S.W.A.T. (TV Series) Ekitai Rashku (2020) User Reviews

A 7 Rating Is Considered Good from Me

[lance-lee · 7/10 · 31 January 2020]

I was impressed with the production actually going to Tokyo for ~half the scenes. I was also impressed with the amount of Japanese actors SWAT's casting was able to round up. Checking some bios on these actors it appears many/all are English-speaking and already working/worked in the USA.

Story-wise, it was just ok. I also tried to ignore the plastic-looking "Mac-10" looking props and realize it'd be difficult/impossible to find real examples to use in Japan.

Generic and Historically Offensive

[jswacker · 3/10 · 30 January 2020]

This show has been steadily declining for a while now, but this episode is one of the worst.

Besides it being just an obvious excuse just to send some of the cast members to Japan for a vacation, it offered very little to any progressive story telling = The actual relationships in the show are so poorly written that I can't get invested in them at all.

The biggest offense of this episode though had to be the fact that they wanted to shoe-horn in some animosity between a Japanese Policeman and Officer Tan (a man of Chinese descent) = In this episode the Japanese Policeman harbored negative feelings towards Tan because the Japanese man's grandfather fought against China in WWII...? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure China was the victim of that exchange. It was Japan that invaded China, killed 1,000s upon 1,000s of innocent people, captured Chinese women and forced them to go back to Japan to be sex worker slaves, and then continued to occupy parts of China until their eventual defeat. So how does this episode have the nerve to make the Japanese Policeman the "victim" in any of this?

I get that we Americans will forever feel quilted by the fact we dropped 2 nukes on Japan, but to continue the charade that Japan is an innocent victim for their part in WWII is an injustice to history and the world.

I don't like to get political, but since this show seems to only want to get political, they should check their facts before writing something so historically offensive.

First Venezuala, now this.

[a_voice_through_the_disc · 4/10 · 15 August 2020]

I was pretty pissed that this show advocated Venezuala being an enemy of the US in whatever episode it was, when the US is a damn bully and instigator of regime change against a seemingly democratic country that happens to swing left and doesn't want US crap. But now they perpetuate some harboured hurt on the part of a Japanese citizen who's family fought in China.

To that I have to just say, wait a damned minute, the Japanese invaded China and instigated that war, as well as committed countless war crimes. This show seems to be leaning too much towards this abhorrent idea that US political views, mostly wrong or twisted for political, economical, and power gain, are just now fact. Which is even more depressing for a show set in California, a relatively non-conforming state from what I gather. Keep it about SWAT, ditch the fake political stances.

The fact they shot in Japan, made this an interesting Ep. Just a shame they couldn't fill out the story with something more than a memorabilia chasing arc in LA.

How much propo?

[MiketheWhistle · 5/10 · 5 March 2020]

First, when I went thru Japan I thought I recalled police carrying guns, and read the goof, so I do some research and yes Japanese police do carry guns. So why would the show say they don't, then have every civilian in Japan carrying machine guns????? I'd say it was trying to make some statement about guns especially with Hicks statement, but it's very confusing.

Guns are not nearly as prevalent in Japan as portrayed, but yes bad people do have guns. The guns the average police officer carry are pretty pathetic, but considering their gun ban maybe it makes sense as they also have swat type teams that carry heavy firearms.

The only issue with Tan is ridiculous as its Korea that Japan has greater issues with although they have issues with China because China invaded Japan and Japan invaded China and they weren't nice.

So getting past all that stuff, the ep was pretty lousy. The whole story with the bat was stupid and I hope would never happen in real life. The LAPD Swat team "training" with the Tokyo police is pretty unrealistic. Japan is very much a closed society and it's just not something likely to happen based on my knowledge.