English Dub Review: Special 7: Special Crime Investigation Unit “The Seventh Day is for Idleness”

 

 

Overview (Spoilers Below)

And now: seven short, interconnected stories about the Special 7.

Boss

Boss begins his day at Special 7 in an empty office. After stopping four major terrorist plots in so many weeks, he forced the gang to lie low. He’s not expecting anyone and instead plans to straighten up the office and maybe play with his dragon drone a little. But then, Nanatsuki shows up, so the boss-man decides to take a little trip down memory lane with the kid.

Nijo

Standing by his brother Luka’s grave, Nijo doesn’t know what to think. The brother he followed into police service, and who he believed to be dead for nine years, is alive and well, and working for the bad guys. Unfortunately, he can’t stay to figure things out because he sees Boss and Nanatsuki coming. Instead, he meets with his secret source. They lead him onto some damning information about NINE, the Special 7, and trying times to come. Too bad for Nijo, Ichinose is the only one who can confirm her claims.

Nanatsuki

Since Boss took him to Luka’s grave, Nanatsuki has a sinking suspicion that Luka may have been the police officer who saved him nine years earlier. Before he can ask, Ichinose shows up, worried that NINE is planning something for Warlock’s upcoming trial—the final trial in connection with the airport incident. Nanatsuki is skeptical but understands how vital the trial is for the sake of stability.

Akane

Akane spends the day with her domestic partner, whose face remains shrouded in mystery. They also have a Labrador dog that seems nice. She won’t unload the horrors of her work onto him and seems a bit peeved that he has nothing constructive to say about the novel she’s working on. Even though he acts supportive, he doesn’t seem particularly interested in it.

Gramps

Gramps is spending the morning with his daughter, a teenage girl who came about from his affair with a lovely elfin woman. Later on, when he drops her off, he appears to be amicable with his former partner, but you can tell something isn’t quite right between them.

Bellemer

After murdering some competitors on an online videogame—in which she’s ranked the best in the world—Belle calls Akane to set up a dinner. The two of them are clearly friends outside of work, and when they bump into Gramps outside the restaurant they’re happy to clump him into their friendly circle.

Ichinose

After saying what he had to say, Ichinose opts to drop the dramatics and offers to treat Nanatsuki to dinner. In the mood for Pho—which Nanatsuki has aggravatingly never heard of—they choose the same restaurant as everybody else. Even Nijo shows up at the bequest of the rookie. The team enjoys a fabulous meal together, mindful of looming dark times.

Luka

The episode ends in a flashback, with Luka almost perishing in the airport conflagration. He’s saved at the last minute by that Warlock lookalike who revives him with dragon blood. Luka doesn’t want to join him but is convinced after being shown mental images of Ichinose and Nijo’s bloody corpses.

And the rest is history.

 

Our Take

For an episode in which not much happened, a lot of things certainly happened. My memory’s pretty strong, but I wasn’t one hundred percent sure that Luka was the cop who saved Nanatsuki, until today. From a storytelling angle, it makes sense; however, pre-scar Luka looks quite a bit taller than post-scar Luka, so it’s been a bit confusing for me.

It’s interesting that in the same episode we learn Gramps had a child with an elf, we also learn that despite being Nijo’s brother, Luka is not an elf. Up until this point, we’ve been presented with all these races coexisting in society, and yet we don’t have much context. What’s the hierarchy? How do various races get along? Is there a president, prime minister, etc. for each race, or does an elected representative from one species rule them all? It’s great to have this diversity in a story, but so far it feels drastically underused. Seriously, Akane hasn’t even bitten a guy and drank all of his blood yet!

Looking at Warlock again, I’m no longer certain that he’s the same person as the terrorist consultant. Yes, they both have long, flowing manes, and they’re both gritty as hell, but as far as I can tell, one is in prison and the other is not. Luka definitely recognized him in the flashback, though, which creates yet another ripple to this mystery. I’m guessing it’s going to have something to do with magic. Doesn’t everything?

It feels like we went a long way not to have found out what Nijo learned. As mentioned, not a whole lot went down in this episode, so it would’ve been nice to have ended with something tangible. That being said, all will be forgiven if we become privy to the information next time. Any longer and this little tidbit will become worse than any MacGuffin ever created.