what took place.... did Saki really perish at the end of this show?!?!

 Because this was a two part story did view the next episode already but won't give away any spoilers. That girl with the shortish hair is named Ritsuko Mitsuhi, she's very good at Kendo as she's the captain of the team and was very impressed with our heroine Saki's skill for she's new at the sport. On a more important note Ritsuko is the president of the Student Council at Takanoha Academy and is well liked at the high school but will be the target of the three transfer students above and more on them in a few sentences. Ritsuko had told Saki she's had her eye on her since Saki reenrolled at the high school for the two are similar in some sad ways. When Ritsuko was young her parents died in an auto accident and she's currently living alone in an apartment, is that legal in Japan? Also living alone is Saki and has been since her mother went to prison for murdering her husband when Saki was six, we haven't learned yet how she spent the years from six to about twelve, in an orphanage? We haven't heard much about Saki's mother over the last few episodes and guess that story is dying out which is fine by me. Who we only saw for a brief scene in this episode was Saki's Dark Agency handler Jin but in the next show he will be playing an important role, one in which he may have saved Saki's life for the first time!

 On the same day at Takanoha Academy there were three new transfer students, all had different last names and were not in the same class. So at first no one at the high school realized the trio were connected though Saki soon became aware of that. After that day at school when Saki arrived back at her apartment there was a bouquet of flowers and also a cassette tape from the Dark Agency leader Shirei who we seldom see but his voice is heard in each show. Saki's next mission will once again take place at her Takanoha Academy school, four episodes haven't. Somehow the Dark Agency top men Shirei and Jin learn about these mysterious impending crimes and hope their secret will be revealed. In an envelope was that cassette along with photos of the three new transfer students, for now Saki's assignment is to keep tabs on them and let the trio make the first move. In the second to last screenshot are photos of the girls, they also each have a solo screenshot above that. The girl with glasses seems to be the semi-leader as she's the oldest and is a senior, the other two are juniors. The girl with glasses is named Yokoyama and she is so intelligent, in her first day in class she told the teacher her goal was to attend Todai and she's smart enough to. On the right in that photo is Tagawa who is in Saki's class, this newbie is quite skilled at Kendo and did match up against Saki who was put in her place by Tagawa(below)! The third girl on the left is Miyahara who is a talented pianist though I didn't think so while listening to her play a solo piece for the music club. So that's the trio Saki needs to keep tabs on, why still wasn't known at this point and according to the Dark Agency there's probably a leader overseeing these new students.

 So all three newbies were extremely talented at a few things and Saki had been secretly spying on them but hadn't seen anything to sound an alarm. But she will soon as above the senior and very intelligent Yokoyama introduced herself to the student council president Ritsuko and said she had also been the president at her old school, could she observe a meeting? Which Ritsuko readily agreed to and that was the beginning of her end for at the council meeting Yokoyama was on the offense from the first minute! After three days of observing life at Takanoha Academy Yokoyama complained the rules and structure were way too lax, so much more discipline was needed! Yokoyama was a very persuasive speaker and to Ritsuko's amazement many of her officers on the council were agreeing with this new student! Above you can see Ritsuko objecting to Yokoyama's threats and suggestions for rule changes but it fell on deaf ears and soon the whole school was in an uproar. Working behind the scenes to help Yokoyama were her two cronies Tagawa and Miyahara, that pair were also adept at being very persuasive and as bad as things had quickly become they were only about to get much worse!

 Above you can see a girl wearing a hat talking on a car phone, her name is Ayumi Mizuchi and she had been talking with Yokoyama at the time. Who had told Ayumi all that had been taking place at Takanoha Academy and how the students will probably oust Ritsuko soon as the student council president! So we did learn in this very brief scene that Ayumi is the leader of the trio and comes from a very wealthy family. We also saw her at the end but didn't know more about Ayumi until the next show and what she's doing at Takanoha Academy has also been done at other high schools. What Yokoyama and the other pair of transfer students has proposed is to let the students set and control the discipline at the school which naturally the teachers were opposed to. So weren't level headed students such as Ritsuko and the easiest way for the newbies to accomplish their mission is to eliminate the student council president! Which happened as  Tagawa bashed Ritsuko over the head and hurt the girl badly, the masked Tagawa quickly fled. Hearing the commotion was the PE teacher Nuba, he seems like a decent guy and wish his role was larger. He saw Ritsuko lying on the floor unconscious and rushed to her aid but fell into Yokoyama's grand plan. For Tagawa reappeared and screamed to all that Nuba had been the one to bash Ritsuko over the head, quickly the police arrived to haul the innocent man away! Ritsuko also had been hauled away, to a hospital as she's in a coma and may not survive! So this plan devised by Ayumi and carried out by her three mates at Takanoha Academy is working out so well as their two main opponents in Ritsuko and Nuba are no longer threats but guess they weren't aware of Saki!!!!

 Final segment and there were about seven minutes to go, what took place is right above and the first seven screenshots below. At the time didn't realize this was going to continue on into the next episode but so glad it did as the ending would have been too rushed. These new rules that Ayumi and her group are trying implement at Takanoha Academy really aren't too negative as they want to curtail any fighting, bullying, smoking, etc. But the way they go about their business is way too stern and it's as if they're trying to be the Army.... our way or the highway! Who these new rules will affect the most are small groups such as the one Miyako leads, she's the Queen of the Takanoha Academy girl gang and did win a swimsuit competition two shows ago. Miyako and her main four cronies are such bullies though to me they're not overly tough as five against one isn't a fair fight. And these girls did learn their lesson the hard way and in an above screenshot you can see how the gang of girls were badly beaten, they were lucky to still be breathing! It's not that Ayumi's trio at the high school Yokoyama, Tagawa and Miyahara are ace fighters as they don't appear to be but the above men are, the riders of those motorcycles! Who were the ones that laid out Miyako and her gang though we didn't see it, neither did Saki who we hadn't seen much of until now. She had heard about Miyako going after the trio of newbies and went to a quarry where the battle took place, that's her above in the second to last screenshot. With Saki was her closest and perhaps only friend Sanpei who proved how reliable he could be in the next episode, when the roar of bike engines was heard the pair split up.

 You can see below that the riders meant business and wanted to hurt Saki badly but don't think they were aware of her fighting skills. Saki did use her powerful Yo-Yo to knock two riders off their bikes but it was mainly a game of her dodging these goons until a voice from far away told them to stop! Arriving on the scene was the leader of this unnamed group Ayumi Mizuchi and you can see her below flanked by her three trusted cronies. When we saw Ayumi briefly earlier in the show she had been skeet shooting at her father's mansion, you can see below that Ayumi pulled out a rifle and was aiming it at Saki!!!! Figured even if Ayumi shot she would miss on purpose but that wasn't the case as it was a direct hit to Saki's left shoulder. It may be hard to see it but in the fifth screenshot below the shot knocked Saki off a cliff into a small river, how could anyone survive such a fall after being shot???? Seeing as how there's thirteen more episodes of course Saki has to live(!), after the shooting Ayumi and her mates left the area. But they had never noticed Sanpei who witnessed the shooting from behind a rock, he dashed down to the river and was searching everywhere for his best friend Saki but at the conclusion hadn't found her yet! Whew, first cliffhanger to end an episode and that makes sense as this was the first two part story. Having more of these would help as things wouldn't need to be so rushed and that may be why these pair of episodes could be the best ones to date, the second half of this story is the next post.