Supergirl is a Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese television

Television

Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

 crime drama. Originally broadcast between April 2, 1979 and March 17, 1980, lasting 51 episodes, the series featured an all-female cast, not unlike the earlier series Playgirl

Playgirl (TV series)

is a late 1960s Japanese television action/drama series conceived in the Spy-Fi genre, recently released to DVD in Japan....

. Supergirl, however, was primarily based upon the American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 television series Charlie's Angels

Charlie's Angels

Charlie's Angels is a television series about three women who work for a private investigation agency, and is one of the first shows to showcase women in roles traditionally reserved for men...

and the softcore pornography films produced by Nikkatsu

Nikkatsu

is a Japanese entertainment company well known for its film and television productions. It is Japan's oldest major movie studio. The name Nikkatsu is an abbreviation of Nippon Katsudō Shashin, literally "Japan Cinematograph Company".-History:...

.

Despite the superficial similarities, Supergirl is vastly different from Playgirl. Featuring far more serious plots and less comic relief

Comic relief

Comic relief is the inclusion of a humorous character, scene or witty dialogue in an otherwise serious work, often to relieve tension.-Definition:...

, as well as highly eroticised situations wherein the characters wore a variety of revealing and fetish outfits, including bikini

Bikini

The bikini is typically a women's two-piece swimsuit. One part of the attire covers the breasts and the other part covers the crotch and part of or the entire buttocks, leaving an uncovered area between the two. Merriam–Webster describes the bikini as "a woman's scanty two-piece bathing suit" or "a...

s and schoolgirl uniforms, these elements of the series were a deliberate attempt by its producer Toei

Toei Company

is a Japanese film, television production, and distribution corporation. Based in Tokyo, Toei owns and operates thirty-four movie theaters across Japan, a modest vertically-integrated studio system by the standards of the 1930s United States; operates studios at Tokyo and Kyoto; and is a...

 to create a more "adult" series. This can even be seen in the episode titles, such as episode one, "Seven Sexy Cats Make Their Explosive Debut", or episode nineteen, "Nude Battle Against the Wolf Pack".

The main characters of the series are members of "SG7", an all-female detective agency. Their leader was portrayed by Yōko Nogiwa

Yoko Nogiwa

is a Japanese actress.-External links:...

; the other primary actors in the series are Janet Hatta

Janet Hatta

-Biography:Her father is an American and her mother is Japanese. After working as a stewardess for Japan Airlines, she entered acting. She briefly used the name . In 1981, she married Kōichi Tabuchi, who at that time played baseball for the Seibu Lions, and retired from acting. The couple later...

, Linda Yamamoto

Linda Yamamoto

is a Japanese singer and actress whose greatest hit song was in 1973.-Biography :Yamamoto was born March 4, 1951 in Kitakyushu to a Japanese mother and an American father. Her father was a U.S. serviceman who died in the Korean War when she was only two years old. Yamamoto moved to Yokohama as a...

, Rei Maki, Reiko Tatsu, June Izumi, Naomi Tanaka, Megumi Shindo, and Akiko Hyuga.