Name: A police procedural with a magic twist, helmed by the grown-up version of your general earnest shounen protagonist
Item: Special 7: Special Crime Investigation Unit
Rating: 67
Author: Kalladry

Waifra

A police procedural with a magic twist, helmed by the grown-up version of your general earnest shounen protagonist · Waifora

In a modern world where humans, vampires, elves and dwarves live together, rookie cop Seiji Nanatsuki joins the Special 7, a small anti-terrorism police unit whose cases sometimes run toward the supernatural, and whose members have their own secrets and trauma.

In my never-ending quest to find more fun mystery shows since Kindaichi Returns isn’t putting out new episodes, I’ll try just about anything, even if this fall 2019 show was more police procedural than mystery. And it was interesting! The idea of a modern world almost identical to our own except these other mythological races are also mixed in the regular population? Cool! A riff on the isekai idea that has modern characters thrust into fantasy lands, this one instead has fantasy characters in modern society.

(…Okay, the comparison isn’t exact, because said non-humans didn’t arrive from another world, or at least not recently and/or in ways that would affect the plot. Anyway.)

So first of all, it’s only 12 episodes, so not a lot of story time–so there’s one main story: the terrorist group they’ve been trying to stamp out is gearing up for some large attack, and the team has to deal with several smaller incidents in the lead-up. The connection runs deep: the rookie only became a cop because 9 years earlier he was rescued from another one of the attacks by the now-former partner of…his new partner.

The characters are interesting, but sadly we never really delve into what makes, for example, a vampire a vampire. Does Akane do anything vampiric other than be really fast and good with a sword? What does being a dwarf, or an elf, really mean beyond being hairier and having pointier ears than humans, respectively?

Overall, it’s a good way to pass the time. Maybe it’s not a series everyone is talking about, but it picks up the cop-detective-duo formula and stays within expected tropes. And I think the characters, for all that the character types are pretty easy to pick out, were generally likable, and I’d definitely enjoy a second season.

Verdict

English dub? Yes

Visuals: Decent, though I especially like the bolder lines and limited colors of the opening (seen in the last gif above). Compared to a lot of the younger shows I’ve watched recently, this was a nice break by having older characters with longer lines and bodies.

Worth watching? Do you like police shows? Do you like the general earnest shounen protagonist and wouldn’t mind seeing that enthusiastic believer of justice in an adult body? Then probably yes. I’d like a second season, and I have more than a few Thoughts on how quickly this wrapped up, but I don’t regret watching. That said, it never touches on the different races or delves much into the other characters’ lives, which I think is a wasted opportunity.__