English Dub Review: Cop Craft “Midnight Train”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Kei looks up the meaning of Tilarna leaving her sword behind, which turns out to be a sign she’ll be committing suicide, so he’ll have to look for her while continuing to work the case. Tilarna’s not dead yet either, using Biz O’Neill to go undercover at Elbaji’s club and meet with Elbaji directly. He takes the bait pretty quickly, but yanks on her line by pulling her directly into his operations. The two engage in combat and Tilarna is defeated, so Elbaji takes her to one of his sites, telling her about how humans only revere money so even he as a Farbani had to join that religion to survive. They meet with Zelada so he can interrogate her, but Kei’s spotted them and has to move in on his own.

Tilarna finds herself within the area containing the captured fairies, which Elbaji plans to use to create a “psychic bomb” capable of turning everyone in a wide range into fairy dust addicts and then controlled like the last few were. He also explains his own background, coming from a family of warriors who were bound by etiquette and honor. Elbaji didn’t want to live like that and ran to the human world so he could live by his own mischievous skills. He tries to kill her again with a sword, but Kei arrives with Tilarna’s blade, which she uses to kill Elbaji. The operation seems to be shut down, but it seems the fairies in storage here are actually fakes, indicating Zelada has taken the real ones away.

The duo finds the wizard and cuff him, but are stopped by Kei’s boss, Jack Roth. He’s been working with Zelada to drive division between humans and semanians because he fears that the “invaders” will overtake Earth’s population in only three generations, even willing to kill his own officers like Rick if they get too close to the truth. With the psychic bomb, he plans make a major showing that might start a war between the two species. Before he can do that, Kei pulls his gun and shoots Roth, though Zelada gets away, but not before revealing that he was responsible for wiping out Kei’s unit during the previous war.

Kei and Tilarna follow Zelada to Forest Tower, where he plans to detonate the bomb, and find the fairy attached to it at the top.

OUR TAKE

This isn’t quite the end of the first arc, but we do begin to see some clear examples of how both of the human and semanian worlds are starting to influence each other, for better or worse. On one hand, we have those like Kei and Tilarna, who are slowly learning to trust each other through their partnership and learning more about their respective lives and skill sets to form a bond and fight with a shared sense of justice. Kei’s had to educate himself on Tilarna’s customs to figure her out and learn how find her in a crisis, while Tilarna has had to let go of her sense of tradition in order to blend into the human world’s background and find her target. This time was meant as a way of setting up her suicide, but I have a feeling this flexibility will come in handy down the line on future cases.

But then we have those like Elbaji, Ross, and Zelada, who have either been corrupted by their interactions with the other side or rejected it entirely. Elbaji came from the same world and culture as Tilarna, but wanted more from life than what he felt was antiquated tradition and struck out on his own, leading him to making his way in the debauchery of organized crime, which shows that there are at least some Semanians who aren’t satisfied with their own world’s rules. Then there’s Ross, who kinda comes out of nowhere as one of the real masterminds of this and being apparently a bit of a human nationalist, wanting the invading aliens to get off his planet before they potentially overtake his own race. A few years ago, I might have said this was a bit of a cartoonish portrayal of someone with those views, but unfortunately that’s become soberingly realistic lately and probably not the last we’ll see of it even now that Ross is dead.

As for Zelada, it seems he has some personal connection to Kei that is likely to get explored later, so I’ll hold off on his views on humankind for now. This show seems to be starting to make sufficient use of its tools and might be hitting its stride if things go well, meaning this viewing will hopefully be a more interesting watch than I first expected. It also looks like next episode will wrap this first arc, so I’m looking forward to some closure!