English Dub Review: Cop Craft “A King Maker”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Cecil continues looking for the trash possibly holding the magical item that switched Tilarna’s mind into Kuroi’s body, but it turns out that it’s gotten mixed up with some loads that are headed for the shredder. Tilarna is unable to stop it from being destroyed, so things seem hopeless, but it seems all they needed to do was destroy it anyway because the spell soon reverses. Upon returning to her regular body, she finds that one of the real culprits was a fake agent they had an issue with before. And…that’s the end of that story!

After a kinda random use of the intro in the middle of the episode, we move onto the next (and likely last) arc of the season. The STPD throw a barbeque, but their good times are interrupted by news that a mayoral candidate, Nathan Kahns, has reportedly been assassinated by a Semanian, stirring up racial prejudices. The suspect apparently has no criminal record, so the chief speculates he might have been controlled by Zelada, made more likely when they detect latena on the suspect’s corpse. However, as they investigate, another cop makes a racist remark about Tilarna, throwing Kei into a rage. Despite that, they shift attention to who might benefit from Kahns’ assassination, with the culprit likely being among the remaining two candidates.

OUR TAKE

Oh…okay, I guess that’s it for the body-switching arc. They did that thing again where the plot only carried to halfway through the episode, making the ending of that story feel kinda sudden and the beginning of the next feel kinda tacked on there, but I suppose that will probably be the last time that happens as we’re coming up on the end of the season. The resolution was surprisingly simple, but then again, it would make sense that they wouldn’t initially want to destroy the thing that caused the mess. I feel like there could have been a more character motivated way of finishing things, but this is…fine.

Moving onto the second half, it looks like we’re following up on stuff with that other mayoral candidate a couple of episodes ago, as well as finally checking in with Zelada, who we haven’t really seen since Episode 4! Looks like this will tie all the remaining plot threads together and culminate them into this murder mystery, though I’m pretty sure there’s more going on that we haven’t been made aware of yet. We know Zelada wants to cause a divide between the humans and Semanians AND has a connection to Kei’s past as a soldier, while Mozeleemay (finally remembered his name!) will kill everyone who jeopardizes his political aspirations…if his wife doesn’t get to them first. Seems likely that they would work together on getting rid of the competition and stirring up a shitstorm, which we’ll see play out over the remaining three episodes.

However, we’re going to have to wait on seeing those three, as next week is bringing us a recap of the first four. Now, you might be wondering why exactly a show with only twelve episodes would require a recap episode when they’re not even ten in. This is a good question which I have no clear answer for. Perhaps they needed to give the animators an extra week to complete those last few episodes, maybe they really and genuinely thought that the audience had forgotten what happened at the start but also forgot that said audience likely has ways of rewatching those episodes any time they want. Or maybe they people running this show are just a mismanaged as those who worked on the infamous seasons of Berserk. We may never know! Though frankly, what I’m more concerned about is that I might have just used up the only thing I could possibly say next week when I have to cover that recap.