Title: Sailor Fuku to Kikanjuu aka Sailor Suit and Machine Gun
Genre: Drama
Director: Hirakawa Yuichiro, Kato Arata
Format: 7 episodes
Dates: 13 Oct 2006 - 24 Nov 2006

Synopsis: Hoshi Izumi is a clumsy, formal high school student. One day, her dad is killed in a car accident. Sakuma-san, the second-in-command of a small Yakuza gang known as the Medaka clan, reveals to Hoshi that her father was the last Clan Head’s only surviving relative. As both Hoshi’s father and the Clan Head are deceased, Hoshi becomes the successor of the Medaka Clan. As a misfit in a dark world, Hoshi quickly learns how to survive in the world of the Yakuza, and reveal the sinister truth of her father’s death.

The Highlights
Sakuma-san: Good, strong male protagonist.
The Bad Guys: Genuinely detestable.
Plot: Bland, with too much suspension of disbelief.
Nagasawa Masami half-naked: Hehehehe.

Sailor Suit and Machine Gun is a series everyone in Japan and his mother has heard about. Of course, dramas about the Yakuza tend to be incredibly hackneyed, and I didn’t have high hopes for a 10-year overdue remake of a Yakuza movie.

That being said, we need to first look at the Medaka Clan itself. It comprises of six members: a renegade cop, an otaku hacker, two street thugs, a hardened Yakuza man, and a high school girl as their ringleader. At this point, my disbelief is already being suspended. The story itself follows a high school girl as she becomes leader of a Yakuza clan. She finds out her father’s death was related to heroin. This leads the audience, logically, to believe that her father was actually a heroin dealer. And then comes the plot twist that no one ever expected. Without revealing details, it turns the whole show into a whole downer. There are numerous examples of this within the plot; what the viewer expects and what actually happens is so different it actually leaves one confused and unsure about what to think. The script is also weak; the dialogue doesn’t precisely convey the emotions of the characters properly, leading to plenty of awkwardness.

Then comes the acting. I’d have to admit, I sympathized a lot more with the bad guys than the good guys in this particular drama, for the simple reason that they had better actors. I felt my blood boil at the corrupt policemen double-crossing the naïve Hoshi, and outraged at hypocritical politicians ordering hits on the small, defenseless Medaka Clan. The Clan itself doesn’t do a good job of presenting itself as lovable, however. In this group of misfits, there’s too much internal strife that hampers the creation of a collective identity. I came to identify more with one specific character than with the Clan in general; which isn’t a good thing. Tsutsumi Shinichi (Sakuma-san) is perhaps the only actor of mention within the Clan. Playing the cool, level-headed second-in-command of Medaka, he delivers a star performance as the human paradox; trapped in a life he can’t want, yet can never leave. His performance was truly moving, and he became the only character I really identified with. The side characters within the Clan didn’t have enough time to fully develop within 7 episodes, and I definitely did not sympathize with any of them. Nagasawa Masami gives a lackluster performance as Hoshi Izumi, the sometimes-too-clueless leader of the Medaka Clan. In my opinion, she was not convincing or assertive enough as a Yakuza boss, sometimes too clumsy and stupid, and generally annoying.

So ultimately, we have plot holes large enough to hide three kilos of heroin in, protagonists that are flat and colorless, and believable antagonists that make the slaughter all the more convincing. The series quickly degraded into senseless violence, as the antagonists completely took over the Medaka. By the end, I wasn’t even really rooting for Izumi or the Clan anymore, in fact, I stopped caring about their worries because they were just so bland. The ending is absolutely ridiculous; it’s corny and unrealistic. All in all, a poor effort. Thank God it was short.

The Rating: 4

Reviewed by: Akira