Ryotsu's schemes are fundamentally doomed from conception, and the comedy lives in watching him commit fully to the impossible anyway. Every episode is a self-contained collapse that teaches you nothing because he never learns, which somehow makes each failure feel earned instead of repetitive. The show builds a whole precinct around one broke cop's desperation, and by episode fifty you realize you're not laughing at the chaos, you're watching a man in perfect stasis, forever broke, forever scheming, forever caught.

Ryoutsu Kankichi, known as Ryo-san, is a burly, underpaid police officer stationed at a police box in Kameari, in the Katsushika district of downtown Tokyo. He has a good heart, but he loves to gamble, loses his temper easily, and fills his free time with countless hobbies such as video games and model kits. Short on money, he keeps inventing shady plans to earn some fast cash. These plans are absurd from the start and always backfire, dropping him into serious trouble with his long-suffering chief, Ohara Daijiro. His colleagues Akimoto Reiko and Nakagawa Keiichi are often left dismayed by the chaos he causes. The comedy is loud and satirical, packed with bizarre situations like souped-up police cars carrying missiles, and with Ryoutsu somehow managing feats that should be impossible.