Copyright © 1996 Fujishima Kosuke

Although better known Stateside for his delightful OH MY GODDESS! work, Fujishima Kosuke is also the creative genius behind YOU'RE UNDER ARREST! (TAIHO SHICHAUZO in Japanese). This manga follows the humorous adventures of Miyuki and Natsumi, two young female traffic officers of the Bokuto police station, as they deal with a variety of miscreants both on and off the roads.
Miyuki is a quiet and inventive mechanic, while Natsumi is bold and brash. The two women employ a variety of nifty vehicles (like motor-powered skateboards) and clever schemes (like coy challenges of racing machismo) to catch the criminals on their beat, and they never use anything more violent than the occasional paintball gun. Of course, there is a pleasant amount of high-speed chase action but none of the gory, bullet-blazing firefights of, say, GUNSMITH CATS. ARREST is simply a cute comedy manga that inspires tremendous affection for its characters.
While ARREST is not as sentimental as OH MY GODDESS!, it still retains Fujishima's trademark pretty girls and pain-stakingly detailed artwork. The renditions of the vehicles are especially exquisite, presenting awesome evidence of Fujishima's passion for all things related to automobiles and motorcycles. In fact, since this particular volume is fairly slim, most readers will spend probably more time admiring the artwork than it takes to actually read the words on the page.
"Lights and Siren" is the second graphic novel released by Dark Horse, and while it is not quite as entertaining as the first volume (titled simply YOU'RE UNDER ARREST), this book is still terrific. Where the first volume offered a variety of original adversaries (such as the high-tech panty thief or the terrorist with a hatred for Christmas but has a love of crossword puzzles), three of the six episodes in this volume center around the women's confrontations with the goofy Strikeman. A blundering vigilante who punishes litterbugs with fastballs and rewards women with a kiss, Strikeman is a bit too over the top to take up so much of this volume and his appearances can become tiresome. Nevertheless, the scene where Natsumi earns the nickname "Home-Run Girl" is indeed hilarious.
The other three episodes, by comparison, are a breath of Strikeman-free air. We see the officers face a gang of paintball thugs, help Miyuki's boyfriend deal with his dad's young new fiancé and chase down a Black 280Z that is terrorizing the highways. These pages offer more of the girl and gear goodness that makes YOU'RE UNDER ARREST! so much fun. Indeed, if you like your women fast and their vehicles even faster, it would be a crime not to have "Lights and Siren" on your bookshelf.

English Adaptation by Studio Proteus and Dark Horse Comics Copyright © 1999
English version published in N. America by Dark Horse Comics
Graphic Novel Black/white, 120 pgs
ISBN 1-56971-432-0
$10.95
Available now in the U.S.A.
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