This review will cover the first TV series as well the prequel OVA, specials, and the feature movie.
I’m a person that loves discovering hidden anime.
Hidden gems that people, not many people, have heard of. I covered a lot of hidden gems in the past some of those series ended up being personal favorites such as Shinkalion, Marmalade Boy, Selector Wixoss, Kodocha Shangri-La, and Welcome To Demon School Iruma Kun for example.
You’re Under Arrest joins that list. An engaging light-hearted Crime Time Soap that delivers its promises.
From Natsumi’s first meeting with Miyuki to the movie ending I was hooked to the world of Bokuto Precinct police ranch as well as the city of Tokyo itself.
I enjoyed almost every single adventure that the police duo would take part in whenever it’s doing police work with a lot of action to fun slice-of-life episodes that flesh out the character chemistry of our cast. It also manages to avoid being repetitive as every episode as almost every episode is different from the last. Sure there are some arcs structured episodes later on in the series, but every episode has its unique identity of charm.
This is backed up by excellent writing and pacing which ultimately strengthens the themes of the series.
You would think that an episodic series would be lacking in the character development department, but the show proved me wrong. Although certain characters received more development than others, I felt the cast received good development overall.
I felt the characters changed a lot in the series.
You’re Under Arrest deals with themes of friendship, discipline, pride, isolation in an effective manner that delivers its message that You can achieve your dream as long you have pride in your heart.
Oh, You’re Under Arrest is funny too. It has a good habit of setting up jokes that deliver the punchline thanks to excellent comedic time.
It avoids being repetitive with its humour and the characters overall bounce each other well. Delivering a bunch of hilarious factual expressions.
I would like to quickly mention the movie before talking about the characters.
You’re Under Arrest The Movie is what an anime movie based on a TV series should. Sure it has a more serious tone due to the crime level being high as it features with terrorism, but it makes sense for a series like try something new.
The mood swing allows us to see the serious side of the cast that we grew to love.
Trying their hardest to arrest the terrorist group before they killed a bunch of people. Increasing the tension to avoid seasonal rot. As for the writing, it’s just as good if not better than the TV series in certain scenes.
I loved the movie so much that it became one of my favourite movies based on TV series.
A crime time soap is nothing without well-written, sympathetic, and interesting characters, and this is where You’re Under Arrest truly succeeds.
Let’s start with my favorite character in the show Natsumi. She’s filled with so much personality, humor, and depth that you end up loving her.
She is easily the most developed in the series as she builds relationships towards characters like Miyuki, Strike Man, and later on Shoji which helps her grow as a person. One of my favorite female characters period.
Miyuki is a perfect polar opposite to Natsumi in every way. She’s a smart technology/car enthusiast that playing around with technology.
She has a crush on Ken which slowly builds up in the series. She’s also, receives character development just like Natsumi, but it at a much slower pace which ultimately paid off in the end.
The cop duo Natsumi and Miyuki are some of the best duo dynamics I’ve seen in anime. They have such great chemistry with each other despite being opposites in both appearance and personality. They respect each other well, and I adored their overall bond that keeps growing.
Aoi is a character that is filled with mystery. Despite being trans woman that is meant to stop male police officers from piping on female officers in the female changing room ends up being on of the most interesting character in the show due to his arcs mainly focusing her gender identity as the pros and cons of choosing the trans woman route.
Yoriko is a fun clumsy gossiper out of the group. She may be the least developed character out of the main cast, but hilarious humor and gossip nature make for it. She’s one of the characters that consistently made me laugh.
Then there’s Ken who’s the most grounded character in the show. He deeply respects the law as a good guy, despite his clumsy ways towards women (Specially Miyuki).
Like with the rest of the characters he receives character development, but in a much slower phase compare to the rest of the cast.
The rest of the characters were good. Some characters were better than others, but they did a solid job of supporting the main cast.
A standout-out character goes to Strike Man for being the most hilarious character in the show with his over-the-top justice outbursts as well being a compelling foe for Natstumi.
I would also mention Kaoruko and Shoji as well for being fascinating characters that helped our main police duo grow in the second half.
Even though I consider You’re Under Arrest to be a well-crafted series with so much heart, I have one minor gripe with it and that is the writer’s favoritism towards Natsumi. Don’t get me wrong I love Natsumi she’s my favorite character in the series I and I adore her character development and personality however I feel like the writers accidentally made her too good of a character to a point when whenever it had an episode/arc that is not focused on Natsumi or anyone that is not associated her like Strike Man and Shoji the majority of the other couldn’t keep up especially in the latter portion of the second half.
To the show’s credit, the final arc of the TV series nicely addresses this by giving Miyuki strong characterisation that overall improve her character, but I feel they did a bit too late. They could have one episode before the final one that deals with Miyuki personal struggles as setting up.
You’re Under Arrest visuals are all over the place. The OVA and especially the movie has fantastic production values that stood the test of time. From the character’s designs, shot compression, backgrounds to the animation.
Studio Deen was ahead of their time when did those You’re Under Arrest instalments. The same thing cannot be said for the inconsistent TV series. It may have some good animation and art now and then, however, more often the TV series screams low budget from the limited animation, characters going off (especially in the beginning in the TV series) to the still frames.
I get it the downrange visuals had to be done especially in the 90s, but knowing the fact you have to transition from the excellent OVA visuals to the downgraded TV series visuals is jarring. When I opened up the first episode of the TV series after finishing the last episode of the OVA, I thought someone messed up my TV settings. It was that jarring.
To make things worse this is one of the few animes from the 90s that has no HD remaster let alone upscale.
Someone should re-master the TV series someday.
From what I heard the second season and full-throttle have excellent visuals from Studio Deen standards, but time will once I watch them.
Despite my complaints, you will eventually get used to it which is more than I can say about other low-budget animes from the 90s.
You’re Under Arrest soundtrack is very good and well-composed. It has that mid 90s punk, upbeat, jazz musical score that fits the show nicely however, I have a very minor complainant with it and that is the music is too limited for its good. It’s a long series and all, but they repeat a lot of the tracks and by the end of the show you will get very familiar with certain tracks that they would use for certain scenes.
It’s not like other anime do this as it’s a common practice for a lot of especially animes from the 90s, but I wished the show featured some tracks now and then.
The opening themes are memorable, nostalgic, and kickass in their way.
They perfectly capture the crime time soap spirit of the show especially the third opening theme LOVE SOMEBODY by Mariko Fukui.
Ending themes on the other hand while nicely composed are nothing too special due to the forgetful visuals.
Now I tend to avoid watching dubs that were produced before Cowboy Bebop dub as most if not all dubs back in the day are awful.
You’re Under Arrest is one of the few dubs that were produced before Bebop that were decent. Granted this isn’t a great dub by any means especially nowadays and I prefer the original Japanese sub for audio and script consistently, but I felt like this dub has a lot of charm and heart to it. Sure the majority of the side/minor characters dub performances were mediocre but, I generally liked the performances of the main cast.
Tamara Burnham Mercer perfectly captures the hot heated tomboyish Natsumi. Juliet Cesario nails the smart technical enthusiast Miyuki.
I’m happy that I discovered You’re Under Arrest. It is a series that has entrained me from start to finish and while it had a few bumpy roads I still felt satisfied.
It’s soul-crushing we don’t get series like this anymore as the medium has unfortunate favoring isekai and mindless battle shounens.
If you’re looking for a great hidden gem from the 90s then you could not go wrong with You’re Under Arrest.
TakaCode Reviews 
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