'Angel Cop' Review: Visually beautiful but not the best story

Angel Cop is one of those anime shows I've had appear in front of my eyeballs many times throughout the years, and has even been one that I have actually tried to start a few times, though for one reason or another it was something I didn't continue with. Lately I've been feeling that anime mood creeping up again and struggling to find things to watch, so I roamed through MyAnimeList and built a little list of anime shows from the past that I might want to check out. And Angel Cop was one that appeared yet again before me. I threw it into that little list I was creating and went on to finish the show I had already started, and once finished, I went through it again and chose Angel Cop, mostly for the fact that it had a short number of episodes and I knew it would be something to quickly enjoy and get through, not quite wanting to start something a bit longer again and invest so much time into it when I don't have a whole lot of free time to begin with.

Angel Cop is one of those anime shows that really is of an era. It's one that visually captures the aesthetic of the late 1980s as well as the state of the animation industry in Japan at the time. This was a time where everything was still animated by hand, when shows were still recorded on the film format. All very traditional mediums that led to a very beautiful style that remains heavily appreciated to this day, with younger generations feeling a nostalgia for an era they never even experienced. Often myself included. Angel Cop isn't an amazing show though, it's not one that truly stands out compared to the other shows within its genre and time; many reviews give it quite an average rating after all. This is a general consensus I agree with. But it's an interesting show nonetheless. And has some incredibly unique levels of attention to detail that are worthy of admiring even if other areas don't quite excel.

Something that isn't particularly uncommon within Angel Cop is its narrative which speaks on the nationalistic mentality Japan had at the time. There's a large number of shows from the era that have details on how Japan felt about globalism and its pride in its culture and heritage. Gasaraki is one that immediately comes to mind. Angel Cop is about a Japan that is economically booming. It has a strong power on the global stage and naturally maintains an interest in holding it. This was fairly true for the 1980s, where Japan had a significant boom in its economy from its various domestic production of technology and cars. Japan was the tech hub before it all crumbled. Here within the narrative, a terrorist group of far left communists are attempting to sabotage Japan and its economic growth, and it's the job of the Special Security Force to put an end to the 'Red May' group through Angel. Though the show doesn't refrain from reminding us of this basic plot line at the start of every episode. It's almost a form of propaganda!

The animation of Angel Cop is probably what stands out the most. It is a visually stunning world that has been crafted, and it's rich in violence which really punches through the cyberpunk and gritty futurist environment. When it comes to the action scenes, Angel Cop really doesn't shy away from gore. Even within the first episode there's quite a shocking scene in which a woman is shot several times, with great graphic detail displaying the splattering of her brain with immense fear on her face. For the time and for anime, this was still something relatively new for it. It had its moments with gore, but this anime in particular really pushes it sometimes. I think this adds to the violence and aspects of terror the narrative explores, at least. It isn't entirely senseless. This hyper-violence definitely adds more grit to the world. It adds to the dystopia. The cruelty of the future and life within such a dense city.

Mixed within the story is something more unusual: a spiritual and supernatural theme that quickly begins. A strange middle-man that also appears to be hunting the terrorists for an unknown reason. So we have little girls that hold demonic facial features capable of burning people to death without touching them. Mechas that are used by the police force that sprinkle in the cyberpunk themes a bit more. A bit of that Akira feeling to it in some ways. Angel Cop is one of those weird anime shows that holds a bit of everything, rich in that 80s style of directing and sound. I can appreciate it for that.