You're Under Arrest TV Somewhere near the end - The end
Starring Yoshiko Sakakibara as
Shinobu Nagumo Inspector Kinoshita Yoshiko Sakakibara
Honestly the first season of YUA does kinda feel like a cut-price Patlabor on TV in a few places. Not to do YUA a disservice because it's good at the things it does well, and like Patlabor it strikes a nice balance between high-stakes action episodes and slower, more focused and thoughtful character episodes. And the characters all play off each other nicely most of the time. However, it does have me sighing often because there's things it just
doesn't do very well.
Natsumi can casually tip over cars and support falling reinforced concrete ceilings, Miyuki can add nitrous oxide to the fuel mixture of a 545cc two-cylinder Honda Today engine without blowing it to pieces and Strike Man exists, but the idea that two people would be fine carrying around torches of an unspoken and unfulfilled strong love for each other for literal in-universe
years (work colleagues who see each other
every day no less) and remain perfectly happy friends and not become severely emotionally traumatised is still
the most unbelievable thing in YUA. It's pointed out to be dragging on forever even by the characters in the show, and watching it feels like a drag. From promising roots at the start, things just don't go anywhere for them. Despite their not-relationship being stuck in a boot loop though, I do appreciate Nakajima as a character - YUA does have some pleasingly archetype defying characters, and Nakajima isn't just a generic joke of a shy and naive guy - He's a caring person who's shown to have particularly protective instincts of kids but go into super-serious mode with people who risk the lives of others, occasionally to the point of recklessness risking himself. He seems like a believable good cop, and it's easy to understand why someone like Miyuki would fall for him.
The same cannot be said for Shoji-effing-Toukairin.
Hey, rather than advancing Ken and Miyuki's long-standing relationship naturally, why don't we just keep going through the same tired motions with them while we spend a dozen episodes giving Natsumi an out of the blue love interest who just so happens to be a male version of her - But far less interesting and better at everything? The number of overused clichés and tropes we could tick off the list watching Toukairin "develop" is depressing. It doesn't help that his character design is so jarringly different from the original cast
he looks like he ended up in Bokuto Precinct after his Wing Gundam crashed. This is
not how you write compelling characters or relationships, it just seems so amateurishly handled. But I will give the poor guy a bit of a break and admit it's not as though they give him or him and Natsumi's relationship much
chance to develop, since whenever he's done his duty of being a plot device or helped advance Natsumi's character in lieu of his own, he immediately gets put on a bus somewhere far away.
These issues are made all the more baffling by the fact YUA is able to handle the personal relationships of
secondary characters thoughtfully even when they would be played for laughs in a lot of other shows - Aoi's heart-wrenching struggle with admitting to a male actor who's become infatuated with her that she's biologically male (which ends in... oh, mutual respect and friendship but agreement a romantic relationship won't work out, not comical disgust or a fairytale ending, huh) and Ken's ultimate acceptance of his father's marriage to a much younger woman because despite what the characters initially think, she's not a gold digger and he's not a dirty old man, they are actually right for and genuinely in love with each other. So why oh why are the main characters relationships so utterly one-note?
These gripes aside, YUA is by and large an enjoyable show. The highlight here being the final three-parter where
Sylia Stingray Haman Karn Inspector Kinoshita is introduced, which leads to our duo being assigned to work separately for the first time in a long time, and sees them facing new challenges while having to do without their partner's complementary skills. The show is at its absolute best here with high drama from both the dangerous situations and the character relationships on show. Natsumi grates against Kinoshita but soon comes to respect her, while Miyuki dutifully follows orders but starts to doubt her own abilities by herself and they both come out of the situation with a new perspective on their work and their relationship to each other. The other major highlight is Kachou giving Toukairin a spanking at Kendo.
On to S2/Fast & Furious, which I don't think I ever got all the way through. Something got in the way last time, either moving house or a mental breakdown, possibly both. Hopefully it wasn't caused by watching it.