Taiho Shichauzo! Full Throttle Episode 07
逮捕しちゃうぞ フルスロットル Episode 07

SPOILER Summary: A drunk woman in a taxi finds herself taken to a remote spot and robbed. The following day, Miyuki and Natsumi are at the scene of a car accident where the driver who crashed into a guardrail swears a green taxi caused his accident. The only evidence to back up his claims are some additional tire marks on the ground, but that doesn’t mean much. So they have the car towed and don’t do any further investigation of the area to see if there is more evidence. At the station, Miyuki thinks the guy is telling the truth and so research begins on taxi companies.

Inspector Tokuno arrives and has a new case. Apparently, there were a string of robberies involving a green taxi over the weekend. The location where one of the victims was dropped is near the accident scene and the taxi’s color is the same. Tokuno continues with the information that the victims were assaulted by two people not one. Since even a drunk woman should notice another person in a taxi, it is speculated that the 2nd person has to be hiding in the trunk. Since taxi’s in the area were converted to Liquid Propane, they have a special tank in the trunk and the remaining space wouldn’t hold a human. Thus the taxi isn’t a real one from a taxi company.

The police begin to search green taxis, setting up roadblocks to do so. However after a week of searching, nothing turns up. The perpetrators (apparently two brothers) pass through one such check point, laughing that the cops are making a fruitless search. After the weekend, Tokuno reports that seven drunk women were robbed after getting into a taxi. Instead of being a green taxi, it is a yellow one. The fact that a second taxi is involved must mean the robbers have more than one car. It is speculated that the robbers are hitting on Friday’s when people loosen up. Miyuki decides to go back to the scene of the accident from last week and doing a better inspection, she finds green paint, partially covered with graffiti, on a guardrail from an on-ramp. The paint flecks show other colors underneath, revealing that the impostor taxi has been repainted repeatedly, and the week time off is used to repaint the vehicle.

At Miyuki’s request, Tokuno finds the colors used for the cars of the various taxi companies. From that and the paint flecks, Miyuki speculates that the robbers will use black next. So when Friday comes, Miyuki and Natsumi secretly go undercover to test this theory since Miyuki feels Kachou wouldn’t allow them to do this officially. Natsumi has a surprise for Miyuki and hands her an ear-piece with mic. At the other end is Nakajima-kun, who has their backs. The girls’ check of some black taxis turns up nothing, so Natsumi decides to start drinking with some regulars at a bar where she and Miyuki learn the robbers apparently pick their victims and not the women pick the taxi.

Natsumi gets drunk and so Miyuki decides to call it a night and tells Nakajima he can go home. As she’s walking Natsumi, a black taxi pulls up and the driver offers them a lift. Miyuki immediately thinks this might be the car they are looking for, but when the driver pops the trunk, it is shown to be a normal taxi trunk, complete with special tank. Feeling safe, they get into the taxi, but the taxi takes them to a secluded spot. Realizing she’s been had, Miyuki flashes the badge. However, the driver’s brother reveals himself, having been disguised as the front passenger seat of the taxi. They rob the girls and knock Miyuki down (Natsumi having passed out from being drunk), but Nakajima is on the way. Realizing she has backup, the crooks try to flee. Miyuki tells Nakajima to get them, and he does.

At work the next day, the injured Miyuki, the hung over Natsumi, and Nakajima are chastised by Kachou for doing something so foolish, especially since they aren’t detectives. However, Tokuno is actually happy with their work and tells them that the next time they do something like this, they better include him. Later as Nakajima cleans his police bike, Miyuki comes out and apologizes to him for getting him in trouble and thanks him for saving her. She tells him it was cool how he took down the crooks, which leaves him speechless.

Thoughts: See, this is what you get when you have a couple of traffic officers, even gifted ones, investigate a traffic accident. They should leave proper investigations to investigators. Miyuki and Natsumi should have done a better investigation at the accident scene when the guy claimed a green taxi caused his crash. Instead, at the time they just said, “All we have are these tire marks to back your statement” and then don’t bother to do any additional scene investigation until a week or so later. Granted for dramatic purposes, the writers had them do this, but even before I knew the green taxi had also scrapped a guardrail, I was thinking that when the man made the claim and there were additional tire tracks to possibly back his statement, they should have looked for more evidence rather than just tow the car away and leave the scene.

For those of us looking for some Miyuki-Nakajima stuff, we got a crumb thrown to us. It was nice, but then crumbs are when you are starving.