Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: Cop Craft
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Chrono1000
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Cop Craft is the best buddy cop anime I have seen with interesting characters, a good story, and a fascinating world. The character dynamic between Tilarna and Kei is really good and while it does fit into the typical idealism vs pragmatism model seen in most buddy cop shows they are both good people that have a stubborn commitment to doing what they think is right. Kei has a gruff exterior but a heart of gold and there are lots of nice little moments in the first three episodes where that can be seen. Considering he was a soldier that fought a war against the Semani I would say that his struggle to try to get along with Tilarna is reasonable especially since he was worried that she was going to get in the way of the investigation. The animation is usually good though anime budget tricks are noticeable with some of the fights in the third episode. I am hoping that the Cop Craft light novels eventually get released in English since I am really liking the anime.
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ChestPains
Posts: 101 |
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The first two episodes got me quite interested in the duo but episode 3 feels like it sped through 4 volumes in 12 minutes and the end of it felt like it should've come around episode 10 or so. I thought it would be fun if I broke my "never pick up LN adaptation" rule for this because it's a cop show and now I feel like an absolute buffoon because this is the first time something I picked up went to shit in almost 5 years. Never let your guard down, kids.
Episode 4 and 5 better pull some miraculous shit. |
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meiam
Posts: 3450 |
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Yeah holy crap what the hell happened with episode 3?! That was one of the worst drop in quality, across the board, I have seen from one episode to another. Did the entire staff/studio change or something? 1/2 weren't amazing episode by any stretch, but they were decently made, so I really can't imagine the same team was responsible for 3.
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SilverTalon01
Posts: 2419 |
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I have to agree with the reviewer about episode 3. It rushed way too many plot elements while the animation dropped off a cliff which is not a good combination. The fights were one thing, but the trap dodging at the end was freeze frame shots...
I felt like this show had promise too. I'm a huge FMP fan, and the setup for this seemed so solid. |
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jdnation
Posts: 2129 |
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Episode 3 was kind of odd.
But 1 & 2 were pretty solid, and I wasn't expecting everything to be wrapped up so much by 3... So yeah, not bad, but kind of a big step back. I'm still in though, here's hoping it gets better. I think this show could also be great with a more episodic villain of the week approach and creative crimes. Unless there's bigger fish to fry, surely episodes 3's events could been saved for the finale, or even mid-season. |
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Agent355
 Posts: 5113 Location: Crackberry in hand, thumbs at the ready... |
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Now that I read the review, it’s clear that the problem with episode 3 went beyond the lackluster fight scenes. On the one hand, I was honestly surprised by the twist that the chief was in on the terrorist plot, in a good way (I also thought it was nicely self aware that he admitted he teamed Kei up with Tilarna in order to slow down the investigation). On the other hand, a reveal like that rarely happens before the end of the third episode (unless the whole rest of the story is predicated on it, in which case it should have been revealed in episode 1). I don’t know why, but it’s such a weird placement for a reveal like that.
And now we have a magic nuke, so the stakes can’t get much higher. How do you top a magic nuke in the next arc? A magic hydrogen bomb? Or do you take a break from high stakes and do a FUFFUMOFU arc? It really has me questioning the show’s pacing. Anyway, at least the dynamic between Kei and Tilarna is very strong. That’s the most important aspect in a buddy cop story. It just needs to slow down. |
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steelmirror
 Posts: 342 |
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Yeah wow, that was a fun show. Fast paced and snappy, with a fun central relationship and an off-the-wall villain who had a master plan so ridiculous that it wrapped back around to being awesome. The storm of revelations in the latter act were great self-aware pulp cliches, clearly born from a love of a self-consciously goofy marriage of genres. The animation drop at the end was unfortunate, but it was a fun ride.
I was having so much fun, that whole season's worth of show felt like it barely lasted 3 episodes! ... I'm glad I'm not the only person to be totally blown away by the crazy pace in ep 3. I have no idea where the show is going to go next, though I at least hope it will be better animated. But I am definitely going to be watching to find out. 
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CrisGer A.A.
 Posts: 170 Location: 世田谷区 Setagaya Ward |
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i agree with everyone so far ..i went thru three changes with this show at first i was interested intrigued even. then i was turned off by him and his crass boorishness..and her well boring alien stuff.
but the interesting art style and skillful use of a simplified art style and somber colour scheme hooked me back in for 2 but with 3 blame, evertying and the kitchen sink are tossed in and sink the ship no pun intended. I bet they assigned differnt teams to differnt sets of eps, maybe in pairs? dunno. hope for the best but i am prepared to dump it again reveiwer very well done!!!! |
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18504 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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Boy, I could have written most of what Andy says about episode 3 myself, as those were almost exactly my own thoughts after watching it. I'm also equally concerned, as the show looked promising during the first two episodes.
The one plus, I guess, was how Tilarna looked in her club outfit. |
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11624 |
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The animation fail struck me as a production foul-up, as we saw in the infamous episode 11 of Wizard Barristers. Those weren't just money-saving short-cuts, they were "well, our in-betweens aren't going to be here by deadline, so do what you can with the keys you have."
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Kirki
Posts: 296 |
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That was the most shocking drop in quality I think I have ever seen. At the first two episodes, it is indicated that the show wants to be taken into account very seriously, and that the main theme, besides the police mystery, will be racism. Not much was going on, but it was still quite early in the story, and it seemed like it was just taking its time seriously establishing the mystery and the character relationships.
And then, we have loli fanservice, tragic backstory, battle still shots, extermination of a bad guy, treason, reveals, atomic bombs, all in one episode. Unwatchable. This was more than enough for me to drop it. |
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MiloTheFirst
Posts: 429 |
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oh boy, while the serious drop in animation quality was a bummer the pacing shift just left me speechless. I can get behind this show wanting to cram every possible action film cliche ever into its narration but why in a single episode?
junior partner decides to act on his own and gets captures. check the main baddie tells his own plan out load, making emphasis in that it is all about that dollah, baby. check such baddie just so happen to be a master in a flashy martial art. check the senior partner comes to the rescue and easily mow downs the disposable minions. all the while hostage works in their own escape. check as it turns out there was a leaker in the police force, as it turns out it was some one high in the ranks, as it turns out he apparently was like a father figure to the protagonist. check turns out the next baddie has a past with the protagonist. check is this real life? for me it almost came back full circle into being so bad it is good but it just quite didn't make it, perhaps if the dip in production value hadn't been a factor, but, wow. I guess they over extended |
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zensunni
 Posts: 1294 |
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Remember that this is based on a Light Novel series, so this reveal would have come near the end of the first book in the series. If that book hadn't sold, that would have been it for the series, so it's not surprising to have a major reveal like that near the end of the stand-alone story that started the series. The key is how the author picks up the pieces once the story gets continued and more volumes are approved... which we'll find out after we're done with the first arc. If there's one thing that Gatoh does extremely well it is writing "bad-ass fish out of water" characters, though in the case of Tilarna it seems that she might also suffer from a bit of over-confidence in some areas, as episode 3 showed, since she over-reached a bit in her first attempt to fight the opening arc's bad guy apparent. The twist that her 'mispronunciation' of Kei's name was actually a blatant insult in her language that Kei only figured out after she had gained a bit of respect for him and deigned to pronounce his name correctly was a masterful piece of writing. It also proved two things 1) Tilarna, while not having a complete grasp of our language, is better at it than she seemed and 2) Kei, while being one of the only detectives who can speak her language, isn't fluent enough to really understand it that well. It was also interesting that the story fairly quickly dispels any questions about Tilarna being underage with the exchange between her and Kei where she tells him she isn't a kid because she is 26 and he snipes back that it is equivalent to 18 in our years so in his opinion she's still a kid. So she's not a child, but she's still very young and probably inexperienced, though obviously extremely skilled. I do wonder if the difference between "26" and "18" has to do with the year length on their world or something about Elven maturity cycles vs Human? All in all I'm really enjoying it, despite the drop in quality in the third episode. I look forward to seeing where the story takes us. |
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SilverTalon01
Posts: 2419 |
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I thought she lost on purpose the first time to find the location of the fairy. It seemed like she was trying to disguise her sword style by not giving the name and using a hidden sword versus her normal sword which seems potentially recognizable. She seemed to handily beat him the second time. She did initially decline to name her style the second time too, but she named it on her own after she won. |
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steelmirror
Posts: 342 |
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So episode 4 has happened now, and it reinforces how wonky the pacing has been. I can only assume that there is something coming later in the season that they really wanted to have an extra episode for, so the choice was made to cut an entire episode off of the first arc in order to make room.
If the first arc had been allowed to last for a full 4 eps, they could have ended episode 3 on the fight with the punk elf guy (and maybe have had time to actually animate it), then dedicated 4 to covering all the escalating ridiculousness, from the thing with the head cop on up to the battle at the skyscraper and the fairy's eventual fate. Then the lingering emotional melancholy of Tilarna dealing with her failure even as she finally reached some sort of mutual acknowledgement with Kei would have some actual time to breathe, as she decides to leave Earth and go back home (yeah sure). Instead ep 4 begins with a baffling anticlimax which was so rushed that I could barely tell what was going on, much less have any feelings about it. I'm still not sure what happened exactly, or what Baddy McEvillaugh's motivations were, but okay. We get the ridiculous scene where Tilarna decides to leave at the beginning of the episode, only to show up in full magical mooching girlfriend fashion at Kei's apartment like 30 seconds later. And THEN the actual plot of the episode can start. It's too bad, because while it continues to be as stock as possible in terms of a supernatural procedural cop show, the rest of the episode is actually entertaining. It benefits from things like basic comprehensibility, a sense that the partnership has entered a groove, and some acceptable character banter (Tilarna talking with the coroner was better than the gruff boss racist material). I like Tilarna and Kei even though they are cliches, but the show is drowning the good stuff out with its incredibly rushed pacing and over-reliance on the lazier stock detective character tropes. All in all, I'm sort of hoping Cop Craft finds its footing, but I'm starting to think it's just one more episode away from tipping completely into dumpster fire territory. |
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