For some, Cop Craft might not deliver the ambition it promises in its first two episodes: the production values is still barebone for one, and it lacks the central narrative focus for another, it still burns through the material like gasoline on top of that. But for me, I enjoy Cop Craft much better when it isn’t dealing with heavy-handed overarching plot. The universe in Cop Craft is seedy, corrupt and crimes-ladden, but the show flirts around with its dark settings with light tone and even pokes fun at its absurdity. Sure, aliens are obssessed with human’s porno mags because why not, and in the case of episode 7, a politician gets tangled up in alien prostitute’s ring. Episode 7, titled “Girls on Ice”, remains one of the best episodes in Cop Craft, seemingly because it weaves seamlessly between its dark subject matters and lightheart screwball moments, making the case in this episode fun to follow and still has room for more thoughts if we want to dig a little deeper.
In episode 7, Tilarna makes friends with a call girl she acquainted during her undercover assignment, and the weight of that relationship is the central focus of the episode. Like many crime stories, this girl Zoey has another side of her as well. It’s the kind of stories we have seen before: how they gain mutual trust and then everything falls apart, but it’s a necessary development for our girl Tilarna, whose emotional support has been Kei all this time. It also helps that Zoey feels like a flesh-out character with her love for photography and her wise sense. At the same time, Cop Craft jabs on the politics as we have a dirty politician who uses his power to silent the mess he made (and a dutiful wife who is much smarter than she lets out).. at the end, Kei’s advice holds true: for this line of job, don’t get too close to the people involved in the case.
In the latest episode we have a more lighthearted, and ten times sillier event as Tilarna and the cat swap place. Her total embarrassment and reaction are priceless, although if the production is sharper it could be much more adorable. It’s one of the rare episodes where I feel the fanservice works in service of the plot, instead of like usual beach/ ocean episode in other anime, regardless of it fits the content or not (here’s looking at you, Kanata no Astra. It’s interesting as well to see how she drags Cecile into this (Cecile steadily becomes one of my favorite), and there are many small moments like how Cecile still knows where Kei’s spare key is, or when the cat (in Tilarna form) realizes Celine and knocks her conscious in the process, or how Tilarna manages to text (in English) with her cat pawn. It becomes clear to me that there’s a lot of love put in the source material, and so far at least one thing that this adaptation does right is that it nails the dry, black humor successfully.
I thought this pair of episodes were quite good. The show’s been a bit uneven, but I’m still happy to call it the season’s sleeper (wish the production quality was consistently higher though).