Title: Taiho Shichauzo Translation: You're Under Arrest Broadcast date: 10/17/02 - 12/12/02 Genre: Police comedy Cast: Ito Misaki, Hara Sachie Plot: Based on the best-selling manga, this is the story of Natsumi (Ito) and Miyuki (Hara), two outrageous female traffic police officers. What is good: The cast had pretty good chemistry with each other. What is bad: Most of the episodes are boring. Letter rating: C- Overall: I watched this show in the hopes that Ito Misaki had the ability to play a character that isn't a shy, submissive Japanese woman. She definitely pulled it off here. Natsumi is the complete opposite of Ito's Aoyama Saori from Densha Otoko. The problem here isn't the acting. It's that the stories are fairly boring. The show starts off well with Natsumi and Miyuki kicking a lot of criminal ass but then it swerves away from that. Yes, they still get into fights once in awhile. They just aren't the same as the fights from the early episodes. And by the end of the series, Natsumi is using guns instead of her fists. Considering there are only nine episodes in the series, the transition from "wild girls" to "sweethearts of the police station" goes quickly.

If you're a fan of the manga or the anime version, you might enjoy this. However, don't expect anything particularly deep to come out of it. We never really get to know the girls beyond their deep friendship for each other. It would have been nice to get into why Natsumi was so violent or why Miyuki likes cars so much. Alas, we are left with the "because this is how they are" type of reasoning for everything. At least the studio didn't try to drag this out for 26 episodes.