The Japanese, they do things differently.

Someone is blowing up teenagers, or convincing them to blow themselves up. It probably has something to do with one particular school and a mysterious website calle Enola Gay. The Police need to send someone into the school undercover to find out just what is going on before the countdown timer on Enola Gay reaches zero.

Obviously, whoever goes into the school has to blend in. So it’s lucky that a grumpy one-legged Police inspector has just taken delivery of a teenage girl who has been trained since birth in fighting and surviving. Convinced to help, she is given her mother’s old cover name, a combat yo-yo* and a three day deadline to thwart Romeo- the website’s webmaster/mystery leader- and save her mother from prison in the USA.

I reckon YYGC is mocking a particular type of Japanese film or TV show we just don’t see very often in the West. It felt like there were a lot of nods to things I didn’t recognise and that it would hold together a lot better if I recognised the tropes it was messing with or could fill in the leaps the story took. Or perhaps it would be just as confusing to someone steeped in Japanese culture.

Not that I didn’t enjoy this film. It keeps you hooked, even if it’s only because you really, really want it to make sense somewhere along the line. By the end the plot is foiled, Romeo (or someone) has been defeated, “K” has come to terms with her mother’s past and their shared destiny and a fledgling lesbian romance has been rescued. I’m just not completely sure how.

Buy Yo Yo Girl Cop from Amazon.

*It’s never really explained how it is a combat yo-yo, it just is. Built into its design is a super secret symbol for the Police task force she is now a member of.