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Marco Cian (Hyogo)
But… but why?
“Sigh”, I should probably go into more detail.
A.D. Police: To Protect and Serve
Kenji Sasaki is an AD Police officer who doesn’t play by the rules. When you’re working these mean streets, the rules only get in the way. So when Sasaki is assigned a partner, Hans Kleif, who transferred over to the AD Police from Germany, he doesn’t take it too well. A partner will only slow him down, he insists. But as the two cops are forced to work together, they slowly overcome their differences and take down the dirty criminal scum that’s infested their city.
This show is every awful 80s cop cliche rolled into one. And what’s worse is that the only possible connections it has to Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040 are entirely dialogue-conveyed. Like, if you just changed some of the lines it would be an original series.
The aesthetic and history and place names are so different they’re thoroughly incompatible with Tokyo 2040. And it all makes me wonder, why? Why even make a prequel when you have none of the same characters or worldbuilding details or anything? The original AD Police prequel at least had some neat cyberpunk ideas to it, but this? Not so much. Again, it’s every awful 80s cop show cliche, just with robots and scifi-esque police uniforms.
With Episode 8 we finally get something resembling a decent plot. But the fact that it took 8/12 episodes to make that happen, and that said plot is still entirely unrelated to Tokyo 2040 (and raises all sorts of timeline issues), it only leave me more baffled and confused. “Why the hell is this a prequel?” Seriously, just off the top of my head, some continuity issues that arise from this show’s existence are
- The earthquake happens several decades earlier.
- Boomers are not built on Dr. Stingray’s prototypes (which subsequently raises the question of why they even go rogue in the first place), and have a completely different design
- Boomer technology is significantly more advanced than anything in 2040, being able to make full-on Blade Runner replicants
- The uniforms of AD Police officers are far more futuristic than in 2040.
- After the earthquake, Tokyo was renamed GENOM City
- The CEO of GENOM, instead of being hooked up to tubes like that Warhammer guy, successfully transfers his brain to a replicant body. And then dies! Congratulations, you killed off the main antagonist of 2040 several decades too soon.
Oh yeah, and for anyone who cries spoilers, shove off. This show doesn’t deserve spoiler tags.
I think that should be evidence enough to let you know why this simply does not work as a prequel. But more than that, it doesn’t feel like a prequel. The tone and feel are of completely different universes. There’s no hopefulness and heart, only sick badass action and manly men being ultra mannish. The only connective tissue between the two shows is that there’s a megacorporation called GENOM that rebuilt Tokyo after an earthquake, said megacorp builds robots that sometimes go rogue, there’s a special wing of the police tasked with stopping those rogue robots, and there’s a high-ranking member of the megacorp named Mason (who was in Tokyo 2040). We never actually see Mason though, so I don’t even know if it’s the same guy. And even if it is the same guy, the details from Tokyo 2040 that carried over to this prequel are so basic and generic they could apply to any number of cyberpunk stories.
So, yeah. If I hadn’t been obligated to finish this as part of the overall Bubblegum Crisis canon, I’d have dropped it after the first episode.
Let’s get this over with.
Is this a Cyberpunk?
Cyberpunk is about the little people – I guess? If you count beat cops as little people, then sure. If you want something about systems of oppression though, look elsewhere.
Cyberpunk is pessimistic – I guess? I’m less sure with this guess though, because every time we get a genuinely tragic scene, the next scene or episode will have mostly forgotten about it, and we’ll be back to business as usual.
Cyberpunk isn’t about changing the world – Yes, but only because this is very pro-law and order and police and such.
Cyberpunk is set in today, turned up to 11 – Not really. If anything it feels like a throwback to the 80s. If Cobra or Samurai Cop were anime.
Cyberpunk wants to look cool – Yes, but for the first time I’d say it doesn’t succeed. It just looks mid.
At its best, To Protect and Serve is only ever able to rise to generic and okay. And at its worst its characters were insufferable and cliche. Surely the next anime on the list will be better, right?