Life, Writing, Weirdness

I came to AD Police through Bubblegum Crisis, an anime a friend introduced me to in the early 1990s when it was still a recent crossing. Subtitles rather than dubbed. Dubs were pretty rare at the time, I think.

AD Police: To Protect and Serve is the fifth of six short series set in the same universe, although the fourth is technically a reboot to push things a bit further into the future and tell a different story with most of the same primary characters fleshed out a bit more.

The series takes place in a post colossal earthquake and mostly post re-build Megatokyo where most manual labour is done by humanoid robots/androids called Boomers manufactured by Genom Corporation (which also more or less runs the city or has some major authority over it – which of those two options is never really made clear, at least so far).

To Protect and Serve is mostly about the characters as they struggle against the evil Packer syndicate (which is probably just a not-so-legal arm of Genom) and there’s a lot of great interplay that makes it through the translation. If the story has some weird shortcomings or strange plot holes, I remind myself that I’m coming at it with Canadian sensibilities and just because those things are weird or strange to me, they might not be to the original audience.

One of the big pieces of the overall story arc is trying to figure out what’s going on with one of the two main characters. Hans has a piece of shrapnel lodged in his brain from a previous incident that’s cost him most of his memories. His partner, Kenji, has slowly pieced together that Hans is something that isn’t quite human, either part or all Boomer. Hans has no idea yet. As far as the story goes, no one outside of a particular character employed by Genom (and Hans’ love interest) has any idea, and Kenji has struggled with what it means for and to him personally. The reveal is probably going to shake things up a lot.

But as far as To Protect and Serve is concerned, episode 10 of a 12-episode series being in the review means there are only two episodes left and if I’m going by historical observations of myself, I’ll probably watch the last two episodes back-to-back to avoid one last cliffhanger, and get the reveal and fallout all at once.

Which will leave me with just the final piece of the franchise, a three-episode series called Parasite Dolls which I know nothing about other than that it takes place in the same universe.

Is To Protect and Serve worth watching? On its own, that will depend on how big a fan you are of buddy cop properties. Not normally my thing unless there’s a significant twist involved (like the recently referenced Alien Nation or, for a deep dive, the classic 1988 film Dead Heat). It’s fun, but the chances of my checking it out without the Bubblegum Crisis connection would have been pretty slim. Still, it is fun, and if you like the buddy cop scenario in a science fiction setting, particularly in anime form, it’s worth the watch.

The trailer doesn’t give you much about the story, though it has some great visuals. The first two full episodes are available on YouTube from Nozomi Entertainment, but after that you have to look elsewhere.

Be well, everyone.