Sukeban deka

This is the sequel to the Sukeban Deka series that originated with Yuki Saito's version of Saki Asamia (1985). Yoko Minamino plays her first starring role as Saki Asamiya. Although the two characters has the same name, they are different people.

Kurayami Shirei (Hiroyuki Nagato) is looking for a replacement for Saki Asamiya (Yuki Saito) after she retired from her assignment as Sukeban Deka - a high school student detective who works covertly for Naikaku Johoshitsu (inner cabinet intelligence division) to stop crime conducted by high school teenagers working for Seirou-kai. He's recruiting effort is not so successful until he discovers Yoko Godai (Yoko Minamino) a girl in an iron mask. Kurayami Shirei renames Yoko to Saki Asamiya which from that point on becomes the code name for all future Sukeban Deka. Saki transfers to Ryozan high school, and begins to battle the evil that lurks within the high school.

The story is based on a comic by Shinji Wada by the same title. According to Wada, this second series is his favorite version. Yoko Minamino stars in her first TV series in the title role. She is supported by B-dama no Okyo (Haruko Sagara), and Yukino (Akie Yoshizawa). The production looks to be the epitome of low budget TV series. There are almost no props, and most scene takes place outdoors at night times in a park or at an abandoned building requiring no outlay of budget for the set. This was a popular series in the '80s and Toei Television must have made money hand over fist on this one.

Although made on apparent low budget, the story is surprisingly intriguing, and stands up to repeat viewing even today. It's one of the "classics" that will never fade away, and will be viewed by future generations.

Hence, don't expect some sort of realism in this first outing of the Sukeban Deka series because you won't find it. What you will find here is the adaptation of a mixture of shoujo and shonen with a toppling of 70's exploitation movies resulting in something resembling, in parts, the 2004 cutie honey live action series, Oniisama E...and the Female Prisoner Scorpio series of movies, made by the same company that made this series of all things. Oh yeah, it's also a vehicle to sell you the idol Yuki Saito and her music (the ED is from hers), who is not exactly Ayako Wakao material when it comes to acting but she gets the job done considering this was not meant to be Bamboo Dolls of Ezichen or Ball at the Anjou House stuff from the get go and her actual music, if you can listen to her albums (which I urge you to do), is pretty good stuff. Just be aware that the last quarter of this series is not great to be generous.

P. S. The song Crazy Nights by Metal Veterans Loudness in episode 15 was a nice bonus too, just to reiterate my opinion that J-Pop and Metal indeed are treated as the same thing in Japan, which is great.

This is the original Sukeban Deka series staring Yuki Saito as Saki Asamiya.

Kurayami Shirei (Hiroyuki Nagato) who works for Naikaku Johoshitsu (Inner cabinet Intelligence Division) recruits Saki Asamiya who's a boss of girl's gang (Sukeban in Japanese). He needs someone who can work covertly in high school to prevent criminal activity conducted in high schools. Saki's mother is in prison, Kurayami Shirei makes a deal with Saki to suspend her mother's execution if she worked for him. Saki accepts the offer and starts her detective (Deka in Japanese) work.

Based on a comic by Shinji Wada of the same title, this is the original translation of Sukeban Deka series, and is the most edgiest of the trilogy which spanned from 1985 to 1987. The series becomes increasingly campy as it progresses. There's a perpetual cloud over Saki's head as a child of a convict, and she works for the sake of reducing her mother's prison terms.

This series is comprised of 24 episodes, and a 25th "Making of Sukeban Deka" special. Saki gradually finds out who the king pin behind all the crime is and her true relation to him as the series progresses.

This series catapulted Yuki Saito's career, and in tern she succeeded in making this series a success. High school student solving crimes in high school was a novel idea and attracted many fans of the series.

The Sukeban Deka is still being produced from time to time in movies attesting to its popularity. This was the seminal attempt, and was a success that primed the success of all subsequent series.

This series getting better more episodes you see. Based on Japanese manga with same name sukeban deka tells a story of heroine without special powers or mask or cape but a simple school girl with her iron yoyo to fight crime.

At age five young Saki saw her mother being arrested for murder, but Saki has a special skill and therefore a special police force spare her mothers life in one condition to train Saki to be the ultimate police force. At her teens her training is complete and protect innocent people from bullying in school to filthy crooks and corrupted big standards people, till she stand in an ultimate challenge against the worst female crime syndicate Remi.

This series is awesome, my favorite episode is 16 when Saki is in prison where we see a Bioman actress in another role. The characters remind me of the ace attorney characters but more serious but their awesomeness is equally. 10/10.

"Sukeban Deka III" (1986) is the third live-action TV season in the popular manga-based series about "delinquent girl cops" operating undercover in high school and armed with lethal yo-yos. This one has three crime-fighting high school heroines, the Kazama sisters—Yui, Yuma and Yuka—as opposed to the single heroine, Saki Asamiya, of the two previous seasons (and the recent movie from 2006 starring Aya Matsuura that was retitled YO YO GIRL COP for U.S. release). I'm intrigued by the visual design of this series; it's got one foot in modern-day Tokyo, with plenty of scenes of the girls at school and at home, and location work in the streets and public places of the city, and one foot in traditional Japan as it offers a steady stream of ninjas, monks, princesses, temples, shrines, and scenic natural locations, with the action often switching abruptly from one mode to the other. The cinematography is often quite striking, offering clean and precise compositions captured by deep focus lens work, making expert use of color, decor, and architecture. There are frequent well-lit closeups of the attractive cast members, especially the three actresses who play the Kazama sisters. They're beautiful, but in a natural, down-to-earth way, as opposed to the super-cute ("kawaii") idols that seem to predominate in current Japanese pop culture.

There's also a lot of action, with at least one major fight scene in every episode, usually between the girls and assorted ninja attackers, on location in Tokyo or in forests and mountain sites outside the city. The backgrounds are always dramatic, whether in the streets of Tokyo at night and hillside cemeteries by day, or a foreboding forest full of towering trees with snaking roots and a picturesque waterfall in the hills. Each girl has her own weapon—Yui has the yo-yo, Yuma has long needles and strong thread, and Yuka has metal origami cranes with razor sharp beaks. The girls are all quite spunky and tend to do their own stunts, even if they're not terribly convincing as skilled fighters. In one memorable scene, Yui in her school uniform wields her yo-yo in one hand while holding her book bag and the hand of the little boy she's protecting in the other, all while fighting off a small army of ninjas in a fight that starts in a park after school, with innocuous park-goers switching instantly into ninja mode for the ambush, then moves into various back alleys, and ends at a sprawling loading dock at night on the Tokyo waterfront. The staging is usually quite imaginative, if highly improbable, with lots of upward leaps and impossible flips and karate chops that don't look particularly effective.

Yet at the same time, there's an aura of realism to the proceedings, rooted as it is in so much location shooting and the everyday activities of the girls at school and home, not to mention the utter conviction the cast members bring to their roles. Which helps them put over the abundant drama on display throughout the series. Yui is constantly squabbling with her sisters and her mentor (who works undercover as a teacher at the high school and is named Yoda). She slaps her sisters and gets into shoving matches with them and even hurls her yo-yo at them and the mentor. There are moments of genuine tragedy as well and frequent visits to grave-sites and shrines, with shots of burning incense.

The lack of subtitles in the Japanese-language tapes I saw (covering episodes 25-32 and 37-39) makes it difficult to try and describe much of a plot. Most of the action in later episodes, from about episode 30, is centered around a very young princess in lavish royal robes and her loyal costumed entourage and the battle over a princess doll that is some kind of coveted object. Yui gets hold of one such doll that was stolen by a ninja from the princess's hidden chamber (the location of which I was unable to figure out) and she guards it jealously, especially after she finds a kanji (Chinese character) on it that matches the one that appears on her forehead when she's in full fighting mode. One dramatic confrontation has Yui and her sisters on a barren field while the little princess and her crew stand on a cliff and look down, trying to retrieve the doll telekinetically, while Yui and her sisters use their more earth-bound weaponry to counter them. Yui is quite impressive in fighting mode, with her studded red arm guard on her left arm and a matching head band, with protective chain mail under her long-skirted school uniform, not to mention her ever-present yo-yo which she repeatedly hurls out in battle with great fury, as if it's capable of doing a lot more damage than it ever really does.

There were three "Sukeban Deka" spin-off movies, the second and third of which were based on this particular season of the show. I've seen the second movie ("Counterattack of the Kazama Sisters") and it is more firmly rooted in modern Japan, positing a fascist youth group that tries to take over the government, with Yui infiltrating it and then aiding a commune of young people offering the only resistance. It's not nearly as interesting as the TV series and, despite some elaborate stunts involving a motorboat, a blimp and a private plane, looks much more cheaply made, with sillier action scenes and none of the artful camera-work of the TV episodes.