Cop Craft First Impressions

“No, he’ll be your partner. Or do you want a man whose etiquette is perfect, but who’s otherwise completely useless?”

Cop Craft is the series that attempts to answer the age-old question, “What if someone blended the premises of Rush Hour and Bright?” Actually, the term “age-old” probably isn’t appropriate given that I don’t think anyone in human history ever asked for that, but surprisingly the end result is at least decent. Cop Craft is hardly the best action series of the season, but it falls in line with a couple niche genres that haven’t been appealed to this season. It effectively blends aspects of buddy-cop narratives with modern fantasy, and the end approach is stylish and enjoyable, even if its integrated CG can sometimes nag. As it stands, Cop Craft is a solid enough genre piece, but it’s unclear whether it can elevate itself above the cliches.

Our main character is Kei Matoba, a chain-smoking detective in the city of San-Teresa. San-Teresa is on an island located near a dimensional gateway that connects Earth to a magical realm, similar to the premise of the anime series Gate. Matoba mainly deals in illegal smuggling of magical creatures and items, and the episode kicks off with him and his partner, Redshirt Threedaystoretirement, busting a pair of black market fairy dealers. However, the bust goes sideways when one of the dealers is possessed by a mage and kills Redshirt before making off with the fairy. The next day, Matoba is ordered to meet with a dignitary who is arriving via the gate. This dignitary ends up being a Chinese detective who gives Chris Tucker the slip, and makes his way to… No, wait. That’s Rush Hour again, isn’t it? No, the dignitary in this case is a young(?) elven(?) knight named Tilarna. I assume she’s elven but the show hadn’t gone into details about the “alien” races, and, by extension, I have no clue if she’s secretly a couple hundred years old. Anyway, now this unlikely pair is going to have to work together if they want to recover the kidnapped fairy. As a duo, they aren’t bad, but Matoba and Tilarna’s dynamic is almost exactly what you’d expect, and, while their dialogue can be amusing, there’s nothing that transcendent to their chemistry as of yet.

The production on this is handled by Millepensee. That’s right! That Millepensee! The one you’ve never heard of! They’ve mainly adapted a couple comedy series by a manga writer named Roots, who I’ve also never heard of. The studio’s biggest claim to fame is that they were one of the studios animating the Berserk series that came out in 2016. Though, based upon what I’ve heard of the visuals for that series, that title may hang less like a gold medal around the studio’s neck and more like an albatross. Regardless of their past work, the animation here is good, but not good enough to avoid being distracting. There is clearly integrated CG at play in a lot of the scenes, but it often skirts that line of almost avoiding detection but not quite. It’s not entirely dissimilar to the uncanny valley effect. There were also instances where the computer generated visuals simply aren’t integrated well. This appears to be a common issue with the vehicles. It becomes particularly bad when they allow you to see the characters through the windows as, in order to keep the camera moving dynamically, they use the frustratingly clunky CG models that anime fans have become so fond of.

Before I wrap up, a few Notes and Nitpicks:

• When entering into his apartment, Matoba puts on a breathing mask. I don’t know if this is supposed to suggest that his apartment stinks or what. If that’s what they’re aiming for, it isn’t a well executed gag, and it doesn’t appropriately fit with the show’s tone.
• It seems a bit odd that backup was so far away during that sting operation. Even given dramatic license it seems odd. Frankly, given how powerful the possessed goon was, they probably could have had more cops present for that scene. It would have simply made his seem more intimidating.
• I generally don’t think about this aspect of anime premieres that often, but it’s rare to see one end on an abrupt cliffhanger, emphasis being on the abrupt part. Sure, it isn’t uncommon to see a premiere build suspense, but I can’t remember the last time I was surprised to realize the episode was over.