Anime Reviews:

Sukeban Deka

(1991)

[Sukeban Deka] "Nikita goes to Grange Hill"? Perhaps not quite, but that's probably the closest I can get to the high concept for this one, which is either based on, or was the inspiration for, a popular live-action TV series as well as spin-off movies. The heroine comes from a bad family (her mother is on death row!) and she herself has been sent to reform school. She's released on condition she works for the police, as her old school has been taken over by three evil sisters. Their father heads the governors, and they may have casually offed two bus-loads of their own schoolmates.

I sometimes wonder about the Japanese educational system: if it's not demons, it's psychopathic teenagers. I don't think this is supposed to be serious, admittedly - not when the heroine is armed with, er, a yo-yo. But it's played with a completely straight face, and that's what keeps it out of the realm of camp. Daft, but forgivably so. 7/10

Jim McLennan