Shelf Life

Ninja Nonsense

I didn't watch the first half of this series, but I read a couple chapters of the manga in Yen Plus magazine when it first came out. I was kind of like, “Blah blah real life ninjas, apathetic protagonist, I get the idea.” But apparently I didn't, because the two things this series excels at are character design and gayness. Yes, you read that right. Gay ninjas.

Have you ever thought, “I like Naruto, but you know, I wish there was more Naruto/Sasuke love.”? If so, I'd recommend a trip to Comic Market. Failing that, there's always Nabari. I don't know how gay the first half is, but the second half is all Yoite/Miharu OTP. If you don't know what “OTP” is this show probably isn't for you.

Even the dub actors admit these ninjas are gay in the commentary on episode 25. It's a slightly silly commentary, since they rarely refer to any of the action on screen. Brina Palencia and Joel McDonald talk about going to cons and dubbing Sgt. Frog. Palencia mentions that she is often cast as young boys, as in this series where she plays teenage protagonist Miharu. In fact, she does a really good job capturing Miharu. Overall the dub is quite solid. Hats off to whomever adapted the dub script, as it is tweaked from the subs to sound very naturalistic in the dub.

Miharu possesses a super-powerful ninja technique thingy, not unlike Naruto's Nine Tailed Fox, which he can't control and all the bad guys are after him. Meanwhile, Miharu's BFF Yoite has learned a figure-pointing-and-then-you-die secret forbidden ninja skill that causes the user to (1) be very tall and skinny; and (2) eventually die by turning to stone and evaporating into dust.

This second half box starts off with the resolution to a fight from the previous season. After that, Miharu and Yoite go off in search for a cure to Yoite's illness, or rather, Yoite wants to erase his existence from the world and Miharu plans to help. Meanwhile, the bad guys are after a technique that will essentially turn the world into The Big O universe without robots (it's somewhat spoiler-y, so I won't explain further).

Except for the super-sweet character design, this show seems somewhat typical of current late night anime series in Japan. The budget obviously wasn't too high, but the staff did everything they could to make it look good. Unfortunately, the ultimate showdown with the bad guys uses some pretty heinous and questionable (yet laughably memorable) CG. I really love how lanky the characters are, and that there's a reason in the plot that Yoite is extra lanky. I had a little bit of a hard time at first telling apart some of the boys, but then I realized you have to identify them by their sideburns. In any case, if you like skinny teenage boys looking sad, this is so totally the show for you.

Nabari hits one of my pet peeves of recent years—the characters drink tea (or coffee) and talk about the plot a few times. I first identified this annoying trope during my failed attempt to watch Fate/Stay Night (I started fast forwarding through those scenes, which happen at least once per episode). In Nabari, there is a lot of ninja terminology, many old alliances, and sometimes it seems necessary to have coffee talk time. Really, if this were better written, it wouldn't be necessary. Hilariously, I thought one of the ninja characters had no powers at all and hung around the others because he's the only character who owns a car. It turns out he did have ninja powers, and I was a little disappointed.

This is certainly no Ninja in the Dragon's Den, but it shares many of the themes of the film's opening song:

Now listen to me children and I'll tell you of the legend of the Ninja, …
They were ready to fight (ooh shaka-ninja)
Ready to kill, they were ready to die…

[TOP]

Sentai Filmworks has gone to great lengths to mask that this is season two of You're Under Arrest. They've given it the subtitle "Fast and Furious" and don't mention anything about the second season on the DVD spine or the back cover. If you look very closely at the logo on the front, two letters in a 10 point font say "S 2" around a much larger font telling you this is "Collection 1". The episode titles are also strangely missing from the show; each episode has a title card with the show logo and a blank space where the episode title should be.

Consequently, I was completely fooled and thought I was watching the original legendary You're Under Arrest anime series. In fact, about 47 episodes and several OVAs precede this set, and I've never seen any of them. I thought this was an early 90's series, so I was mystified by the number of cell phones used in the show. I also wondered why there wasn't much of an introduction to the different characters. It was as if I had watched Dirty Pair Flash and mistook it for the original. You're Under Arrest follows the lives of some very nice ladies in the Tokyo Police Department's Traffic Division. Saori Saga joins as a rookie in the first episode of the season, and we are briefly introduced to the department. This is hardly a police drama series since the crime rate is pretty low in Tokyo, (at least, non-yakuza crime). The officers can only shoot paintballs at the windshields of get-away cars, which seems laughable by American standards.

At the very least, it was refreshing to get away from the school formula of beach/sports day/culture fest/hot springs for once. Instead, a trip to sakura matsuri is interrupted by a car theft, the police station is used in a test program for advanced crime-fighting technology, a monkey steals a few lunches and stirs up trouble, and, in one exciting two-parter, an earthquake causes a leak in the Tokyo subway system and the passengers must be evacuated.

But something rings hollow about these plots. It's hard to put a finger on, but somehow this show manages to be boring despite the car chases. Maybe it's because the criminals always apologize (even the monkey) or maybe it's because this isn't an action show, so the action isn't for the love of action. Instead, this is about admiring idealized women (not that there's anything wrong with that).

Kousuke Fujishima, the author of Ah! My Goddess was behind the original manga series. I should have guessed from the subtle antenna-hair, ideal women, and the absolute lack of conflict. If I had pitched this in class in film school, there's no way any of the instructors would approve it, because a show about nice people being nice doesn't have enough conflict. If you go by Robert McKee's Story (as featured in the movie Adaptation) a good romance needs to give us a reason why the couple can't be together. In You're Under Arrest coworkers date and have long distance relationships without any trouble at all.

There is no dub, but I'm sure the seiyuu cast is so super-famous you won't even miss it. There are no real extras on this bare-bones release (textless opening and closings! Woooo I just wet my pants that's so exciting).

Although I am interested in the friendships of young women in the workplace, this show isn't for me. I'd much rather read the melancholic workplace josei manga Suppli any day of the week. That said, if you happen to be a fan of shows about nice women having a nice time being friends and being really worried about each other and going on pleasant adventures in some kind of unfunny sitcom, good news! If you've never seen this, it's new to you. [TOP]