You’re Under Arrest! Full Throttle 12
Taiho Shichauzo! Full Throttle Episode 12
逮捕しちゃうぞ フルスロットル Episode 12

SPOILER Summary:

Detective Sugihara meets Miyuki in the hall who has a message for his boss, Detective Tokuno. As usual, Tokuno and Kachou are playing Go. While the others finish watching a local high school baseball match online, Kachou loses his match again and Natsumi decides it is time to play some baseball. Thus, a match is born between the Traffic Division and the Criminal Affairs Division with Yoriko doing some opposition research. Natsumi and Miyuki go on patrol where Natsumi attempts to find out about the status of her and Nakajima. Naturally, Miyuki doesn’t want to talk about it and makes excuses, but eventually Natsumi gives up. At a stop light, they are greeted by the grade school kids, who’ve learned about the forthcoming baseball match and wish them well.

The day of the baseball game comes with the tough looking guys from the Criminal Affairs Division talking trash about the “cute” Traffic Division team. One even remarks about a lion going all out when ravishing a rabbit. The pitcher, Natsumi, decides to show him a rabbit and strikes him out with fast balls. That leads the catcher, Nakajima, to ask the batter about how that ravishing was. The game pretty much proceeds along those lines with both sides making advancements and mistakes (mistakes on the Criminal Affairs side due to Yoriko’s excellent research and taunting from the kids).

The game is on the line and Natsumi’s up to bat when an old, familiar voice rings out and completely interrupts the game. It is the infamous “Strike Man,” who’s come to challenge Natsumi once more. Natsumi pretends to not remember him at first. Strike Man goes on a tirade, where he remembers all his past defeats at Natsumi’s hands, but he goes on so long that the Traffic Division are planning to go eat. Aoi-chan even invites Strike Man to come. Strike Man uses his sure-fire method to get Natsumi to bite, but throwing insults her way and saying she’s afraid. Naturally, Natsumi isn’t going to take this and so steps in to take whatever Strike Man throws.

Strike Man tells her she’ll get three attempts to hit his pitches. Any hit means she wins. His first pitch rockets to her, then disappears at the last second. That baseball was in fact a yo-yo and Natsumi has been had. The next pitch has Strike Man appear to use a secret Ninja technique to have copies of himself, all which throw pitches that Natsumi misses and all which knock Nakajima back. Ah, but the kids see the trick of Strike Man having built a contraption to make elaborate wooden cutouts of himself. Finally, he throws his final pitch. Natsumi nails it, but the ball happens to hit the basket of goods on the back of “Scooter Mama’s” new-looking 50CC bike. She gets mad for her special sale items being scattered all over the place and her first target is Strike Man. She then scatters the Traffic Division, giving chase to Natsumi. When Strike Man goes to challenge Natsumi again, Scooter Mama sees the baseball and has her new target. She hits Strike Man and carries him off on the front of her bike.

Thoughts:

It just seems wrong to have a baseball episode and not have “Strike Man” show up. It didn’t look like he’d even show up at all based on last week’s previews and how this episode’s 1st half went. Ah, but the writers got me for sure and HE SHOWED UP! I had to cheer for sure. However, for “Scooter Mama” to show up as well, well that was just pure gold, y’all! Heck, even the Miyuki-Nakajima romance got a mention. All of that made this episode a winner for this long-time fan.