The first movie took a deathly boring subject like tax accounting and injected it with the energy of a high powered thriller, presented a villain so concerned with running his (criminal) day job that he interrupts a rendezvous with his mistress to order a new set of sheets for his love hotels, and had a heroine who was ultra-competent professionally but childlike in her personal life. These were funny, offbeat choices, but I could also glean a certain satirical element about Japan's notoriously intense work culture. It could have been didactic in lesser hands, but it's a credit to Juzo Itami's light touch and Nobuko Miyamoto's delightful performance that it's a completely breezy watch. Watch Miyamoto swerve from childlike excitement over a video game to bad cop energy when she grills the villain after his supposed tax evasion without missing a beat. The quirky physicality she brings to the role evokes a live action representation of a children's anime character.
In this one, the villains are a religious cult that seems to be a front for an elaborate tax evasion scheme. This concept brings to mind the lavishly wealthy megachurches in the US and is a potential minefield for satire. Yet while there are still funny moments (the followers barging into a room in unison and angrily demanding the tax inspectors leave immediately after Miyamoto tries to do her bad cop routine; Miyamoto trying to fake religious mania with gyrations that bring to mind Martin Short's dance moves in
Clifford), I never felt the movie pursued a real satirical angle with this material. (I will concede that as someone who isn't Japanese and has never been to the country, it's possible some of this is going over my head.) It's oddly played relatively straight, and causes a real tonal mismatch with the more lighthearted scenes of Miyamoto and her fellow tax sleuths at work. The movie's biggest miscalculation is the inclusion of a sexual misconduct subplot, which feels at odds with the universe these movies take place in. And where the first movie had Miyamoto and the villain eventually bond over a shared humanity, the cult leaders and members rarely evoke much sympathy.
All that being said, there is fun to be had here whenever Miyamoto is onscreen, even if her fits are not as on point as in the original movie. (I understand her wardrobe in that one was supposed to be an extension of her exacting professional life, but all I saw were a bunch of sharp, slouchy getups that looked equally comfortable and stylish.) This time she's paired with a partner who provides a nice goofy counterpoint to her wiry, cartoonish energy, although he finds ways to impress her through his work as well (like when he gets a bathhouse attendant to divulge some info by bribing her with beer coupons.) Watching these two at work, bouncing off each other, is a delight. I just wish the other parts of the movie had the same energy.