English Dub Review: Cop Craft “Need For Speed”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Kei wakes up one day to find that his cat has made its way into his room, but he isn’t sneezing. Seems that Tilarna’s elixir that saved his life a couple of episodes ago also cured his allergy…but she neglected to mention it, mainly to mess with him. This is more incentive than ever for him to find Tilarna her own place, but things keep falling through once they find out she’s a Semanian. And when a speeding truck clips one of Kei’s side mirrors, the last straw is had. He “mad taxi’s” the truck driver, scaring Tilarna half to death, but also uncovering the truck’s cargo: mountains and mountains of stolen porn. The driver gets away, but Tilarna decides to be nice and park Kei’s car for him…without the parking brake, leading it to slide right in the path of another oncoming truck, totaling it instantly. Their chief chews them out, but tells Kei he’ll try to get him a replacement and orders Tilarna to get a license, though she’s almost traumatized by discovering what porn is.

Kei ends up dragging the force’s token gay cliché Tony on the case, getting him to work undercover, allowing them to find the middle man who arranges a meeting with the dealer. Apparently, even regular photographs are pretty rare in the Semanian world, so porn is a goldmine. The whole force shows up for the meeting, but things go south fast and Tony is taken, hostage. This provides a good opportunity for Kei to try out his new ride…or rather, for Tilarna to test out what she’s learned from her driving lessons with Cecil. She ends up driving on the wrong side of the road, leading them to crash right on top of the criminal, saving Tony but destroying the new car in the process.

Despite this, Tilarna confesses she just wants to be useful and be treated as an equal, so she and Kei make up, though she ends up still staying in his house.

OUR TAKE

I guess this is meant to be our breather episode from the more plot-heavy stuff. Not that there’s been a ton of that, to begin with so far, but whatever. This episode is mostly about making a situation to get Kei and Tilarna build on their relationship as they learn to connect more, oftentimes with lots of destruction in their wake. Tilarna is still pretty bratty, being a textbook “tsundere” type character, and often to the point that it becomes hard to sympathize with her, but there does seem to be a girl just trying to find her place in this world underneath it all. That isn’t exactly helped by Kei’s own abrasive attitude or the constant prejudice she seems to be facing from even people in her own workplace, so it’s understandable why she might be so bratty right back. It doesn’t excuse the bone-headed moves that got two cars destroyed, but it shows signs of potential.

The crime in this episode is probably more confusing, partly based on the fact that…well, who BUYS porn anymore? Especially in print! And apparently, it’s coveted after by Semanians because they don’t have many photographs? How behind in technology IS that place? Compare this with the fairy peddling from the first few episodes, which came about because the restrictive culture there led a Semanian to fully embrace the debauchery and vice of the human world by perverting a sacred source of energy, the fairies. Here, it’s because that world doesn’t have pictures but humans have hot pictures, so they’re stealing trucks full of nudie mags. This series was first published in 2009 and I’m not seeing anything implying that it takes place in the ’80s, ’90s, or early 2000s. And even then, six years before the first volume came out, a Tony Award-winning puppet musical had a song all about how “The Internet is for Porn”, so all this shipping just feels like busywork to necessitate the plot.

But I’ll end with a bit of focus on a new piece of info about Kei, that being he had a little sister that died long ago and that he may see her in Tilarna now, explaining why he treats her the way he does. Hopefully, we can learn more about this later, but this might also put my fears to rest about these two being slowly pushed to being a couple. Not that weirder pairings haven’t happened in anime before OR now (looking at you, “If It’s for My Daughter…”), but I just would prefer if we avoided that this time. Please?