English Dub Season Review: Special 7: Special Crime Investigation Unit Season One

I’m not a cop (and you better not be a cop either, because you have to tell me if you’re a cop otherwise its entrapment), but I have seen a few cop shows. And as far as police shows go, Special 7 holds its own. Before getting into the fantasy elements, I’ll first rank this program on a scale of popular cop shows. After much deliberation between me and an anonymous anime panel, I decree that this program is better than Brooklyn Nine-Nine, not nearly as good as The Wire and on par with Police Squad!

Police Squad! , for those of you who don’t know, was a short-lived series from the eighties that was eventually retooled into the three Naked Gun movies. Leslie Nielsen starred in both the show and the movies, and they were phenomenal. So, to equate Special 7 with such a fine show is an honor befit for television royalty.

Also—and this is where things get weird—Leslie Nielsen was born in a Canadian town called Regina. Regina is located in the province of Saskatchewan. Saskatchewan’s capital is a city called Saskatoon. Special Seven and Saskatoon, Saskatchewan both have S.S. as their initials! That CANNOT be a coincidence, right? And to make this comparison all the more eerie and poignant: Canada has exactly seven provinces—so long as you don’t count the pesky “island provinces” of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island. And who in their right mind would?

Anyway, if that doesn’t give you a reason to check out Special 7, the rich world and plot of this forward-thinking anime ought to convince you. We start with a modern-day Tokyo setting, and then add various species. Elves, dwarfs, vampires, humans, and homunculi all inhabit the city, living in general harmony. In this world, the differences among these races are emphasized and rewarded instead of dissected and ostracized like they might in the “real” world. The setting for this story hearkens back to Gene Roddenberry’s original vision for Star Trek in which a sophisticated universe is capable of living in an era beyond war. Different races should benefit from each other as opposed to wasting lives and resources in perpetual battle.

In Special 7, these races are emboldened in their quest for unity by the presence of a common enemy. While NINE isn’t an intrinsically racist organization, they worship dragons, a niche, almost extinct race the rest of the civilized world gave up on decades or even centuries ago. Broadly defined, terrorism is the act of creating chaos in order to advance political goals. NINE carries out such acts in an attempt to restore their old, semi-religious ways. The dragon in this scenario is a metaphor for a less enlightened time. So, in a roundabout way, NINE is far more bigoted than they appear on the surface. What I’m trying to say is: people—particularly children—shouldn’t join NINE just because they think dragons are cool. In this reality, they are epically uncool—perhaps even fascist.

Let’s talk about the team. While I enjoyed each character, I’ve mentioned on numerous occasions that they devoted far too much of their allotted time on Nanatsuki and Ichinose. Obviously, they are our leads, and deserve the lion’s share, but you can’t introduce a rag-tag team like this and then refuse to delve into their lives. Sure, we know Gramps has a daughter and an estranged wife or girlfriend. We know Akane has a dog and a husband who may or may not have a face. And we’re well aware that Bellemer likes to play with drones and video games, but that’s all surface-level information. What makes these people tick? Why are they in this “loser” unit alongside the other “broken” members? Why doesn’t Akane continuously kick ass on a twenty-four hour cycle?

Even Nijo’s background left a little to be desired. I get that he was traumatized as a child, and that made him a maladjusted adult, but what motivation did he have for waking up and behaving like an earnest, functioning cop week after week? How could he stomach going to Special 7 and working alongside a man he blamed for killing his brother without a planned endgame? If Luka hadn’t miraculously reappeared would Nijo have continued this charade indefinitely? The only answers we were given came from his secret contact whenever he met them at the bar. And they certainly didn’t appear to be “moving at the speed of business.”

Our leads were great, don’t get me wrong. While I don’t believe both of them needed to have a connection to Luka (along with Nijo), I enjoyed how they played off each other. It was a classic straight-lace vs. slob pairing, but in this case they subverted expectations by making the slob the authoritative figure. We’ve seen plenty of stories where the serious boss whips the slacker rookie into shape, but seldom do we see it play out in reverse. And deny it as he may, Ichinose’s life was positively influenced by his incorruptible partner. That being said, maybe Ichinose was the protagonist the entire time.

Finally, I just want to reiterate my distaste for how the season ended. It’s great that Special 7 gets to continue conducting business, but nobody should be happy about a murder.