Sukeban Deka

[areaseven]

Sukeban Deka ( ƒXƒPƒoƒ“ŒYŽ– )

Hakusensha/J.H. Project, 1991

ADV Films, 1996, 2003

Rated 17+ for graphic violence, nudity, suggestive sexual situations, drug use and strong language.

Having spent time at a juvenile corrections facility, teenage delinquent Saki Asamiya is given a chance to redeem herself and delay her mother's possible death sentence by working as an undercover cop. Armed with nothing but a special yo-yo, Saki's assignment is to return to her high school and investigate on the corruption and mysterious deaths among the students. But in order to find the answers to the condition of her school, she must confront the wealthy and powerful Mizuchi sisters, who moved in and have taken control after her previous expulsion.

Story: C+

The story could've been good, but it got too derivative of every other school fight anime you could think of. And with only two episodes, there's very little room for character development. The OAV never really focuses on Saki's past experiences with the high school. Very little is known about the Mizuchi sisters, other than their insatiable lust for power. Supporting characters are either useless (namely Sanpei, who shaves his head to try and get a date with Saki) or just wasted (namely Junko, a student who gets sexually assaulted by some drunk Yakuza thugs at the beginning of the OAV. Later in the series, she literally gets wasted.).

I've read that this is actually a remake of the live-action Sukeban Deka that was on Japanese TV in the mid-1980s. I'm sure the latter is much better.

Animation: B-

Sukeban Deka boasts some interesting character designs by Nobuteru Yuki (Escaflowne, Heat Guy J). The artwork is one part shojo, one part Go Nagai. The animation uses a lot of Osamu Dezaki's (Golgo 13, Space Adventure Cobra) direction styles: repeated frames during a heavy attack, scene fade to sketch, etc. However, the quality is about average and it hasn't aged very well.

Soundtrack: B-

I didn't really pay much attention to the soundtrack.

Sub vs. Dub

Sukeban Deka features Kazue Ikura (Mora in Mobile Suit Gundam 0083, Rezun in Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack) as Saki, Akira Kamiya (Roy Focker in Macross and Macross Zero, Kenshiro in Fist of the North Star) as Jin, Masako Katsuki (Deunan in Appleseed, Lucette in Mobile Suit Gundam 0083) as Remi, Hiroshi Takemura (Crusher Joe, Mr. X in Argento Soma) as Sanpei, Saeko Shimazu (Yuri in The Dirty Pair, Four in Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam) as Emi, Akio Ohtsuka (Gato in Mobile Suit Gundam 0083, Spawn in Soul Calibur II) as Numa, Kenji Utsumi (Millard in Macross Plus, Alex in Fullmetal Alchemist) as Kurayami, and Tomomichi Nishimura (Jamitov in Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam, Mardukas in Full Metal Panic!) as Gozo Mizuchi.

Knowing that ADV dubbed this title at the same time as Neon Genesis Evangelion, I instinctively ignored the English dub.

DVD Extras: F

Trailers are not extras.

The Bottom Line

Sukeban Deka isn't bad; it just needs some improvement on both story and animation. Strictly rental material.

Reference

Anime News Network

[JELEINEN]

Story: C+

The story could've been good, but it got too derivative of every other school fight anime you could think of. And with only two episodes, there's very little room for character development. The OAV never really focuses on Saki's past experiences with the high school. Very little is known about the Mizuchi sisters, other than their insatiable lust for power. Supporting characters are either useless (namely Sanpei, who shaves his head to try and get a date with Saki) or just wasted (namely Junko, a student who gets sexually assaulted by some drunk Yakuza thugs at the beginning of the OAV. Later in the series, she literally gets wasted.).

Couple of comments here.

Accusing Sukeban Deka of being derivative is doing it a great disservice. In actuality, it's the other way around. Sukeban Deka (the manga this anime is based on anyway) is one of the earlier examples of the genre and predates most of what you accuse it of being derivative of. One must always be careful to maintain historical perspective. ; )

As for the story itself, it suffers from the same problem as almost every other OVA of it's day. The late eightes and early nineties saw a glut of manga based OVAs that either tried to cram too much story into too few episodes or were only meant to get viewers interested enough in the story to start picking up the manga. The problem got even bigger when these shows got brought over to the US as we never had the opportunity to read the manga for most of them.

You're absolutely correct in your assessment that this anime could have been so much more.