Cop Craft – 12 (Fin) – Forgivable Evils

What had the makings of some kind of grand conspiracy is ultimately boiled down to A Wizard Did It in the exceedingly tidy Cop Craft finale. Captured last week, Tilarna ends up in a penthouse with that wizard with her hands and feet both cuffed. It’s also one of the only instances I can recall where she’s not wearing her Semani cape, revealing an elegant midriff-bearing top.

She has to sit and listen to Zelada drone on about how he believes decadent Earth culture will eventually overwhelm destroy Semani culture: weapons, tools, sex…and that awful, awful rock music. Despite it seeming an awful lot like that ship has sailed, he’s working to make two societies to hate each other…or something. The nerve of someone in Carmen Sandiego pimp cosplay decrying decadence!

Meanwhile, the FBI agent rather ineptly attempts to extract Kei’s iPhone password so he can destroy the last photo of Marla and the assassin (Randall is killed off-camera). Kei, ever the smartass, starts to give it to him: “F-U-C-K-Y…” Hee-hee.

While the camera made sure to show us that Tilarna’s legs were cuffed, Kei’s legs are completely free, and his arms are cuffed to a flimsy folding chair that isn’t even bolted down. All it takes is for Mr. FBI to get too close, and Kei has him in a leg headlock. It demonstrates less how badass Kei is (and he is), and more how excruciatingly dumb Mr. FBI is.

Meanwhile, after ranting virtually all night, Zelada senses that Kei has gotten free and is killing his puppets. After all this time, and with little reason to keep Tilarna alive, Zelada nevertheless takes his sweet old time before finally deciding that yup, he should kill Tilarna. It’s like he’s waiting for Kei to arrive and save her, because that’s what the plot demands!

Even with arms and legs cuffed, Tilarna is also a badass, and manages to dodge Zelada’s attacks until Kei bails her out. Zelada’s invisibility is overcome by activating the sprinkler system (how ’bout that!), but the weakened Tilarna can’t handle the sword, so she and Kei switch weapons, with Tilarna pumping Z full of lead while Kei beheads him with her sword.

With that, our buddy cop odd couple waits for backup that will be late because the town is rife with violent protests. Kei leaves it up to Tilarna whether to give the photo of Marla to the police as evidence of her role in the assassinations, and after weighing the options, decides to do so.

Donald—er, Domingo Tourte wins the mayorship after Marla is arrested, but things eventually cool down as Tilarna thought they would, because for all its warts, San Teresa is still a good town filled with mostly good people. That’s why, as she writes to her father back home, she’s decided to stay put, serving as Kei’s partner in stylish crime-fighting.

And there you have it! A rushed ending, perhaps, which did itself no favors with the idiocy of its villains, but far from eye-gougingly terrible. I’d say Cop Craft would have benefited from another twelve or even six more episodes to give the conspiracy and photographer arcs a little more fleshing-out, but honestly the show probably would have found a way to squander them and be forced to end just as abruptly.

I will say that even if I wasn’t always in love with what Cop Craft did with the episodes it had or the world it built, it was still a neat world, with a solid core duo of likable characters, a smattering of cool supporters, and a fun soundtrack. It wasn’t flawless, but it wasn’t all bad either—much like the situation Tilarna and Kei find themselves in when the end credits roll.

Cop Craft – 11 – Better, Not Best

Kei and Tilarna meet Domingo Tourte, who kinda resembles Donald Trump, only slimmer and with a more conventional hairstyle. His adversarial relationship with the press, “tell-it-like-it-is” attitude, and anti-immigration policy are also pretty similar to the 45th President. While he’s not creepy with Tilarna, he is terribly condescending to both her and her people, to the point she’s fuming by the end of their brief interview.

She’s made even madder by the fact Kei played the peacekeeper by acting so deferential around the candidate. He knows he wouldn’t have gotten anything out of Tourte if he didn’t play nice, and instead learns something potentially valuable: Tourte says he’s a politician first and an Earthling second, the opposite position as Kei’s old chief.

That could mean he’s not involved in the assassinations—just an unwitting beneficiary. But they need more, much more, which is why Kei’s colleagues Cammy and Jamie hit the streets looking for info on Coal’s assassin while McBee looks up an old flame who may be connected to the only Earth company that can work with Veifaht steel.

For the first time in a while, it feels like a whole police detail is working a case rather than just Kei/Tilarna. It doesn’t hurt that Cammy and Jamie are are both very good at their jobs and very fun to watch (I loved Jamie describing her Wiki rabbit hole!), as it doesn’t take long for them to find a sex worker who had the assassin as a client.

As Kei and Tilarna drive past the messes made by both pro- and anti-Semanian protesters, it dawns on her how fortunate she is to be treated as an equal by her peers. Kei tries to cheer her up by telling her she’s not some exception sitting in the clouds above it all; just being the decent person she is has changed the hearts and minds of those she’s interacted with. Some of them hated Semanians before, but because they know and like her, their opinions have softened.

Speaking of hard, Marla Mozeleemay wastes no time picking up her late husband’s torch and running in his stead for the mayorship. In this way, Marla is the Hillary to the philandering Bill Clinton going up against Trump’s populism with concrete policies. Tilarna still suspects she was involved in Zoey’s murder, but isn’t about to vote for Tourte either.

That’s when Kei tells her politics isn’t about choosing “the best” candidate—there never really is one—but the “better” candidate, echoing the compromise many felt they made by “holding their noses” and voting for Hillary after she beat Bernie in the primaries.

But if Kei’s reporter acquaintance Randall is to be believed, Coal wasn’t the only one stepping out beyond the bonds of marriage. He has a photo of Marla engaging in a liaison with a burly man sports a bulldog tattoo on his elbow—just like the Marine who killed Coal, identified as Ethan Dole.

Kei and Tilarna’s supposedly private meeting with Randall in the park is interrupted by armed FBI agents led by Special Agent Roland Chan. It’s only after they’re arrested that Tilarna determines all the agents except Chan are “dead” and under the control of a wizard. Moments later they learn which one: Zelada is alive and well and apparently a key player in this sprawling conspiracy.

Cop Craft – 10 – Democracy in Action

On the way to an interview with Coal Mozeleemay, Kei is stopped by the reporter Kevin Randall, but insists he has no comment. In their meeting with Coal (definitely awkward due to his last encounter with Tilarna), he has no comment either, as his wife Marla handles all the questions, confirming to Tilarna that he’s no leader.

Turns out he’ll never have a chance to prove Tilarna wrong, as he’s shot during a speech. Kei pares down 92 potential suspects in the crowd down to three by eliminating anyone not acting like an assassin would, showing Tilarna that Kei’s pretty good at this detective stuff when all’s said and done.

Unfortunately for both of them, the black suit-wearing culprit won’t surrender or come with them without a lengthy chase, during which he demonstrates superhuman speed, agility, strength, and an uncanny ability to shrug off multiple gunshot wounds.

Again predicting he’d require more agility than a full-size car, Kei commandeers a tiny, quirky Messerschmitt KR200, which is naturally abused and badly damaged in the dust-up with the perp.

Kei and Tilarna have no choice but to put the guy down by whatever means, but before he dies, his appearance completely changes, revealing he wasn’t Semanian at all, but a human soldier using Semani magic. His gun was also disguised as a camera, made of ridiculously precise Vaifaht steel Tilarna claims even the best smiths back home couldn’t come close to creating.

So on one hand we have two dead candidates, and the only one left standing is in favor of kicking out all “aliens,” and on the other you have a highly-trained human soldier using immensely sophisticated magics in order to make it look like a Semanian killed his own.

Chief Zimmer instructs Kei and Tilarna to interview Tourte next; we’ll see if he knows anything about this apparent human-led conspiracy to make him the next mayor, which could well lead to the expulsion of all Semanians, many of whom might not go without a fight—either legal or physical.

Meanwhile all these murders of candidates have the public on edge, and well-organized anti-Semani demonstrations are already underway. Whether they popped up organically due to fear or something arranged by pro-Tourte partisans, we shall see, but in the meantime Kei urges Tilarna to keep her cool, even if what’s going on is both unjust and undemocratic.

Cop Craft – 09 – The Cat’s Out of the (Garbage) Bag

As silly as I thought the Tilarna-Kuroi body swap is, if you ever find yourself in such a pinch, it helps to have a competent friend in Cecil Epps. Having missed the trash pickup, she calls the waste management company, and when they stonewall her, she plays the police card to get access.

Once at the processing center they find the exact truck that took the bag containing the crossbow, but they’re a little too late and it ends up the proverbial needle in a trash mountain. Still, they’ve narrowed down the location enough for Tilarna to go in and attempt to sense the crossbow’s latena, which she does.

Unfortunately, Tilarna-cat’s lack of thumbs means the crossbow ends up destroyed on the trash conveyor. But the good news is, destroying the artifact reverses the spell, and Tilarna returns to her own body, right when the smuggler has broken in and is trying to get her to cough up the crossbow.

Tilarna allows herself a few moments to jump for joy over getting her body back (as we all would), but the intruder saw her butt and everything else below the waist, so she beats the crap out of him, only sparing his life when Kei arrives, having been briefed by Cecil.

All’s well that ends well, though Tilarna would prefer if Kei were a little more upset about another man seeing her naked, again underscoring their…complex relationship.

With the body swap reversed, the episode trades Tilarna’s lack of pants for a school swimsuit, as Zimmer’s entire unit has a summer cookout at his place. It’s nice to see everyone unwinding after some hard cases—and for Kei’s extreme food snobbishness and bossiness exposed…honestly, he’s almost as bad as Zane!

The fun and relaxation is cut short when there’s breaking news report on the TV: mayoral candidate Nathan Kahns has been shot and killed. They determine the culprit, who had no criminal record, was being controlled by a wizard, possibly Zelada. With the “compromise” candidate in Kahns out, that leaves the Semanian Mozeleemay and the far-right Tourte, who wants to banish all Semanians.

That means this case will have long-term ramifications for all of San Teresa that could threaten the future of human-Semanian coexistance. There’s a small but telling example of the insidious ethnic strife inherent in this case when a beat cop calls a passing Tilarna a “damn alien” under his breath.

Kei hears that, and aggressively defends Tilarna, who is both embarrassed and grateful that Kei did it. Kei’s explanation about how it’s not the same when he uses slurs like “alien” (because it comes from familiarity and not hate) isn’t the strongest, but it is realistic behavior. But Tilarna may find herself turning the other cheek a lot more as they dig into this sensitive case.

Cop Craft – 08 – Meow What?!

After a really heartfelt and powerful episode in which Tilarna made and then promptly lost a friend, Cop Craft takes a week off—to be charitable—with an episode that’s little more than a vehicle for showing as much Tilarna fanservice as possible.

After Tilarna fells a small prop plane, scoring them a crate full of junk that vaguely smells of latena, Kei uses the bath first, then leaves Tilly to analyze the trinkets on her own, with only Kuroi to keep her company.

Kuroi gets a little crazy and starts running around, Tilarna gets stuck by a tiny crossbow bolt, and she and the cat switch bodies. Kei doesn’t pick up on this, only that Tilarna must be sick or something since he wakes up with her in his bed, scantily clad, and about to rub her face against his when the cat—actually Tilarna—comes between them. Kei lets who he thinks is Tilarna to sleep in, but he’s got shit to do, so heads off.

Tilarna manages to text Cecil, who arrives to find a huge mess, Tilarna missing pants, and a cat nodding and texting her. The crossbow just happened to slide into a trash can, and Kei is fastidious enough to take out said trash, so Cecil and Tilarna have to chase it down, but not before Tilkuroi tackles Cecil and knocks her out, further slowing them down.

Meanwhile Kei, seeking O’Neill, walks in on the aftermath of an epic party involving prostitutes, a goat, and habanero sauce, but which is neither here nor there. Honestly, this entire episode felt like it was on hallucinogens and a sedative that ground every action to a halt in an effort to make this a two-parter for some reason. That’s what’s most frustrating: shows can have the odd bad week, but this tomfoolery isn’t even over yet…

Cop Craft – 07 – Keep Your Friends Close

Tilarna and Kei suddenly find themselves deep in the world of vice and political intrigue, as Tilarna serves as bait for a john at a high-end brothel, and they end up arresting Cole Mozeleemay, a powerful Semanian politician running for mayor of San Teresa. While Cole didn’t get far at all with Tilarna before Kei and the cops take the hotel room, the fact he touched her hair is enough to make her upset Kei didn’t bust in sooner.

Mozeleemay very publicly asserts his innocence to the press (gaslighting them in the process), while his ambitious politician’s wife commits to helping him get through this (but that doesn’t mean he can touch her). Tilarna is as expected disgusted by Earth’s slow, plodding brand of justice, especially when even that kind tends to slow even more when a powerful person is involved.

All Kei tells her is that this is the way it is, and that she’s going to have to resign herself to that, as he has over the years. She needs a friend—someone other than Kei—and is comforted when she has a chance encounter with Zoey, the woman who was kind to her at the brothel, and who is also an amateur photographer.

Zoey actually needs help moving after the police raid, and Tilarna, being nice, helps out. Knights may be solitary by nature, but the more Tilarna hangs out with Kei, the more used to relationships she gets. Her need for female companionship must have been stronger than ever considering what she went through and how Zoey (unlike, say, Cecil) can relate to the life.

Tilarna and Zoey become fast friends over their brief time together, and Kei just happens to return to the spot where they split up to pick her up later that night. She’s also enchanted by Zoey’s photography. They continue to hang out despite Kei’s warnings not to get too involved with people they’re investigating (Zoey believes Tilarna is merely a rich runaway).

Meanwhile, the already-tenuous solicitation case against Mozeleemay takes another blow when a list of the club’s clients is leaked to the media. Some of the names are real and some are fake, creating more reasonable doubt for Mozeleemay’s lawyers to use in his defense.

We learn that Zoey is the one who provided Mozeleemay with the list, in exchange for enough cash to afford the gorgeous apartment with an ocean view. Mozeleemay shows his true colors once more when he offers extra pay for a quick trick, but Zoey spurns him. Mozeleemay’s wife, who is following him, spots Zoey exiting his car.

Tilarna, increasingly distraught over the increasing possibility she went undercover and endured what she did for no good reason, brings up the possibility of an employee at the club being the leaker. Jamie shows them the video stills of everyone who accessed the list, and sure enough, Zoey’s photo sticks out.

She goes to Zoey’s place immediately to confront her. Zoey doesn’t answer the door and Tilarna prepares for the worse by drawing her sword, only for Zoey to ambush her…with her camera. She has a photo canvas for Tilarna as a gift for helping her move, but Tilarna is all business, and starts with the accusations. Zoey denies, then asks if Tilarna is a cop, and Tilarna can’t lie.

Then, as the two stand almost back-to-back in front of those huge ocean view windows, a bullet strikes Zoey in the chest, then a hail of bullets shatter the windows as the women hit the deck. Kei, providing backup for Tilarna, manages to shoot one of the two assassins, but he says nothing about who sent him before passing out.

That night, as he watches the news about himself, Mozeleemay gets word that Zoey was shot, and relays the message to his wife when she comes in the room, and noting how it could help him beat the charge. Then he realizes his wife was the one who arranged the hit. She denies it, of course, but taking his hand in hers, tells him he shouldn’t worry about such things—the implication being his job is to win the election; nothing more.

Zoey’s final words to Tilarna before passing out express her disappointment in having been betrayed by someone she thought was a friend. There’s not enough time for Tilarna to explain the complex circumstances, and how she considered Zoey a good friend too. Kei is by her side at the hospital when she learns Zoey has died, and upon returning to her apartment, unwraps the photo Zoey gave her as a gift: a behind-the-back of Tilarna beaming in the sunset. Tilarna takes Zoey’s camera as a memento.

It’s as heartbreaking and poignant as Cop Craft has dared to get so far, and really makes me feel for poor Tilarna. While she’s no fool, she is young, inexperienced, and naive. And Zoey was right when she said Tilarna can’t understand the difficulty of lowborn Semanians trying to go straight in San Teresa. Adding ironic insult to injury, the self-proclaimed advocate of Semanians like her is…Cole Mozeleemay.

Yet look at what he allowed to happen to someone like Zoey, just because he couldn’t keep it in his goddamn pants. I want Tilarna to get revenge, but I don’t want her to get in trouble. At the same time, I don’t want her to suffer the unique turmoil that comes from being perpetually unable to do what is right and just in a world where justice is whatever the most rich and powerful say it is.

As far as Tilarna and Kei’s partnership friendship may have come, Earth still feels like a place that will only continue to eat away at her pure and virtuous soul…as it has already done to him. How can a place like that—which gave her a new older sister then took her away just as fast—ever feel like a home?

Cop Craft – 06 – Jump Out If You Want To!

While they’re a formidable duo when they’re on duty, I might just like Tilarna and Kei better when they’re off duty, as it presents so much more opportunity for the two to talk and interact off-the-cuff. And both professionally and personally, they’ve built up a nice rapport. Just take Tilarna using an elixer to eliminate Kei’s cat allergy, but not to tell him about it until he wakes up with Kuroi in his room and is breathing fine.

Even so, things only go so far, and Kei would rather continue to live alone, so he’s trying to find a place for Tilarna, with little success (realtors in San Teresa are apparently racist). And when their leisurely crepe lunch is interrupted by a stolen truck shearing off the side mirror of Kei’s car and he gives spirited chase, Tilarna would kinda rather be anywhere but in the passenger seat, losing years off her presumably otherwise extremely long life.

With a bit of reckless driving, Kei manages to wreck the rig, which is full of…legal porno mags. Tilarna decides to be useful and move Kei’s car out of the flow of traffic, but neglects to set the parking brake, so it rolls right back into traffic, into the grill of another passing truck, and into utter ruin.

Tilarna gets to see a whole new side of Kei at the station; that both of someone who just lost some(thing) precious too them, as well as someone who acts like a little kid who wants their toy when they meet with Chief Zimmer for a new ride. Tilarna also gets her first look at human porn, which is doubly shocking to her considering how little photography exists where she’s from.

Kei gets his colleague Tony to pose as a fence and arrange a deal with the Semanian truck thief, who is indeed trying to make a killing selling the stuff across the gate. One wonders why he didn’t simply buy up a lot of porn legitimately, as there’s no doubt he’d still make a profit re-selling it in Reto Semani. Kei also gets his new car—a repo’d Ferrari 812 Superfast (which costs over $360,000 US) and takes it for a spin while Tilarna meets with Cecil.

Tilarna came to Cecil for driving lessons unaware that “ex” meant “ex-lovers,” something that embarrasses her. When asked, Cecil isn’t sure whether she likes Kei, but she doesn’t hate him, and simply wishes he’d treat her as an equal rather than a kid, hence her desire to learn to drive. Cecil warns her that might be tricky, as there’s a good chance Kei sees a lot of his lively younger sister, whom he lost ten years ago, in Tilarna. They have tended to act like siblings, haven’t they?

The next day, the porn deal goes south when the Semanian kid is double-crossed and Tony is captured at gunpoint. Kei is temporarily blinded by being too close to a gun blast. so Tilarna grabs his hand, tosses him into the passenger seat of the Ferrari, and shows her what she’s learned. (The automotive pedant in me would question whether she’d know how to work the controls of a car so different from the Jeep Cherokee she trained in, but never mind.)

What matters is, Tilarna doesn’t quite drive like anyone else Kei has ever driven with—which is to be expected—and she gets an absolute goddamn kick out of it; a true need for speed! It’s immensely fun to see the tables turned for once, and Kei begging for death and being given the option to jump out the car window. Tilarna launches the F12 like a projectile into the fleeing baddie, wrecking them both.

Thanks to modern automotive safety, nobody is seriously hurt and the perp is arrested. When Kei starts to scold her again, Tilarna speaks up for herself and gains a deserved apology from Kei for going too far about the Mini before. At this point he believes the Ferrari is still reparable, and agrees to go with her on more driving lessons, but it soon bursts into flames, GTA-style, and he’s back to the same blind rage and despair when his Mini was busted.

He eventually cools down, and when he arrives home (by bus) from a meeting with the real estate agent, he finds Tilarna has already made a cozy home for herself on the lower level of his house, and invites him in. Looks like he’s not going to get rid of her so easily…if that’s even what he wants at this point. After all, it’s not every day you get to have your beloved little sis back in the form of a knight from another world!

Cop Craft – 05 – A Brief Dream Before the End

Suddenly up against an ancient lauden neiven—vampire in the common tongue—Tilarna nearly finds herself outmatched, but gets some backup from her partner, who makes use of a fire extinguisher to disorient the baddie. Tilarna relieves the vampire of one of her arms and Kei fills her with bullets, but she still escapes.

Tilarna feels responsible for Chapman’s death, as she should have known sooner what they were dealing with; Kei does his best to assure her it’s not on her, it’s just the job. Using both K9 units and Tilarna’s excellent sense of smell (at least when it comes to latena), they continue the search.

After the vampire kills a truck driver, causing him to crash, witnesses recall seeing her wearing a dress that looked like black flames—Tilarna recognizes it as a magical illusion spell that provides clothing when naked (and scolds Kei for thinking about her demonstrating it). But it’s also clear the vamp has some of her power back.

The duo heads to the mall where she lies in wait. Kei ends up thrown off a high balcony into a fountain and gets knocked out, while Tilarna is captured. When she awakens both she and we get more of a feel for their adversary, who after all is extremely disoriented in this strange new place. However, she’s sharp enough to know of the “greater gate” in the “Book of Niba,” a prophecy that has apparently come true.

That being said, she’s still a vampire, which means she can’t resist an easy meal—particularly Tilarna’s delicious noble blood. Unfortunately she delays her dinner a hair too long, as Kei and a SWAT team storms the location and rescues Tilarna.

The wounded vamp once again gives the cops the slip, but Tilarna remain hot on her trail. Tilarna suggests they try to take her alive “if possible” so they can try to learn something from her, but Kei very much doubts they’ll be in a position to hold back.

A strange voice leads the vamp down into the subway tracks—the voice of a wizard, who like Tilarna wants to extract some knowledge from the vamp if he can. But between the feeling she finds herself in hell to the belief she comes to that she’s merely in a brief and very bizarre dream before her end, she’s not interested, and instead drains the wizard dry to recharge.

Tilarna and Kei arrive, and once again have a hard time bringing her down. She pounces on Kei, warning him no man has ever walked away from three battles with her, unless he’s some kind of prophesied warrior. Ultimately, the vamp’s ignorance of the fatal effect of a subway train hitting her leads to her demise, while Tilarna leaps to Kei’s rescue at the last second.

Naturally, Kei doesn’t properly thank Tilarna for saving him again, which really steams her beans, so she starts viciously kicking him in the back. It’s an oddly perfunctory ending to what had been to that point a rather thoughtful and intriguing story.

After all, the vamp wasn’t necessarily pure evil—a gal’s gotta eat—but as the episode progressed, she was more a subject of pity than disdain. She simply didn’t belong, it would have been extremely hard for her to try, and she didn’t even seem to want to stay, almost preferring oblivion to such an unfamiliar land.

Cop Craft – 04 – Temporary Insanity

Picking right back up from last week, Tilarna and Kei reach the roof where the fairy Leahyah is trapped in a psychic bomb on a timer. Zelada is ready with magical blue flames that horribly burn the better part of Kei’s back.

As Tilarna tries to counterattack with little success, Kei focuses not on what his eyes see but on what he hears, knowing Zelada is hiding himself with illusion magic. His pistol, which Tilarna said had a certain level of latena, briefly glows purple before he gets a shot off, and it’s a direct hit.

Tilarna presses the attack by claiming one of Zelada’s arms, but he throws himself off the building rather than suffer the dishonor of being killed by a human and a pipsqueak knight. With Kei too burned to get up, the clock winding down on the bomb, and no known way to defuse it, Tilarna sits down with Kei and Leahyah for their final shared moments alive.

Realizing the child she helped when she was lost in the forest is ready to die beside her, Leahyah sacrifices her body before the bomb detonates. With no other choice, Tilarna uses the resulting output of latena to cast a healing spell on Kei. With Leahyah dead, Tilarna and Kei have failed in their primary mission.

Tilarna prepares to board a ship back home where she’ll return a disgraced and dishonored knight, but is ready to face the music. He gives her the floral broach he got back from O’Neill, and she thanks Kei for his partnership, praising him as a “gallant doreany soldier” when they part.

And from the time they bid one another farewell, Kei goes through the rest of the day positively miserable—more so than usual for him. Then he comes home and hears the TV is on, tuned to a basketball game. He draws his gun, looks inside…and finds Tilarna, in casual clothes, lazing on the couch with Kuroi.

She changed her mind: Zelada may not be dead, and there are other threats in San Teresa, so she got a field commission to detective in order to continue serving as Kei’s partner. Kei tries to seem put out, but there’s no doubt he’s happy about this.

On their next arrest raid, Tilarna and Kei are front and center when they take the door, but in her medieval overzealousness Tilarna also takes the finger of a gunman. She thinks nothing of it—she was simply serving justice—but their new chief, Zimmer, lights them both up, saying whatever the “alien” (as he racistly refers to Tilarna) does, her partner Kei is just as responsible.

Thus the old earlier dynamic Tilarna and Kei being at each other’s throats continues apace, with Kei refuing to thank Tilarna for rescuing him and Tilarna repeatedly punching Kei in the back. This all looks like flirting to other detectives, who show them an old wooden coffin with Semanian writing…and a Semanian mummy inside.

They take the mummy to the medical examiner (and Kei’s ex), Dr. Cecil Epps, who resents having to perform an autopsy on an archaeological artifact, but becomes fast friends with Tilarna when the two women share their mutual disdain for Kei. Though Tilarna still isn’t quite clear what an “ex” is, she does chalk up her reunion with Kei as a bout of “temporary insanity.”

The pair is summoned to the station to speak with the suspect whose finger Tilarna sliced off, and she immediately establishes herself as the “bad cop” by pulling her dagger and tossing the perp around. It ultimately pays off, as she learns from where they stole the coffin…and realizes that Cecil is in mortal danger.

Back at the M.E.’s office, Cecil has delegated the CT scan of the mummy to her assitant, Chapman, who either hates her or has a secret crush on her he’s not handling well. That means Chapman becomes the mummy’s first victim, as Cecil enters the CT room to find all his blood being drained and drunk by the now fully animate vampire.

Tilarna arrives to save Cecil, and the vampire says something in what she identifies as “the old language.” The vampire is superbly nimble—not to mention extremely creepy—and even naked, unarmed, and without her morning coffee, still proves more than a handful even for Tilarna. Perhaps she’ll get some timely backup from her partner and his latena-infused sidearm.

While Cop Craft’s fish-out-of-water buddy cop dramedy is deceptively simple, it sports some of the summer’s best and most creative cinematography and action animation, and Tilarna’s striking character design is one of the coolest (and cutest) while Yoshioka Mayu does some great work as her seiyu. And despite its perils, San Teresa is still a really fun place to spend time.

Cop Craft – 03 – Tilting at Windmills

We soon find out where Tirana went—to O’Neill in order to get her into the Pioneer Club run by Elbaji. O’Neill makes sure she looks the part with a skimpy cocktail dress, hose and heels, and attempts to walk like an Earth Girl are unsuccessful. But it doesn’t take long for her to find Elbaji, because he comes right up to her at the bar to make a pass.

Once they’re alone in Elbaji’s office (with two of his guards) and he learns who she is and what she’s after, the chatting is replaced with fighting. Tirana pulls a sword out of her purse and relieves the guards of their hands in the blink of an eye, but Elbaji has a sword too, and soon overpowers her (she left her good sword with Kei, after all).

As Kei learns though Wikipedia (natch), a Knight of Mirvor leaves their sword behind when they are taking a temporary step away from their chivalric code, be it temporary or permanent. But it isn’t long before Kei is on Tirana’s trail as she’s captured and brought to some abandoned temple ruins in an undeveloped district of the island.

Chief Roth tells him to hold his position and wait, but things down at the temple are moving very fast. After Elbaji gives Tirana to Zelada for questioning, Zelada, a supposedly otherwise venerable wizard, leaves her alone with disposible guards, which she quickly dispatches and follows Zelada to his horrifying workshop, where she finds thousands of jars containing fairies in various stages of dismemberment.

Elbaji confronts her there, and as before, he shows off some of the noble background he shed in order to find his own fortune in America: the Land of Opportunity where Money is God. Tirana looks like she’s in trouble again with nothing but a stick to fight with, but Kei arrives in the nick and tosses her her knightly sword.

In a wonderfully-drawn fight full of bold flourishes, Tirana shows what a Knight of Mirvor can do, particularly one who was taught swordsmanship from Lord Verada Vreideni. And just like that, a bad guy I thought she and Kei would have to deal with for some time dies right there on the ground in a pool of his blood.

Unfortunately, the “psychic bomb” Elbaji had on him is a dummy; the “fairy” inside is just a doll. Now reunited, Kei and Tirana find a passage out of the temple and track down Zelada, but the arrest is interrupted by the arrival of Chief Roth, which is very confusing for Kei, considering Zelada sure looks like the guy who killed his whole unit in The War.

Roth shoots Tirana and orders Kei to let Zelada go. Turns out he’s a hardcore xenophobe who wants to use the threat of the psychic bomb to re-separate the two worlds, politically and culturally. Never mind if many humans have adapted; he doesn’t want coexistence, period.

But like Elbaji, Chief Roth doesn’t last long, as Tirana’s sword caught the bullet, and her getting back up is enough distraction for Kei to pull a second gun from his ankle holster to kill Roth, who up until tonight had been like a father to him. Roth’s grand plot also seemed a bit too sprawling and ambitious for a man of his relatively humble station. We’ll see if anyone else in his unit or the department harbors similar positions and goals.

The chase for Zelada continues, leading to the tallest building in the city, Forest Tower. The results would be disastrous if a psychic bomb were detonated there. While on their way to the roof, Tirana notices that Kei’s sidearm has a faint hint of latena, created from feelings put into an object or weapon. Thus, he might not be entirely useless in the impending fight with the red wizard.

This was another strong entry from the great-looking and sounding Cop Craft, which really gets its world-building, little details, and combat right. It’s villains have a tendency to drop pretty quick, but its not like Elbaji or Roth were particularly compelling (though Elbaji’s forsaken noble past wasn’t nothing). More than anything, it’s fleet, fast-paced, and fun, and the central partnership is starting to gel nicely.

Cop Craft – 01 (First Impressions) – LAPD Meets Last Exile

In an illegal drug deal gone wrong, San Teresa Police Detective Sergeant Matoba Kei’s partner Rick is killed gruesomely by an “alien”, i.e. an inhabitant from the alternate world beyond the hyperspace gate that opened up in the Pacific Ocean.

Oh, and it wasn’t a drug deal, though it could have been interpreted that way from the atmosphere and the nature of the dialogue. No, the dealers were trying to sell a fairy in a jar, and one of them isn’t even human, or may have been being controlled like a puppet by a wizard.

After tragically losing his partner of four years, Kei is understandably pissed off. When three roughs from the other side try to extort money for spitting on his car, he deals with them in quick succession, then gets to what’s probably the hardest phone call he’s ever made: to Rick’s wife.

Kei’s CO orders him home to write his report and get some rest, even though he’s far more interested in tracking down the thug who killed Rick and exacting revenge. Still, he obeys orders, comes home (where apparently he needs to wear a dust mask) and feeds his cat, before getting a call telling him he’ll be going on a trip to the gate to pick up a VIP.

What had been subtle little otherwordly changes in the details of ordinary police work becomes a full-on scene out of a Studio Ghibli movie as a massive, ornate Farbanian ship rendezvouses with the far more modest Earth naval vessel. The blue sky darkens to a smoky gray, and a rope ladder is quickly dropped and then raised.

Kei doesn’t even notice at first his VIP is there; she’s quick and tiny, and looks like a child. But she’s not, she’s Tirana Exedirika, an anointed “Knight of Mirvor,” and the show’s finest example yet of Range Murata’s art-deco-y character design work. She’s also extremely arrogant, and doesn’t think much of this lowborn cop with only two names (she has a lot more, but often shortens it to two).

Then comes the kicker: this “kid” is Kei’s new partner, as part of a larger cooperation between the UN and her government, the Kingdom of Farbani. Neither Kei nor Tirana are particularly enthused based on their first impressions of each other. But Kei’s boss says if she wants to find her missing VIP fairy, he’s the best cop for the job, personality be damned.

It’s clearly the first time Tirana’s been in the human world, because she can’t help but be intrigued by all of the little buttons and levers all over the place. Of course, when that lever is a handbrake it causes a few moments of utter chaos…but she blames Kei’s driving. (I also got a kick out of her asking what a “Ridgeline” is—it’s a Honda!)

Tirana follows Kei into a girls club run by an informant, O’Neill, and when the bouncer tries to bar her way, she draws her sword, snips his tie, and re-sheathes her sword in the blink of an eye, earning access beside Kei. Here it’s clear that many humans are so distrustful of the others beyond the gate that they don’t even want them around.

As for Tirana, she can’t believe Kei is going to believe the word of a thief. It’s clear she comes from a much more black-and-white system of justice back in Farbani; as Kei succinctly puts it, justice is a lot more complicated in the human world than it was, say, five hundred years ago. Part of that means yes, the cops work with some criminals in order to get to worse criminals.

When Kei and Tirana reach the building where the Mexican gang connected to the fairy smuggling is believed to be, Tirana can smell the latena from someone controlled by a wizard, warning them that there’s trouble ahead. But when the elevator doors open, she says an incantation, transforms into battle mode, and rushes straight into that trouble. Then the guns start blazing, and Kei grabs her and leaps behind a couch for cover. To Be Continued…

There’s a lot to like here. The cop-show cliches are all there, but tweaked just enough by the otherworldly details. Kei is just a normal-looking dude but is voiced by the wonderful Tsuda Kenjirou and his unique blend of pissed-off and apathetic. Tirana is awesome-looking, and Yoshioka Mayu does a good job giving her a sharp edge to compliment Murata’s clean, soft lines (the flubbing of human words and names is also a nice touch). And while there are only short bursts of action this week, they’re very well-animated. A definite must watch!