Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we\u2019re exploring another seedy artifact of anime\u2019s indulgent OVA era, as we check out the first episode of Angel Cop. This six-episode series falls neatly in the popular bubble-era genre of cyber crime dramas, whose entrants range in tone from the lighthearted Bubblegum Crisis or Dominion Tank Police to more grim affairs like Wicked City or Cyber City Oedo, all offering some mixture of investigative theater, explosive action, and salacious interludes.<\/span><\/p>\n Angel Cop hasn\u2019t exactly maintained a high profile over the years, but its principle creators have me extremely curious. The series is directed by Ichiro Itano, a legend of mecha animation history whose contributions to Space Runaway Ideon and Macross included the \u201cItano Circus\u201d missile barrage, and who has otherwise acted as both director (his Megazone 23 segment is brutal) and mentor to a wide array of successors. He is here joined by writer Sho Aikawa, whose contributions to the original Fullmetal Alchemist and stewardship of the phenomenal, underappreciated Concrete Revolutio set him as one of the few anime writers I have absolute faith in. I\u2019m quite interested to see how Aikawa\u2019s restless political insight intersects with both the narrative tropes and cultural concerns of bubble-era action, so let\u2019s not waste any more time rambling. Onward to Angel Cop!<\/span><\/p>\n Episode 1<\/b><\/p>\n Sirens wail in accompaniment to our bright red title, before we cut abruptly to a highway at night<\/span><\/p>\n Ah, traditionally animated cars \u2013 such a staple of these bubble era properties, and such a luxury nowadays. It feels like the advent of CG has more or less permanently hobbled anime in an aesthetic sense, in that now productions which would otherwise avoid including objects they couldn\u2019t meaningfully animate will just create them in CG, thereby undercutting the visual holism and beauty of the whole. It\u2019s similar to how CG has affected live-action cinema, in fact; I\u2019ll pretty much always take a charmingly hand-made practical effect over a CG addition<\/span><\/p>\n Actually flexing here with the reflections on this roadside sedan, with the lights from the highway glimmering as cars pass by<\/span><\/p>\n The sedan hood pops, and four lovingly animated missiles fire out of a pocket missile bay beneath. I suppose it makes sense for an Itano production to open with some graceful missile trails<\/span><\/p>\n Excellent, voluminous explosions as the missiles strike what appears to be a US embassy<\/span><\/p>\n We then cut to a gorgeous overview of Tokyo in what appears to be the early morning, just as the sun\u2019s encroaching presence begins to lighten the sky. The city is entirely composed of blues and blacks, with just a hint of pinkish glow in the clouds, alongside tiny specks of yellow glinting from various windows. A fantastic vision of a city on the verge of waking<\/span><\/p>\n A narrator informs us that at the end of the 20th century, Japan has become the world\u2019s premier economic superpower. A common, understandable trend in bubble era media, an assumption that Japan\u2019s economic expansion would only continue into the future. In the \u201891 Godzilla vs King Ghidorah, it\u2019s proposed that Japanese economic domination would become so great it would demand time-travelers return from the future to stop the country\u2019s rise<\/span><\/p>\n Time has an interesting way of contextualizing political narratives; I can easily see an Aikawa of the late \u201880s seriously mulling the consequences of an endlessly expanding Japan<\/span><\/p>\n Apparently Japan\u2019s success has prompted foreign terrorists to attack the nation\u2019s political and business leaders<\/span><\/p>\n Aikawa clearly reveling in the nitty-gritty of describing these counter-terrorism units. The bubble era was also likely the height of the anime as political thriller, as exemplified through the works of Mamoru Oshii<\/span><\/p>\n The terrorists are apparently communists, who are countered by an elite ten man squad with a license to kill. Aikawa\u2019s still writing from the very tail end of the Cold War, and presumably also considering an emergent China in defining these variables. Hindsight is twenty-twenty, but it\u2019s still funny to think this episode released in September \u201889, two months before the fall of the Berlin Wall would make its geopolitical concerns immediately dated<\/span><\/p>\n The important takeaway is our team is the Special Security Force<\/span><\/p>\n Ooh, love this man\u2019s trench coat billowing in the wind as he boards this helicopter<\/span><\/p>\n Our character designer is Nobuteru Yuki, a legend whose other character design credits run from Escaflowne to Star Blazers 2199, and who you can always count on for ornate designs that draw on both realistic forms (largely for the men) and delicate fantasy (largely for the women). He\u2019s got a perfect match on animation direction here, with none other than Yasuomi Umetsu of Kite\/Mezzo Forte\/etc fame handling those duties. A powerful alliance of artists that I imagine will facilitate an unusually realistic and tightly choreographed aesthetic<\/span><\/p>\n Really just showing off with these delicate hand movements as he lights a cigarette and takes a call from \u201cRaiden.\u201d I can definitely see the Umetsu in this; the male character in his contribution to Robot Carnival was drawn and animated quite similarly<\/span><\/p>\n The production manages its luxurious flourishes of character acting with an equal amount of stillness, like the minutes-long pan into that gorgeous vision of Tokyo. It\u2019s an effective compromise<\/span><\/p>\n Raiden\u2019s investigations reveal that the missile-bearing car was stolen from a pop star, and planted with clear knowledge of the cops\u2019 tendency to overlook such vehicles<\/span><\/p>\n The terrorist group is known as the Red May<\/span><\/p>\n The variable prioritization of different cuts does lead to a somewhat disjointed aesthetic; Raiden\u2019s discussion with this police officer varies between lip flaps alone and total fluidity<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cRaiden\u201d is Isamu Sakata, the first of our ten special operatives, who possess no official police rank<\/span><\/p>\n More detailed, extraordinarily realistic character acting as Isamu mounts his motorcycle. Interesting how trends change over the years; this isn\u2019t the sort of scene a modern action anime would prioritize, it\u2019s a focus on detail that seems more appropriate for quiet, observational drama. But modern action anime are all about digitally assisted spectacle, much like modern action cinema, while Angel Cop emerged into a world where \u201cStallone adjusting his jacket and shades\u201d was the height of cool<\/span><\/p>\n We meet two more apparent special agents, with the distinction in character design between this muscle-bound man and petite girl demonstrating the exaggerated sexual dimorphism embodied by both Yuki and Umetsu\u2019s character design sensibilities<\/span><\/p>\n The bombing was allegedly a distraction to facilitate the abduction of a man named Suyama, but apparently that doesn\u2019t match Red May\u2019s usual MO<\/span><\/p>\n Based on the employment histories of the kidnappers, it seems like they must have hatched this plan at least five years ago<\/span><\/p>\n The chief mentions \u201cHacker and Peace,\u201d presumably the codenames for those two special agents<\/span><\/p>\n Some nice weighted combat choreography as Raiden takes down a terrorist cell. Quite similar to Umetsu\u2019s usual style, though more grounded than his Hong Kong action-inspired theatrics<\/span><\/p>\n And then some gory grotesquery as our titular Angel is introduced, basically obliterating the skull of a woman sneaking up on Raiden. A clear demonstration of her brutality<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cJust remember this \u2013 we\u2019re not murderers!\u201d \u201cYou think you\u2019re so righteous, eh? You\u2019re just bloodthirsty has-been cops.\u201d The \u201880s were a banner decade for police brutality, with rises in urban crime inspiring such fascist counter-texts as Cobra, as well as a long string of Death Wish and Dirty Harry sequels. No surprise Aikawa has some thoughts<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t you think Japan has been at peace for too long? Obsessing so much over internal affairs is a sign the country\u2019s gone as far as it can. We want to save people from this rotting, stagnant country!\u201d I wish I could say this is an unrealistic perspective, but \u2018We must sow chaos to build a vital country where strength is valued\u2019 is indeed the perspective of many lunatics, including much of the United States\u2019 conservative coalition<\/span><\/p>\n There\u2019s actually pretty clear parallels between these bubble-era concerns and our current societal collapse; given enough peace and prosperity, some portion of humanity will simply go insane, demanding violence for its own sake. I first saw this theory properly elucidated in Dostoevsky\u2019s Notes from Underground, whose protagonist promised that whatever beautiful edifices humanity hoped to construct, his own antisocial bloc would surely destroy them. It\u2019s not something I\u2019ve been happy to live through<\/span><\/p>\n Red May\u2019s leader Takeshi Suyama descends from the plane. They\u2019ve given him quite the unflattering design, complete with a prominent overbite<\/span><\/p>\n He is accompanied by a Japanese man named Tachihara<\/span><\/p>\n A bomb disrupts the handoff, and the two escape in a helicopter<\/span><\/p>\n The chief apparently let them get away, as he suspects the official story here is faulty. Considering the Red May are supposed to be communists and those bombers were some kind of anarchic accelerationists, I\u2019d assume so<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cJust because he\u2019s hiding behind left-wing radicals doesn\u2019t mean he\u2019s with the communists.\u201d Yep<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cYou don\u2019t have to be behind every little case.\u201d It seems the chief\u2019s own superior is complicit<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cMy men do not have the luxury of choosing their targets.\u201d A quiet but deliberate dig, challenging his boss\u2019s loyalty, emphasizing that while he plays political games, their agents are actually fighting and dying out there<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cTaki, don\u2019t be a loose cannon out there.\u201d \u201cAnyone who threatens the safety of our country is an enemy.\u201d Easily translated as an outright threat \u2013 if this trail leads back to his boss, he won\u2019t hesitate to pull the trigger<\/span><\/p>\n They find the helicopter with Suyama\u2019s corpse inside, confirming that Red May was only a convenient vessel for Tachihara<\/span><\/p>\n The chief runs into a GSDF man named Ichihara, introduced with ominous electronic chords and dramatically saturated shading. With all that motivated framing, the fact that they gave him a withered vampire\u2019s head seems hardly necessary<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve heard of you. I won\u2019t treat my men as guinea pigs.\u201d While the military higher-ups play at wargames, the rank-and-file police suffer. A clear parallel between the peace-bought irritability and bloodthirst of these higher operatives and the values espoused by the terrorist earlier, presumably pointing to their shared goal of igniting the world and remilitarizing Japan. As Aikawa consistently demonstrated throughout Concrete Revolution, the history of post-war Japan is in many ways a battle between anti- and pro-militarization, a battle lent further urgency through the United States\u2019 clear lack of dedication to a peaceful future, and their insistence on using Japan as a proxy in their forever wars<\/span><\/p>\n Extremely like Aikawa to promise a rip-roaring action spectacle, team up with action specialist Umetsu, and then offer twenty straight minutes of late Cold War geopolitical discussions<\/span><\/p>\n A discussion on what they\u2019d do if a child was taken hostage illustrates the distance between Angel and Raiden, her pragmatic focus on the mission versus his sentimental prioritization of the people that mission is supposed to protect<\/span><\/p>\n A cleaning van full of terrorists takes off, and our team charges forward in pursuit<\/span><\/p>\n Ooh, terrific cuts as Angel shoots down the man riding shotgun, forcing an immediate stop that sends Raiden tumbling over the van. As per usual with Umetsu action, there\u2019s an unusual, welcome sense of weight and consequence to these actions; you can feel both the van and Raiden respond to these collisions<\/span><\/p>\n Tachihara leaps from the van as it crosses a bridge, leaving his last collaborators to be hunted down by Angel<\/span><\/p>\n Even crueler, it seems he actually detonates a bomb in the van to prevent their capture<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cSomeone outside the SFF is killing terrorists!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n And Done<\/b><\/p>\n Whew, there\u2019s a lot to chew on here! This OVA could easily just be a series of context-free action capers in the style of Umetsu\u2019s usual fare, but with Sho Aikawa in attendance, we\u2019re also getting an intriguing snapshot of Japanese political anxieties in the midst of its asset price bubble. In a rapidly changing world and astride a nation that has suddenly risen from post-war reconstruction to economic domination, the question of what future we are attempting to create is clearly on Aikawa\u2019s mind, as the obvious factions of the Cold War give way to something more amorphous and intractable. I suspect things will get more fanciful as we proceed, but Aikawa always offers something worth chewing on, and Itano\u2019s team are offering a generous visual spectacle to accompany his musings. Quite curious to see where we go from here!<\/span><\/p>\n This\u00a0article\u00a0was\u00a0mad<\/a><\/em>e possible by reader support<\/a>. Thank you all for\u00a0all that you do.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wrongeverytime.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/April11104005.jpg?resize=584%2C329&ssl=1\")
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<\/p>\nLike this:<\/h3>\n