“We must cut out all that is different like a cancerous growth! It is essential in this society that we not only have a norm but that we conform to the norm. Differences weaken us! Variations destroy us!” – From the Twilight Zone episode “The Eye of the Beholder”
By and large, the presence of originality has been eroding away from the world’s forms of entertainment for a while now. The cinema industry has propelled itself a shade above mediocricy thanks to a seemingly neverending stream of re-makes, basically transforming nostalgia into mountains of cash. The NFL’s motto has currently been “this is the way we’ve always done things now shut up and deal with it”. Anime, in particular, is suffering from a years-long endeavor into the tried-and-true. What was once a medium of constant innovation and unabashed quirkiness has now denigrated into a dystopian system of moeblobs and tsunderes, of boobfalls and deus ex machinas, of overpowered angst androids and their legion of clueless harem chicks.
It is in this industry that Inferno Cop steamrolls through, shattering the mindless tedium that anime has become with a fiery passion for all that is pure and righteous in what we watch. This OVA’s backstory is a famous one; Hiroyuki Imaishi, who first flirted with fame thanks to the great Gurren Lagann, left Gainax to create Studio Trigger in 2012 and Inferno Cop was the first work that Imaishi directed with Trigger. As many have stated before, Inferno Cop saved anime from the repetitive nonsense it had devolved into; it also obliterated any rational standard I have for anime in general, like how I think of character animation. How can I describe it? Imagine that you’re a little boy and you want more action figures but your parents don’t have enough cash for them right away. What do you do? You draw what you think resembles some cool action figures. You cut them out and, well, you move these flimsy scraps of paper around and talk for them, just like you would with your toys. That’s what Inferno Cop’s characters look like; they don’t move with their arms, legs, feet, etc. but instead are shifted diagonally, vertically, and horizontally. In other words, Inferno Cop’s character designs are terrible but the series lampoons its stylistic flaws often enough that it becomes an integral part of the title. That’s just the kind of anime this is.
Throughout the duration of this medium’s existence, there have been quite a few mentally unhinged characters to grace anime (eccentrics like Steins Gate’s Rintarou Okabe and Hisoka of Hunter X Hunter fame come to mind), and then there are the guys occupying this show’s cast, particularly the titular character. Inferno Cop is a delusional maniac who, believing his quest is a righteous one, murders a baby, devours his friend’s remains, and destroys the Earth in the course of 13 episodes, and all of this is convincingly portrayed thanks to the colossal efforts of Junichi Goto, who simply oozes the absurd overacting that this role requires. As is wont to occur in one-man shows like this, the rest of Inferno Cop’s cast doesn’t do much of anything, Mecha Cop and Hellfire Boy simply exist to assist the protagonist; the only somewhat noteworthy members of the supporting cast are April O’Neill from TMNT, the corrupt cop in episode 1, and of course God. “Wait, why is God there?” you might ask. The simple answer: don’t expect Inferno Cop to make sense.
Like anything and everything else that is deprived of logic, Inferno Cop is a controversial concoction of pummeled potential. On the one hand, you must commend this series for, along with its unique character designs, convincingly displaying and/or developing an array of topics like the justice system, pregnancy, the passion of competitive sports, time travel, and the apocalypse all in a mere 13 episodes, with 2 minutes per episode. On the other hand, a series that squanders its runtime on an expansive spectrum of ideas instead of simply starting and finishing its story deserves some measure of criticism. What was mentioned about our titular character early on is that he suffered an irrevocable, life-altering tragedy long ago at the hands of Southern Cross and he is apparently wandering from town to town for revenge. However, what would’ve been a solid plot element instead nosedived into oblivion, to put it lightly, as Southern Cross devolves into an increasingly irrelevant presence throughout the series until it is dragged from the pit of nothingness to protect the Earth from Inferno Cop (It’s as stupid as it sounds; trust me). More than anything else, what really puzzles me about Inferno Cop is how the show never bothers explaining how the hero received his powers. I mean, you don’t just roll out of bed with a head swathed in flames, do you?
Perhaps expecting a reasonably compact plot is utterly extraneous for a show that attempts coming across as a particularly off-the-wall comedy. Even then, I don’t regard Inferno Cop as a whole as consistently amusing; the success of this series’ irreverent brand of humor is mercurial to say the least in that occasionally Inferno Cop is flat-out hilarious (episode 2’s bullet scene is an obvious moment) but more often that not it’s uninspiring. Many have ventured to praise Inferno Cop not as a comedy but as a glorious satire of the superhero genre, presumably to compensate for Inferno Cop not being funny after a while. Satire is a genre that presents a comically exaggerated viewpoint on a topic which highlights, explicitly or implicitly, what needs to be changed in our society. If you wish to an anime that does justice to the field of satire, Paranoia Agent is for you because, as far as I’m concerned, Inferno Cop isn’t satire. I don’t know what this is.
Even Inferno Cop’s soundtrack isn’t all that impressive; in fact, excluding the earworm that is “Die Hollen Porizei”, it’s barely worth mentioning. Regardless, Inferno Cop overall is worth watching because it is purposefully left-field while anime today stick to the right; it is unique not in its material but in how it is delivered, not in substance but in style. Ultimately, Inferno Cop is the definitive “turn-your-brain-off” flick, an OVA you can enjoy as long as you’re not anticipating anything deep and meaningful.
Ghost Rider forever, baby!
