hontou ni sou omou? » you’re under arrest!

You’re Under Arrest Full Throttle 9-11

Zyl — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 20:08:10 +0000

In her anxiety to find a husband, Yuriko has a crisis of confidence in her career choice after a disastrous traffic safety session with some school kids. On top of that, she gets ripped off by a fortune teller who exploits her naivety.

But she saves one of the kids from some Very Kind People through bluster and her extensive knowledge of offences, regaining her confidence in her career choice. ‘I became a policewoman to help others!’ Oh, and to chase cute teachers while she’s at it.

This episode didn’t do much for me as I’m not a Yuriko fan. While I’m no feminist, I do understand the parental ‘get married where are my grandsprogs’ pressure – but, at least, Yuriko does not have the problem of peer pressure since the chief, Aoi-chan, Nakajima are all single and Miyuki x Natsumi are totally gay for each other even if they haven’t admitted it yet.

Robotics and cybernetics people enlist Miyuki and Natsumi’s help in their disaster rescue robot tests. Our favourite pair perform brilliant after the obligatory teething problems and defeat a mad scientist comic villain whose puns are so bad that Kabitzin would have no trouble whooping his ass. Many maaaany horrible puns. And bad jokes about Gunpla. My only consolation was to see Miyuki and Natsumi in skin tight plugsuit-like outfits.

Influenced by K doramas, Nakajima attempts to writo lovu letter to Miyuki but loses it and spends most of the episode pursuing it. He never manages to deliver it, even at the end, of course. Even if he does get together with Miyuki in the future, I’m sure his wife will be enjoying the pleasure of Natsumi’s erm company nonetheless.

Not a good run, these three episodes, with much teeth gnashing and wincing. Not much hope that things will improve but at least make it easier for me to mock!

You’re Under Arrest! Full Throttle 6-8

Zyl — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 00:08:37 +0000

Finally managed to pick up this series again. If only to free up some HDD space. Thankfully these three episodes have been plain light entertainment. In Ep 6, an old acquaintance from Aoi’s past returns and quickly proceeds to try and get Aoi to recover his manliness. Of course, it all ends well with Aoi staying just the way he should. OOOH~~!

Old Army Story ahoy!

▼ Show

What brilliant disguises! LOL But the prep’s disguise was motto sugoi! No wonder they only preyed on drunk victims!

She’s a scary oneechan! Poor Natsumi. LOL It also reminded me so the trouble in StrikerS Ep 13 when Vivio refused to let Nanoha leave and FEITO had to come in to extract her waifu and all those StrikerS Nano! jokes about Vivio needing to go to the bathroom all the time.

Interesting how they managed to plausibly nerf Natsumi for this ep and the previous one so that Kachou and Nakajima could have some Cool Hero screentime. Natsumi is the Hero of this series for me though!

I’m just a bit puzzled by how worked up she got over whether the little girl really was the Kachou’s daughter. Guess Kachou’s still the default ‘love interest’ when Tokairin’s not around? Of course, regular readers know that I’m a Miyuki x Natsumi ‘shipper so I just think of all the MEN! capers of our policewoman duo as a cunning distraction from what happens at home.

DO NOT WORSHIP ME!!!

You’re Under Arrest Full Throttle 5

Zyl — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 11:26:30 +0000

After the fluff of the previous episode, I was quite surprised at the attempt at social commentary in this episode. It recalls the death of a baby, of heat stroke, after being left in the car while the parents played pachinko.

The portrayal of the mom was initially hugely unsympathetic, even if she was a victim of having her baby kidnapped. She’s shown to be priotising her mobile phone conversation (and not locking her car) and shopping over her child’s welfare. Her dress sense, especially the miniskirt, is probably supposed to suggest again that she prioritises her own appearance – again, at the expense of her child’s welfare. From Tokuno’s interview-interrogation, it seems that her shopping was for fashion bargains rather than household necessities. Her behaviour is so outrageous that the (supposedly) mildest person of the regular cast, Miyuki, who gives her a tight slap of great justice.

Of course, she later comes to see the error of her ways and we have a neat, tidy, happy YUA-style ending. Which is fine in the context of the YUA universe.

However, among other things, the teleological one-sidedness of the mother’s progress from irresponsibility to crisis to resolution did make me uneasy. It raises the feminist point that this kind of portrayal reinforces patriachal attitudes towards women and motherhood in Japan (e.g. where was the father?). More practically, the mother had a good point when she asked why the whole main cast was lecturing her rather than stopping the car thefts or looking her for her son. You might have thought that it would have made better sense to concentrate energy on recovering the child and apprehending the perp first and then lecturing the mom.

And I can’t help wonder if this situation was replayed in a grittier, darker universe, the mom might not change her ways for long and Miyuki would have to endure an endless persecutory Internal Affairs investigation, running in a parallel with a civil lawsuit from the mom’s lawyer from hell, for assaulting a member of the public which then leads to our heroine duo to question the values of their organization and society. But that, as I said, belongs to another setting outside the cheerful, optimistic, feel good parameters of the YUA franchise.