Get your own Free Home Page[The video starts with a joke promo of a fictitious film, "The Scarlet Shooting Star", which is what Maki would like to be called. She is a keen fan of old (60's) yakuza movies.]
The drama is set in year 73 of Showa Era [Showa ended in its year 64, that is 1989, in reality].
Eiko is in negotiation with the manager of an electric power company whose atomic power plant has been seized by an unknown entity. Although the government wants to leave the plant as it is, they want to regain control to secure their business. In a secret contract, they have asked Kagura Synthesis Security to clean up the Cats in the plant [the original term is 'bakeneko' (cat monster/ghost) but I will use "Cat" with the capital C]. The manager agrees with the amount of money to be paid but is not happy about the clause, "Damages to the facilities and human damage are covered by the client". Eiko knows very well, given the place of work, any costs for repairs will be very high. She has also added a note on the contract "we will try to keep the damage to minimum."
An army-like organization [in fact, they are "HOUND" of the Ministry of Health and Welfare] is preparing for their operation. Its chief [a man with a scar on his right cheek, Yajima] seems to be satisfied with it.
Eiko, who has just come out of the building, phones her boss to let her know the contract has been completed.
The preparations of HOUND are in their final stages. They cut the power supply from the plant to the city. The subcommander is about to give the go-ahead when a van from Kagura SS bursts through the gate into the plant. There are four women and a man in the car. The driver [Yuu] tells the others that the next gate is closed but the navigator [Takami] hacks into the system and opens it. The man [Taba] is not sure if this is the best way but his concern is duly ignored by the women.
The van goes into the plant, leaving the bewildered HOUND behind. It doesn't last too long. Within the seconds, the members of Kagura are running back out of the plant. The Cats were waiting for the attackers with a tank. Yajima blames the company for making a poor decision; they should have left the job to HOUND. Soon after the tank comes out of the plant, the Cats on it disappear as if they have teleported.
A man has been monitoring the situation from a distance. He, with a pamphlet of Kinugawa on his lap [Kinugawa, a famous hotspring] does not seem to be particularly disappointed by the failure of HOUND and Kagura.
Yuka is mourning her ill luck meeting a tank in a power plant but HOUND are not very sympathetic.
A man in a black coat and a number of Cats are looking down at the plant from the top of a cliff nearby. The man knows it is Irie [the guy in the car] who pulled the strings to bring Kagura in. He seems to be enjoying the situation, "Our cargo will arrive in five days..."
Subtitle
It is raining heavily on Ayagane City. A young girl, Maya, is sitting on a step in front of a big building. Her thoughts go back to the day when she was deserted as a kitten in the garden of a shrine. A young boy responded to her week meow [this is Taba when he was a boy. He tried to keep her but his parents could not let him do so]. Her thoughts are interrupted by Taba's voice as he returns from doing the shopping.
There is a phone call to Kagura's office with an offer of another job.
Taba hands a tin of a catfood to Maya; he has bought it as it is a new product. He is happy to have had the chance to pick up their food for the next three days. To an uncomprehending Maya, he explains he feels lucky today. Unfortunately that was just wishful thinking. A paper ball and the commanding voice of Yuka land on him. Taba is taken away by Takami and Yuu to another mission before he admits his ill luck. The other three girls are staying in the office "because it's raining."
Taba and Takami set up a trap with talismans in a department store unaware that a bunch of dustcarts are approaching the building at the same time.
They are HOUND. The target is a Cat in a shape of a young woman. A female HOUND officer, Narusawa, reports to her boss that there are two civilians left in the building.
Suddenly there's an explosion. The Cat did it by igniting the gas leaking in the department store cafe. The explosion has shredded the Cat's clothes and she is now spending some time choosing a new outfit.
Asked her opinion by Taba, Takami admits her defeat [in what!? ^_^;;]. Taba decides to lure the Cat upstairs and tells Takami to take over the controls for the lift. Taba's bowgun and Takami's hand grenade opens the new battle. The Cat intrudes on the security system to locate Taba.
At the tenth floor, Taba has put three talismans around the exit of the lift and hides himself around the corner. He thinks back to his first day at Kagura; Yuka explained to him that Cats are a kind of mobile magnetic information which can "possess" programs and assume control over them. Physical attack is only effective when they are in the Cat form. Otherwise, they have to be "sealed" with the talismans. The talismans are effective within a three meter range and, by enclosing a Cat with them from four directions, they can seal it into a disk.
Now the Cat is at the tenth floor. Taba judges the timing well and seals the exit of the lift... but it's the wrong one. Just then Yuka rings him up to check the situation and Eiko tells him, if they can seal the Cat within a certain time, they will receive a bonus! There is another hour until the time limit expires.
HOUND, who have entered the building, find out that the two "civilians" are from Kagura.
Taba, having missed his chance, is powerless before the Cat. She reproaches him for being a member of the organisation which has been sabotaging them for a long time [Kagura has a long untold history, which is another mystery of the show]. She asks why Kagura hunt them but Taba, who doesn't know anything fundamental, can only reply that it's just his job.
He lets a talisman explode underneath a can of tea, launching it like a bullet towards her. This is enough for HOUND to find their target. Narusawa pleads that they should not attack as there is a "civilian" near the Cat but the subcommander, who doesn't count a Kagura man as a civilian, orders his men to fire at the target.
The Cat is now furious. Quickly recovering from the damage, she now confronts Taba with no mercy. Then shots from HOUND attack both of them. Taba falls, along with the rest of the destroyed corridor, to earth... not exactly. He manages to cling on a giant fish decorative balloon. But he isn't safe for long. Bullets from HOUND makes holes in the balloon! He somehow lands near Takami, who is in her "panic" mode ^_^;;
Back in the Kagura office, the TV news announces that a Russian cargo ship has been found aground. But no one seems to be paying any attention to it. Yuka is making 'terurerubozu' [a doll to pray to, to stop rain], which looks like Taba. Maya approaches her; she is worried about him as he is rather late. To Maya's disappointment, none of the three women in the office seem to share her concern.
Taba makes an emergency call to Yuu who has been in the car all this time. She dully replies, "The job of a driver is her favourite phrase]. She is more concerned about getting more cigarettes than the fate of Taba ^_^;; HOUND are chasing the Cat but a fire shutter closes in front of them. The system is *physically* hacked by someone.
Taba and a recovered Takami are heading downwards but he is caught by the Cat. She easily escapes Takami's hand grenade and approaches her prey, Taba. Narusawa shoots the Cat which enables Taba to escape (barely). As he's running away, he sees a winch cable hanging down in the center space of the department store right next to the walkway he's on. He jumps for it and shouts, "Pull me up". Yuu, who is now in a Jeep on display a few floors above, casually switches its winch on to lift Taba. Takami shouts it's not fast enough so Yuu drives the car backwards to accelerate it. Taba manages to fend off the cat which has jumped on to the cable with him, with his bowgun which happens to be hung near him. She lands back on the floor where Taba was a moment ago. She recognises three talismans and is contemptuous "Only three? You didn't finish the job." But Taba thinks otherwise. He had put the fourth one on a rotating advertisement board. Now with the four talisman, he succeeds in "deleting" the Cat.
Yuu has been watching all this and is pleased to see the job completed. But she isn't aware that her car is about to drive into the window. It breaks the window and falls out of the building.
Its hook just catches the window sill but the car swings back into the building, nearly crashing into Taba.
Irie is receiving reports about the case in a hotspring [probably Kinugawa ^_^]. He orders over the phone to withdraw the Coast Guard from the Russian ship. He isn't sure which is a feint operation, the attack on the department store or the landing of the ship.
Back in the Kagura office Eiko counts the number of the talismans. She blames Taba for losing nine of them in the operation. Losing talismans, which are illegal, is pretty dangerous for Kagura as the Ministry of Health and Welfare is looking for anything to accuse Kagura for. Urged by Eiko, Yuka orders him to recover all of the lost talisman; his pay will be suspended until he recovers them. Angrily Taba walks out of the office to search for the talismans but Maya holds his arm. She wants to have her dinner with him. Taba smiles and tells her he will be back soon and that they can have dinner together after that.
As he leaves the building, three men (a delivery man, postman and greengrocer) who look very un-Japanese, enter it. A man with a definitely foreign accent comes to Kagura's door to deliver a parcel. As soon as Yuka opens the door, he throws a hand grenade in. Eiko is quick enough to kick it out but, with the explosion, the three men rush into the office, firing guns. Yuka, Eiko and Maki fire back but a helicopter from a newspaper company appears outside of the office to help the attackers. In the chaos of the battle, Maya is rendered unconscious with one of Kagura's lost talismans and kidnapped. They retreat immediately; it is obvious that their target was Maya.
The noise of this battle wakes up Yuu... only for a moment. She, who lives in the basement of the building, is happy to go back to sleep.
The battle is over. The girls have survived but Maya has been taken away. Taba, busy searching for the talismans, is unaware of her kidnap.
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