Rookie Policewoman Kiruko: Unedited Audio and Recording Notes (Patreon)

Manga Details

• Shinmai Fukei Kiruko-san  新米婦警キルコさん
  • Sheem-mai Fɯ-kay Kee-rɯ-ko sahn
  • “Rookie Policewoman Kiruko-san”
  • “Shinmai” literally means “unpolished rice,” but is a common way to refer to someone who is new/inexperienced
• The ‘Shinmai Fukei’ of the title is a pickle. Tucker’s already explained the ‘Shinmai’ bit and how it all translates roughly to “Novice Policewoman”, but once again Hirakata has put it in romaji on the volumes as ‘Shinmai Fukei’. These hard naming decisions are usually taken up by official localisations, but uh this is a flop from a decade ago, so not likely to happen.
• Author - Masahiro Hirakata
  • Notable people they were an assistant for:
    • Shinya Suzuki (MR. FULLSWING)
    • Koji Ooishi (Inumaru Dashi, Lycopene the Tomatoy Poodle)
    • Shuichi Aso (The Disastrous Life of Saiki K)
  • Notable people they had as assistants:
    • Daijiro Nonoue (The Last Saiyuki)
    • Yusaku Shibata (ZIPMAN!!)
    • Toshitomo Ootake (Mogusa-san)
  • Other works:
    • She’s back! Rookie Policewoman Killco-san (2014, 4 chapters, Jump LIVE)
      • Before Jump Plus there was Jump LIVE, a short-lived mobile service featuring several miniseries, and fronted by this, the return of internet darling Kiruko-san. Colour page every chapter, collected as a cheap digital volume.
    • Best Blue (2015, 3 vols, Weekly Shonen Jump)
      • A swimming manga, attempting to ride on the wave of Free!, if you remember when that made everyone horny for swimming.
    • Machi Koro Match! Plus (2016-2017, 2 vols, Shonen Jump Plus)
      • A tie-in to the app version of popular tabletop game Machi Koro (good city-building fun, buy it today!), it is inexplicably a full-colour series about a small guy accidentally becoming mayor and forming a harem.
    • Debby the Corsifa is Emulous (2020-present, 7+ volumes, Shonen Jump Plus)
      • Debby is a bloodthirsty and busty demon who travels to the human world to seek a suitable opponent after finding her own world lacking. She finds Rokuro Sugo, a bored human who just wants someone to play games with. Chaos ensues as it turns out the almighty Debby is rubbish at games, and a sore loser to boot, and swears to keep playing whatever games Sugo devises until she stands victorious.
• Publishing
• Run Dates:
  • 19th November, 2012 to 20th May, 2013
• Series it replaced:
• Reborn! by Akira Amano (42 vols, BIG HIT)
• Series that replaced it:
  • Smoky B.B. by Kenta Komiyama & Yuya Kawada (2 vols, flop) Flop Eligible
• Series that started at the same time as it:
  • Hungry Joker by Yuki Tabata (3 vols, flop. Episode 15)
  • Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma by Yuto Tsukuda & Shun Saeki (36 vols, BIG HIT)
• Chapters/Volumes:
  • 25 chapters/3 vols (24 in Weekly Shonen Jump)

About the Manga

• Plot
  • Anjou Haruki is a sex criminal cop who was placed in a far off dead end town in the middle of nowhere called Nagashima instead of being fired for serial sexual harassment. He’s one of two officers there, with the other being his Chief. After overhearing from the Chief that they’re getting a new recruit with large breasts, Anjou volunteers to train her, but she’s haha not quite what he’s expecting. Otonashi Kiruko is an ex-mercenary turned rookie policewoman with huge tonfa blades. Terrified by her violent tendencies, Anjou takes her out on patrol. The Chief tells him that if they don’t achieve something then he’ll be fired. Anjou identifies a guy as a potential panty thief because he relates to him, and Kiruko violently attacks him. He tells Kiruko that he’ll take responsibility for it so she goes all out, causing a ton of property damage that Anjou has to pay for. Next some terrorists attack an abandoned department store for some reason and shoot an RPG at Kiruko which doesn’t work. Next Uchigane and Bullet, two cops from Tokyo show up to track some criminals who came to Nagashima. Bullet really came to watch over Kiruko who he used to work with in their old Mercenary group: the Philadelphia Phantoms. Unfortunately after stopping the criminals Uchigane and Bullet get permanently assigned to Nagashima to watch over Kiruko.
  • 
    
  • To get people more excited about the police and Nagashima in general, Anjou dresses up as their mascot Cerberus. They’re approached by some anime producers who want to learn more about the character in order to adapt him into an anime. The station tries to invent a backstory for him when Kiruko decides to create one which more or less explains the backstory of her and her boss: her father was her boss’s war buddy who died in the war and her mother gave her to him before committing suicide. This is convenient because when the gang go on a casino cruise the head bodyguard is her boss who was the former commander of the Phantoms. Kiruko fights him to a stand still and then leaves, whereupon the producers say the backstory is too heavy. They’re not done though because they want to make a documentary about Kiruko where they discover she’s worshiped as a legend and a god in many places. This upsets her because she just wants to be seen as a good police woman. The gang then goes to Tokyo to meet the FBI director but Kiruko fucks up his car and they run away. It turns out however that the trip was a ruse to get info on a criminal that the Chief has been chasing. Kiruko and Anjou are then assigned to give a rich guy named Jean Smith and his young bodyguard twins Rei and Mei a tour of Nagashima.
  • 
    
  • Afterwards the chief reveals that Jean is the criminal he’s been tracking but he’s protected by the damn corrupt police force. They extrajudicially infiltrate Jean’s ship where they encounter Rei and Mei and learn that they’re new members of the Phantoms to replace Bullet and Kiruko. Kiruko challenges Rei and Mei to a game of kick the can and when she easily wins the twins realize that they have a lot to learn. Jean Smith tells Commander Phantom that Anjou might be Kiruko’s lover which sends him into a rage and he viciously attacks them. He discovers that Anjou is a disgusting lecher which reminds him of kiruko’s dad so he leaves. The gang then approach Jean Smith who takes Anjou hostage; telling them that the ship is about to sink before escaping on a helicopter. Mei and Rei, who now feel betrayed, defect to help the good guys. Meanwhile Anjou begs to join Jean Smith’s team as a traitor, before betraying Jean Smith and jumping out of the helicopter. Now that he doesn’t have a hostage Kiruko destroys the helicopter as Anjou is saved by Rei and Mei who have now declared that they’ll live with Anjou. Jean Smith surrenders but apparently every single person in the Nagashima police station has been fired. Everyone scrambles to find jobs but the jobs all suck. Thankfully the Chief appears and says that someone high up in the police force pulled some strings to get them their jobs back so don’t worry about it. Then they get offered some free tickets to a hot spring and that’s it bye.
• Characters
  • Otonashi Kiruko
    • Hot blooded police woman
    • Kinda reminds me of 100 doing the look away nervous thing
    • Goblin mode
    • “Don’t wanna”
    • From Maxybee:
      • Our protagonist is popularly referred to as “Kiruko-san”, as it’s the literal romaji of her name, but any time the author has written it out in romaji he’s called her “Killco-san”. Accuracy versus good SEO is now a curse this podcast must navigate.
      • Romanisations can be hell (ask Bleach fans), but these are kinda basic things aside from Killco, and that’s for the pun. She’s a mercenary. She kills. But she’s a woman, so 子 (ko).
  • Anjou Haruki
    • Sexual harrasser
    • Can harness the power of porn to fight ghosts
    • Is brave at the end
  • Tsutsui Kanjuuro Nagashima
    • The boss
    • Doesn't give a fuck
    • Nothing changes about this fact
    • Actually like a super good cop or something?
  • Uchigane Chaki / Bullet
    • Special duty police investigator
    • Is a tsundere
  • Phantom
    • Punished Snake
    • I really cant remember why he’s evil or what his goal is

Why it failed

• Cops hmm
• Art is mid
• Why is Anjou a sexual harasser
• This feels like a parody but played too straight I need some winking at the camera
• This first chapter feels like a huge waste of time
• So much text
• It really slowly grows on you but the first few chap[ters are just meh
• I feel the chapters kinda durdle where it has one funny idea but stretches it out
• Anyone not Kiruko really lacks character development, she as well kinda
• I think it takes too long to really get the plot going
• I feel this series lacks a “thesis” like I don’t know what the plot of it really is as it’s not a gag manga

What it did well

• Art is fine
• It's cute and silly
• Kiruko has a fun character design
• The physical comedy is it's best
• I like the maskot parallels with Kiruko’s life
• I really can’t get mad at any chapter ending with characters getting arrested (see magu chan)

Where it could have gone

• Imagine this was a commentary on PTSD and finding the place for solidars after the war
• Actually show some police skills like establish despite their bafoonery they can actually solve a crime using police skills
• I like the really absurd fights like bullet vs kuruko in chapter 8 and would have liked more of that
• I kinda want it to go all in on stupid porn mag adventures
• I’d have been fun the idea of Kiruko being an actually retired super solider and all her pasts come back but she actually resolves things without fighting using the social skills she’s grown in her current job

Misc Thoughts

• Trigger definitely would have animated it's anime
• This seems to have diagetic covert arts which are cool
• Wait has Barret just meant Bullet this whole time??? I’m thinking about FFVII now
• Maxy Bee thoughts:
  • Despite polling poorly in the magazine and not selling much better, the online audience that Kiruko-san got was noteworthy, spawning a LOT of doujinshi and fan-art, almost all of it pornographic in nature, some being by pretty popular authors like Bobobo (if you know you know). Shueisha saw this unexpected popularity in online spaces and capitalised by running a short sequel on their new mobile service, Jump LIVE.
  • Killco-san chapter 9, Hungry Joker chapter 10, and Food Wars chapter 8 all had extended page counts as part of a ‘super popular rookie campaign’, which is kind of funny in hindsight, but DOUBLY so when Killco-san used that extra page count for a porn ghost story.
  • Chapter 25 is a volume exclusive! The series ended with chapter 24 in Weekly Shonen Jump.
  • Bullet/Barrett originates from DOUBLE BULLET, a one-shot that played a significant part in the development of Shinmai Fukei Killco-san, which is fully fan-translated online. If you check it out you can see the origins of several other character designs, though not as directly.
  • Volume extras include character profiles, gag sketches, bonus comics, afterwords, AND ASSISTANT CREDITS.
  • Chapter 59 of Hirakata’s current series “Debby the Corsifa is Emulous” is a crossover with Kiruko-san, made to celebrate both two years of Debby and ten years since Hirakata’s debut series. She fits in surprisingly well with demons, it turns out.

Final Verdict

• Six Word summary
  • Community
    • Tucker: Only bastards in the police building
    • Maxybee: ACAB includes all these cops, too
    • Chickenwarlord: Penniless privateer punks perverted podunk precinct
    • Diego (Phantom Seer): Kiruko-chan rules, the rest not much
    • Dougie4😊: We have Hitman Reborn at home
    • duderocks the earthchild stan: Glad they defunded this police manga
    • Grey the #1 Kagurabachi Stan: Please. Stop sexually harassing sweet Kiruko-chan
    • LordAnubis, #1RedHoodFan/Mourner: She will live in our hearts | Four action-comedy series is a crowd
    • Meru (Charly): All cops (even waifus) are b*stards
    • Portal man: who the hell hired these pigs?
    • Resident Warhammer Nerd: Police?? Stars?? Still not Resident Evil??
    • Riel: These cops should all be fired
    • Sbubby: Cute crazy constable cracks criminals’ craniums
    • Spike: Law and Disorder
    • The Laughing Fool: Just twenty five chapters from retirement.
    • 𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕸𝕱 𝖄𝖊𝖙𝖎: Kawaii Katana-Crazed Cozzer Camouflages Copaganda
  • David: Why can’t all police be kawaii | fuck the police? Fuck the police
  • Jordan: more like moe cop and fondler