Bayside Shakedown 2
We Have to Rethink What It Means

Date：24, Jun, 2020
Investigated and Written by Misaka Youhei
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Hello. Today I'm talking about Bayside Shakedown 2, a Japanese live action film released in 2003. It became a big hit as marked a record high of 12.6 million visitors in Japan, is the all-time highest-grossing Japanese live-action movie on domestic theaters. They say it totally earned 17.35 billion yen at the box office. Oh, good. Give me some.

First, I'm explaining what the plot is.

The main character Aoshima Syunsaku (Oda Yuji) is a Japanese male police detective working for the fictional Wangan Station of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. One day, they get an abnormal murder case. Their station sets the investigation headquarters, come some career bureaucrats including Muroi Shinji (Yanagiba Toshiro). Aoshima has been familiar with Muroi, and the head is not Muroi but a newly-appointed policewoman Okita Hitomi played by Maya Miki. It looks she heard what Aoshima was. She first meets him, smiles dauntlessly, says cases don't happen at the scenes but go on at a conference room. Her attitude means she doesn't set great store by detectives working in the spots on investigations. She was a stereotype of career bureaucrats, you might guess.

Naturally, she calls antipathy of the investigators in the spots, but they have no measure to be against her. Investigators and she gradually become out of gear under the investigation. Finally, causes a decisive crack. Wounded is a female detective who has worked with Aoshima together. Aoshima and his mates get mad. Okita hardly minds, but they rise in revolt against her, which strips her of the right to command. Muroi arrives at the head instead, the headquarters go on with the new order.

How do you feel? In fact, I believe it is extremely like some of Hollywood films on the structure. It goes as
1. Appears one woman with power or authority.
2. She comes to a homo-social group that mostly consists of men.
3. She confuses them somehow in the group.
4. They strip her of the power or authority, or banish her.
5. Restored is their order.

Right? As you know, this structure has been used by countless Hollywood films like Major League (1989), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), and Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1949). As many feminists have mentioned before, Hollywood films have included misogyny spirit like thus. I am not a sociologist, don't mean to tell you here what brought misogyny to the Hollywood films, what historical inevitability made some of American men hostile to women.

In Japan, we are difficult to find the film whose structure shows misogyny. Why did the Japanese film use the structure although the first volume didn't use? Mystery. I'm unfamiliar with the filmmakers, don't know at all. Anyway, in 2020, it is still the highest-grossing Japanese live-action movie on domestic theaters. We have to rethink what it means, don't we?