Sukebandeka The Movie 2: Counter-Attack of the Kazama Sisters

Japanese Title: Sukeban Deka: Kazama san-shimai no gyakushu
Director: Hideo Tanaka
Actors: Yui Asaka, Yuka Onishi, Yuma Nakamura
Year Released: 1988
Genre: Action
See Also: Sukebandeka The Movie, Battle Royale
Otaku Alert: Hiroyuki Nagato, who plays Dark Director Kurayami, starred as Kinta in Imamura Shohei's great Pigs and Battleships.

I've recently discovered that I love the Japanese '80s, and for completely different reasons than I love my own '80s, which is based largely on nostalgia. From where I'm standing, on the outside looking in, the '80s in Japan were the last days of innocence before the bubble burst and teenage girls began selling themselves to salarymen for cell phones. Before the loss of childhood and Love & Pop, before all of today's weird, alienated murders and shut-ins, there was the '80s, a squeaky-clean time of flared hair and good intentions, earnestness and bubbliness.

The difference in idol presentation is telling. The video diary that accompanies the DVD for Sukebandeka The Movie 2: Counter-Attack of the Kazama Sisters follows star Yui Asaka as she does her best on set, does her best in press conferences, and does her best in concert. The clothes are priceless but so is her attitude, all fresh-faced smiles and "gee whiz" pluck. I don't for a minute believe that the idol industry in the '80s was any less corrupt and soul-crushing than it is today, but what is different is that then people wanted to believe that it was somehow innocent. The projected image becomes reality, or at least the desired reality.

What better way to highlight that innocence than in contrast to fascist youth thugs? Yui (the character's name is the same as its star), the third Sukeban Deka, or girl gang cop, has been recruited into a leather-headband-wearing government group of teens who dispense justice with spiked yo-yos and Aqua-Net'd bangs, shutting down discos like pre-college exam Nazis. Yui leaves the group, but is called back into action by her two sisters, Yuka and Yuma (the actresses who play them also having identical first names) when the Sukeban Deka program director is kidnapped and a floppy disc containing the youth group's nefarious plans is obtained.

Unlike the first Sukebandeka movie, which often played like a toned-down '70s exploitation film, number 2 is light all the way. With its "kids in trouble" side story and cheap lighting, it looks more like an American TV show like The A-Team than a Toei movie. But hey, that was the '80s for you. The Japanese film industry was in dire straights—not every film can be a Tanpopo. That being said, Counter-Attack does have its moments. The series' trend of making school-girl accessories into weapons continues with knitting needles and a boomerang metal origami crane. And Yui Asaka, it has to be said, is pretty damn cute.

Kenta Fukasaku recently added to the series with his Yo-yo Girl Cop, a terrible movie whose only saving grace is an overacting Riki Takeuchi.