Video Backlog: "Jikuu Keisatsu Wecker D-02"

Publisher: DVV (Kobi Co Ltd, Japan)
Format: Region 1 and 2 DVD, NTSC, Japanese Dialogue with English Subtitles
Length: 9 Episodes total; 3 x 50 mins (Episodes 1, 4 and 9), 6 x 25 mins (Episodes 2, 3, 5 to 8)
Production Date: 2002
Currently in Print (as of writing): No

Story Outline: Due to crimes being committed by time travellers, a future Earth government set up Wecker, an organisation which deals with such crimes. In several time periods dating back to the feudal period, Dimension Detectives are placed undercover to deal with disturbances which may alter history. Kana Godoh has recently arrived from the future as a Dimension Detective and takes her place undercover as a high school student. However Mei Sakaki, also a Dimension Detective undercover as a high school girl, takes a dislike to her straight away. Despite their rocky relationship, they team up together to stop a dimension crime where someone is sucking the blood out of young female victims. However not all goes to plan as Mei disobeys orders and dives in through a porthole to stop the criminal and ends up have flashbacks to the death of her mother, killed in the same way as the current victims. Kana saves the day and after the case is solved both of them become friend and are drawn to each other due the fact both of their parents met violent ends.

Mini Review: As you may have guessed by the cover of the DVD, this show is all about the girls. There’s six leads and they all wear uniforms with short skirts and high healed boots much like this;
Let’s see, pretty Asian girls, uniforms and boots. Gee, why was I attracted to this show, I wonder? Before we dive into descriptions of the lovely creatures which inhabit this world, I should probably talk about the history of the show itself. This TV show is a follow up to a 2001 direct to video independent show called “Wecker”. It pretty much has the same plot as this except there were two girls and it was much more your traditional Tokusatsu show with tons of effects, a transformation sequence and fighting sequences. A couple of sequels were also produced in the following years including “Jikuu Keisatsu Wecker Signa” which has more in common with the original show than “D-02”. This show focuses squarely on the girls rather than any traditional Tokusatsu show elements. There are six girls in total;
Kana Godoh, who is played by Yui Ichikawa, now a big star in TV dramas. Kana’s cover is a high school girl. Her parents were dimension detectives too, but died while on a case. Also she’s a damn babe.
Mei Sakaki, who is played by Manami Ono, is apparently a popular model. Mei is a rather surly and rough detective with a mysterious past. Her cover is also a school girl. Also she’s a damn babe.
Saki Hyuuga is played by Yuuko Nishimura. Saki is the team leader and surprisingly sees a lot more action than other cast members. Her cover is a TV news reporter. Yuuko seemingly does all her own stunts and can be seen frequently doing cartwheels in action sequences. Notably she is the only member of the cast who wears pants. The other five girls have short skirts or short shorts. While possibly the least attractive of the six girls (despite having an amazing bottom), she’s still a damn babe.
Ami Murata (or Amu-chan) is played by Yuuko Ogura. Yes, her cover is a maid for a wealthy politician. See, all otaku are catered for here. Amu is apparently some sort of genius. I know, it’s a long stretch. Ami is constantly eating snacks. She even eats some dried dog food in the very first scene she’s in. Though I’m not much into the childish kind of character presented here, she’s still a damn babe.
Haruka Nozomi (on the right, Amu is on the left) is played by Sayaka Morimoto. Haruka’s cover is a nurse (see, a fetish for everyone). That’s about it really. Oh, and she’s a damn babe.
Lastly we have Erre-2210-e played by Sakuragi Chikako. Erre is an android and is firmly in the Ruri Hoshino mould. Except that Ruri at least has some sort of personality. Erre’s a bit of a blank slate. Most of the time she is hooked up to a computer and rarely goes outside. Despite this, she’s a damn babe.

We also have Kent Kiba played by “Kamen Rider 555” star Kohei Murakami. His cover is a police officer, but since he’s male, no one really cares. OK I’m joking. But hey let’s face it, it’s bleedingly obvious this show is all about the girls, most of whom are indeed models. The show for the most part is pretty cheap, so special effects and even the transformations in battle suits have been cut (which was a key element of the previous show). So at points it ends up looking like some lame Japanese TV drama with a bit of sci-fi and cute but poorly acting models mixed in. As a result some of the early episodes really suffer. A two part arc which is nothing put a battle in front of two 44 gallon drums and a CGI spaceship really tested my patience. However as the series progress it becomes a little more than a half way decent show. The ending was surprisingly quite good. The acting is pretty bad at times and a lot of the action sequences involving girls (expect Kohei Murakami as she is really quite athletic) are lame as hell. Probably the only thing keeping this show from being dreadful is the quality of the latter episodes and naturally the pretty girls. A lot of the writing is particularly awful and at times I couldn’t figure out what was going on or why. Things are never explained properly early on, and it’s only well into the series that the audience is told where the girls are from.

The Japanese DVDs not only have rather good English subtitles, but are coded for region 1 and 2. Obviously they were going for the US market here, however the show never materialised there. In fact it was licensed by Cricket Productions back in 2002, who also have the US rights to “Masked Angel Rosetta” and “Vanny Knights”, similar Tokusatsu shows with girls (according to August Ragone), but with higher concepts and bigger budgets. Unfortunately they could never find any distributors for the shows, so they’re just rotting away in vault somewhere. Apparently they tried to get Media Blasters to release all three, but they weren’t interested. The Japanese DVDs look a bit cheap with rather bland rental type cases (despite the fact it says “Sell Only” on the slicks) and they also come with collectors cards (one for each volume, six in total, I’m missing the card for volume two) and messages from the girls on each volume. Unfortunately unlike the episodes, the messages aren’t subtitled.

Seeing as the show was out of print, I bought the discs second hand, at about less than a third of the ¥5,800 price tag as well. Not sure if it was money well spent. However it is pretty hard to find any commercially released Tokusatsu TV series on DVD which are subtitled or dubbed. I think I can count the number of titles on two hands. Anyway, this one gets 6 out of 10 from me. Not all that great, but it has its moments.
By the way, did I mention the cast were complete babes?

Remaining Backlog: 21 months (it's much easier this way than listing the number of discs).