This mini article was first published Sept. 6, 2020 on Wayfarer Daves Facebook. These will not be replacing regular full-length articles but may supplement from time to time on off weeks.

In 1985 the television series Sukeban Deka II had a Yokohama episode where they tried to cram in as much of the city’s unique landmarks as possible which watching now in 2020 makes for an unexpected time capsule. The landmarks are still there but they’ve changed in little ways, thankfully it’s all been for the better. I’ve been to Yokohama several times over the years so have relatively recent comparison images to put alongside the 35 year old screen shots.

The first image is Hikawa Maru at Yamashita Park; Hikawa Maru is the only pre-war Japanese passenger liner in existence and one of the few surviving ships to have ever served the Imperial Japanese Navy. (She was a hospital ship during World War II) The ship opened as a museum in 1961 so it’s not changed except it now has a 1930s paint scheme. This is one of my favorite museum ships.

The dilapidated red brick warehouses were the location for a chase and fight scenes; at the time they were still technically in use and under the jurisdiction of the Yokohama Customs House. These customs warehouses were built 1912-13 and decommissioned in 1989 (four years after this episode was shot) then rehabilitated over the course of the 1990s. They opened as Yokohama Red Brick Warehouses, a shopping and dining center, in 2002.

The last image has the steel-hulled, fully-rigged sailing ship Nippon Maru in the background. Nippon Maru was a training ship commissioned in 1930, the same as Hikawa Maru, and trained merchant mariners until 1984 when she was retired and moved to Yokohama’s Dry Dock No. 1. When this episode was shot Nippon Maru was a brand new attraction, having been open for less than a year.

The scene was filmed on a now-replaced footbridge just outside of Sakuragicho Station. For those interested in the show, Sukeban Deka II was about a delinquent school girl who fights crime with a yo-yo as an undercover agent for a secret government organization working against a group that wants to take over the country by controlling all the high schools gangs. It starred idol Minamino Yoko speaking in an archaic country dialect. It makes 1985 Japan sense.