Angel Cop

"Unless you want a .45 caliber lobotomy real fucking back, you better tell your friend over there to put the fucking knife down." - Angel

I have returned once again, from the gratuitously ultraviolent era of anime past... the 80s OVAs! For those who aren't yet in the know- the 80s are now famous for having produced some of the most outrageous, over the top bloody, gory, and violent anime ever. Back when you had to get anime on sketchy bootleg VHS tapes that cost $40 a pop just to see an animated titty. Back when blowing heads off and turning characters into meat fountains was ... chic. This turned a series of widely varying in quality and appeal anime into cult classics.

Titles like Violence Jack, Genocyber, Mad Bull 34, Wicked City, and our very own Angel Cop will forever be remembered for their contribution of an obscenely ridiculous plot with dubs to match.

This is not to say that Angel Cop is by any means a good anime, no matter what the underground following says.


Sound and Voice Acting: 6

The dub is not as hilariously bad as it was described to me, but decidedly hilariously average, and probably even a good quality production for the time. Sure, there's a few memorable one liners that sound like something someone from another planet who'd studied only extremely dated euphemisms and idioms from 20 years before this anime was even made would say... or just ad libbing. I did once read about the ADR director that worked for Central Park Media at the time- named "One Take" Tony Scorlietti. He had a thing for making every character have a thick NY accent and cursing as much as possible. SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT... PIIIIIIIIIIIIISSSSSS!

Sometimes it felt like Tourettes Guy was the scriptwriter for this series, no lie.


Artwork and Animation: 8

What was decidedly above average was the art in this OVA. Its contemporaries Violence Jack and Mad Bull look like ASS in the animation department. They're straight up terrible. Angel Cop, surprisingly, looks really nice. It's fluid for the most part, and the animation of the characters and their models are fleshed out and not recycled over and over, or with horrible drops in detail level. Angel Cop keeps the gore level high, and there are some pretty squishy, grotesque killings. Cool factor +2 for disgusting displays of viscera.


Characters and Story: 4

The characters are as follows: Robocop, Impossibly Badass Female Supercop, Steve Perry mixed with Steven Tyler, complete with an enormous 80s glam rockstar-do, Doll Girl, Dick Tracy, and Arnold Schwarzenegger with boobs and psychic powers.

Do with that as you will.

The story is a snoozer, and I didn't even care enough to go back and listen to what was supposed to be happening, and it didn't much matter. What matters is that a psychotic psychic bitch named Lucifer is going on a rampage for some suits who want to turn Japan into a nuclear waste pit, in the vein of Fallout. "When kids start growing two heads, you don't think people will notice that shit?" Dick Tracy says.

So, in order to stop the suits, their psycho test subject has to be subjugated to reveal the really poorly planned get rich quick scheme behind the murders. It's up to Angel and her partner Robocop to shut that shit down... and totally annihilate everyone in their way. Yay for drama. Yay for murder.


Enjoyment and Overall: 7, 6

While not nearly as crazy or funny as Mad Bull, nor as graphic as Violence Jack, Angel Cop falls somewhere in the middle. The dub is classic Central Park Media, and worth watching for that alone, but the actually decent visuals are a plus too. Imagine if Mad Bull had half the budget of Akira, and you've got something in the ballpark of Angel Cop.

There's also an unintentionally hilarious scene where a guy gets shot multiple times because another character can't aim with the other hand that basically makes the OVA.

This is must-see TV for 80's OVA fiends like me, or anyone who enjoys a short romp in the realm of the bloody ridiculous.

This is my 10th year anniversary re-review! Back in 2014, I joined MAL to communicate with other anime fans and to write short, comedic reviews as a means to vent stress. I was attending medical school at the time and during practical exams you must think fast and write fast, so writing 30-minute blitz reviews was good writing practice for me. One of the first anime that I ever reviewed for this site was Angel Cop. Since the 1990s, Angel Cop has had an infamous reputation among older anime fans. This is due to its astoundingly awful dub and for embodying the spirit of ultra-violent, ... schlock OVAs from the height of the video rental boom in Japan. Flash forward 10 years and I’ve ended up on a completely different career path. Fortunately, I found something that I really love doing and it just so happens that I have a job where I can typically relax on the weekends. This means that I now have more than 30 minutes when I want to write a new review. It’s definitely going to take a wee bit longer than that to adequately summarize my feelings towards this anime and provide background information explaining it. Angel Cop is very much a product of its time and it’s important to understand the context in which it was made to fully appreciate this lump of insanity. Strap yourselves in folks, if you’ve not heard of this anime then you’re in for a ride!

I’m not even sure where to begin with this series. I’m someone who passionately loves terrible anime, so Angel Cop is special to me. I own it on Bluray and I’ve seen it 6 times now. I’ve watched it 3 times dubbed, twice with the original uncensored subs, and once with both the dub and subs at the same time so I could directly compare the two. There are plenty of anime where I initially disliked it either because I was in a foul mood, or I didn’t really appreciate what it was trying to do. Then I watch it again a few years later and it’s amazing. This list includes shows like Kuchuu Buranko, Samurai Champloo, Gurren Lagann, Princess Tutu, Kaiji, Evangelion, and Lain. Angel Cop is not on this list. This anime is still terrible no matter how many times I rewatch it. However, it is compellingly terrible in a way that I feel I must share with others. They certainly don’t make them like this anymore!

Angel Cop was not based on a manga, novel or anything else. It was a completely original IP created by legendary animator Ichiro Itano, who you may remember for creating the “Itano Missile Circus”. That thing in every mecha anime where a thousand missiles are fired at once and spiral all over the place. Trust me, you’ve seen it before. Angel Cop had a very troubled production history. It began in 1989 and didn’t finish until 1994 despite only being 6 episodes long. The manga that was supposed to accompany the OVA got canned after a single volume in 1989. Veteran script writer Sho Aikawa was originally attached to the project but left after the first couple episodes. Yasuomi Umetsu, who would go on to found Studio Arms, was the key animator on episode 1 but also bailed. The last 3 episodes were written, directed, and mostly animated entirely by Itano with everyone else of note having abandoned the project. Angel Cop began its life as a Judge Dredd inspired gorefest that’s violent, gritty, and consistently mean-spirited and nasty. Sort of a love letter to the schlockiest of bad 80s action movies. Bakemonogatari gets endlessly praised online for lifting shots directly from French New Wave films like “Breathless” and Cleo from 5 to 7”. Angel Cop directly lifts a scene from "Invasion USA" by Cannon Films. It’s the shot where Angel casually looks over her shoulder while firing a missile from the back of her motorcycle. It’s kind of ironic as you’ll later realize that Angel Cop would shamelessly rip-off an Israeli action film, but Itano did it for whatever reason.

Everything changed for Angel Cop from its writing to its production cycle with the Japanese economic crash that started in late 1990 and continued throughout the 90s decade. A lot of people lost a lot of money, including Mr. Itano himself. Whenever unforeseen disaster strikes, everyone looks to place the blame on someone. In reality, it was a complex issue caused by decades of monetary easing by the Japanese government and reckless speculation by Japanese banks and credit companies who thought the good times would never end. However, conspiracy authors were quick to blame the United States for sabotaging the Japanese economy in order to prevent Japan from overtaking America. Anti-Semitic conspiracy novels including the 9001st reprinting of Protocols of the Elders of Zion quickly reached the top of the Japanese bestseller list. So, if you’re wondering why the animation quality nosedives in the 2nd half and the plot goes completely off the rails to instead focus on delivering a 7-minute racist diatribe…that’s why. Itano was not exactly in a healthy mental space during the last half of this OVA. Dude was hauled up in an animation studio with empty bottles of whiskey, piss jars, and Protocols finishing this piece of shit mostly out of pure spite. You have to love the crazy old bastard. Against all the odds, he somehow got this shit made.

Angel Cop was not a successful OVA in Japan by any means. So how did it even reach the West? Why isn’t it stuck on Japanese VHS and doomed to utmost obscurity? The answer to those questions is a little company called Manga UK. During the 1990s, the British saw an opportunity to market anime as violent, sexy cartoons for adults. They would license the cheapest, shittiest OVAs that no Japanese companies wanted and sell them to British audiences with highly “spiced up” scripts that feature swear words in virtually every sentence. Enter John Wolskel, who is secretly the hero of this whole story. As a young college graduate, Wolskel was trying to break into television and film writing. Some of his first projects were for Manga UK. After the disastrous failures of “The Dark Myth” and “Sword for Truth”, his boss threatened to fire him if the next anime he was assigned to didn’t fly off the shelves. Wolskel stopped even remotely trying to follow the Japanese scripts and completely threw caution to the wind. This led to such AMAZING dubs as Mad Bull 34, Devil Man, Cyber City Oedo, and of course Angel Cop. Wolskel’s script manages to transform Angel Cop into a profanity laden dark comedy in which an elite team of utterly unlikeable asshole cops must crush a plot by American communists. Oddly enough, the joke dub even manages to fix some plot holes from the original, such as the Japanese government allowing Jews to somehow buy the entire island of Hokkaido and turn it into the world’s nuclear waste dump to sterilize the entire Japanese population. The dub explains that they don’t intend to keep this a secret for long, but the sterilization will happen quickly and by the time the rest of Japan finds out, they’ll all be on a beach overseas using new identities. The original script literally never explains what the motives of the Japanese government are to go along with this plan or how they intend to keep it hidden. They just say that if they don’t do it, the Jews will force Japan to become the 51st state, which is a fate somehow worse than sterilizing the entire population. Then it goes on a tangent about how America lost over 500,000 soldiers in the Vietnam War which was entirely orchestrated by American Jews in order to test out chemical weapons on Vietnamese civilians. Yeah…even the most unhinged of terminally online /pol/ lurkers look at the Angel Cop script and think…what?!! Anyways, back to my man John. The dude made a heroic effort to salvage this project and is the only reason that anyone outside of Japan knows about this anime.

Angel Cop’s reputation in the 90s made it out to be one of the single worst anime of all time, but is it really that bad? The answer to this is…not really. Of the scant selection of anime that Americans could purchase dubbed in 1995, it was definitely among the worst. However, America wasn’t getting the type of shit that people like Kenny Lauderdale cover. We weren’t getting Chargeman Ken, Twinkle Nora Rock Me, Kentoushi, Kennel Tokorozawa, and shit like that. I can personally list over 100 anime that are worse than Angel Cop. Ichiro Itano may not be the greatest script writer, but he’s an animation genius. Even flying solo while drunk off his ass, Itano insured that Angel Cop has a few scenes that look good even in the last couple episodes. Angel’s brutal execution of a communist terrorist in the first episode looks spectacular and is possibly the best-looking gore that Umetsu has ever done. What I can’t say anything nice about is the OST. Angel Cop’s soundtrack has never been released even in Japan and there is a good reason for this. It was composed entirely using a Casio synthesizer and just sounds like garbage. Combined with one of the worst ending themes in the history of anime, Angel Cop’s soundtrack is just the drizzling shits.

So, if I love this anime and keep making my friends and family watch it, then why am I only giving it a 2? While the dub does its absolute best, Angel Cop doesn’t work as a “so bad it’s hilarious” comedy in the way that something like Mad Bull 34 does. Angel Cop probably has around 6-7 minutes of gut busting comedy spread over a 3-hour run time. Even if you’re an edgelord and are looking for the anti-PC shock value, it doesn’t really do that consistently either. That’s pretty much all in the last 2 episodes. If you're a gorehound, you'll also be disappointed. The majority of Angel Cop’s run time is actually just boring as FUCK. My girlfriend almost fell asleep watching this. There are long gaps of utterly unenjoyable downtime between the peaks of gleeful ultra violence, hilarious dub lines, and deranged conspiracy theories. Instead of being “so bad it’s good”, Angel Cop at the end of the day is just…bad. Really fucking bad. However, it’s such a time capsule of OVA insanity that I find it endlessly fascinating. Despite my morbid fascination though, I can’t earnestly give this a higher rating.

I watched the English Dubbed Version and this is what my review is basically going to be about. Just recently hooked on the Police genre of anime from B the Beginning this is the one that has really given me the most amount of Conspiracy with Supernatural powers-clashing goodness sense B.

One of the things that really stood out to me about this show was the use of booby-traps and interesting misdirects to set them off as opposed to the standard formula in modern police raids by having a bunch of cops storm the place and either getting everyone apprehended or setting off an explosion ... trap as they rush in and end up just serving as fodder for the plot. Disarming the traps only to have them go off added an extra layer of tension to the story, and made the scenes where the police infiltrate enemy bases or places where they set up bombs all the more exciting and unpredictable.

The dub's voice acting was solid in a hilarious way (some voices are bad, and others are good for me but I am not an expert on acting here), the animation started off mostly slick (albeit with a few static moments), but once the OVAs continued production past the fall of the Japanese economy in the 90s the last two OVAs suffered from a dip and led to the climax feeling less intense than the buildup, but otherwise the story was still a stellar mix of conspiracy intrigue, raw violent battles of massive mayhem and unrestrained edgy characters (which I mean as a positive) that made this show an experience of rushing adrenaline and excitement balanced out with a look into what Japan's broader views were of the time on patriotism and communism and an interesting conspiracy plot not unlike FMA Brotherhood.


I can genuinely understand the hate and its no masterpiece, but I genuinely did like this OVA.

This show along with Urotsukidoji were responsible in the early 90's for the widespread belief that anime was "gore and porn," a stereotype that persisted for quite while. This OVA is the equivalent to those trashy over-the-top 80's action movie shlock that would have been produced by Cannon films.

It falls squarely into the cyberpunk genre but Ghost in the Shell, this is not.

What it lacks in originality and thematic content it mostly makes up for in gorgeously-detailed animation, kinetic action, and ridiculous amounts of gore.

To further enhance the viewing experience, the English dub produced by Manga Entertainment squarely falls into the category ... of so-bad-it's-good with it's assortment of cheesy lines (Ex. If this is justice, then I'm a banana), excessive use of profanity, and odd voice-acting (Ex. Freya and a redneck helicopter pilot).

It's jingoistic cyberpunk trash, but at least it's well-made and fun in a cheesy action movie way.

In the 80s and 90s there was a vein of ultra-violent, ultra-bad OVAs. Simple, hard to follow plots, mediocre animation that ranged from good to garbage, laughable English dubs, and all the gore you could ever want. Angel cop is one of those OVAs, and boy is it a fun one. This was one of the first anime I ever watched, and it is so objectively terrible that it's amazing. I'll leave my review scarce to avoid most spoilers and so that you can enjoy this series in all it's skull popping glory.

[plot: 3]
In this Japanese-nationalistic story where Japan is a world superpower Angel Cop ... and her partner Raiden fight a group of terrorist commies called the Red May. They also fight a group of evil American psychics. At the end of the series, the plot becomes rabidly anti-American and anti-Semitic, though the anti-Semitism is written out of the spectacular English dub. Most of the time watching this I found the story uninteresting or confusing, and it seemed to degrade as it went on. The plot was basic and not very engaging; the story never gripped me, and it doesn't do a good job of making the viewer care about what's happening on screen. The one good thing about Angel Cop's story is that, like the rest of this anime, it's unintentionally rediculous and comedic. That the plot sounds like something my conspiracy loving uncle would spout over thanksgiving dinner makes this all the more enjoyable to watch.

[art: 5]
Angel Cop has widely inconsistent animation. Most of the time the show looks poor and static. What saves this show in the art department is the gore. Boy oh boy. Chances are you've seen the infamous Angel Cop head-shot, it appears in episode one. if you haven't, check it out right away. When it comes to violence, the animation is smooth as hell and a treat to the eyes. Even outside of that this show has a few points where the art kicks up a notch and it almost tricks you into believing it's a good anime. I have a soft spot for scenes of uncensored gore, so for that alone it was worth watching.

[sound: 5]
If you are going to subject yourself to this show, you ought to watch the English dub. The English version of this show uses fifteening, which is where they cram in as much cussing as possible to bump up the rating. At the time anime was more likely to fly off the shelves if it was rated 16+ or mature, so many English dubs would do all they could to appear more 'adult'. This lead to some hilarious results. Most characters sound like children trying out swear words for the first time in a failed attempt to sound like their fathers, and besides the gratuitous language most of the lines are so ridiculous it's hard to believe they weren't written intentionally bad for kicks. An example of this is when Angel says 'if this is justice then I'm a banana'. Every line sounds forced and the screams sound impassionate and fake, which makes this show all the more fun. Besides that, I appreciate the English dub's use of 'the Americans' in place of 'the Jews'.

[character: 2]
Somehow I cared even less about the characters than I did about the story. Angel is a walking stereotype, and so is Raiden. Neither of them are interesting or likable. The cast entirely consists of forgettable lumps of soggy cardboard and blood. Most of the time I was more focused on how I hoped the characters would die (more gore please!) than the actual characters themselves- if you could even call them characters, that is.

[enjoyment: 8]
This show is a pile of flaming hot garbage and I love it for that. I've busted more guts and seen more guts busted watching this show than I have watching any comedy. If you are a fan of ultra-violence and shows so bad they're good, Angel Cop is a must watch.

[overall: 5]
If you want a good laugh, watch Angel Cop. If you want a good show, look elsewhere.

Angel Cop has a simple yet sometimes convoluted story line that leaves much to be desired.

I found Angel Cop hard to sit through. Despite being somewhat interesting, the early episodes seemed to drag on forever. They did little to keep my attention during those episodes. While it does pick up in both story and interest later on, it seems to be convoluted in how it gets there.

Art is average given the anime's age and sound was neither good nor bad.

I though character design and development was it's best feature, although they do some of the main characters dirty in my opinion.

Overall, Angel Cop is a ... good anime that is thankfully short, lasting only six episodes because although it has a simple story line, it can sometimes be convoluted, leaving much to be desired.

Haiku review:

It's old but still good
Needs the "Ghost Stories" treatment
Maybe a laugh track

Prose elaboration:

"Angel Cop" is a series that finds its way onto a lot of worst-anime lists, unfairly. As one of the older series for non-children, it came in an industry that was still finding its way. It's a milestone, an artifact in anime history.

It's decent but takes itself a little too seriously until the last episode, where they realized that they hadn't checked the tiddies box yet. They made up for it. The series contains some of the best and grittiest lines ever: "I'n not here to take you in, I'm here to ... take you out."

The ED, Crayon-sha's "Itami," is a driving classic. It's one of the best examples of perfect music for an anime scene.

That having been said, I think that "Angel Cop" would really benefit from two things. The first is to hand it over to an open-minded director and a batch of talented voice actors with instructions to make it up as they went along, in the fashion of "Ghost Stories." The other is, frankly, a laugh track.

“Angel Cop” is what happens when the 80s hit hard and I do mean HARD!

Before we start I would like to explain something. I will be talking about “plot” and “story”. Many people use those terms interchangeably. I’m not one of those people, so to make sure everyone is on the same page…
I use the definitions for “plot” and “story” as Lisa Cron describes them:
“What happens in the story is the PLOT, the surface events.”
“STORY is about how the things that happen affect someone in pursuit of a difficult goal, and how that person changes internally as a result”.

That said, this show has ... little to no story at all, it’s all plot driven. The very little story there is, is wasted on the absolute atrocities pretend to be characters. A lot and I do mean A LOT of things happened not because it makes logical sense or is internally coherent with the characters, but because the almighty plot demands it. Especially the titular Angel, but I’ll get to that.

This show is as 80s as it gets. You get a lot of cliches and tackiness that defined that era. I’m not sure You can truly understand how “special” that time was if You haven’t lived through it. Most things were over the top and that includes using violence and eroticism in movies, shows and animations. Unfortunately it’s also the time when animations were a lot of things, but well written wasn’t something that happened often and this show is the perfect example of that.

For starters it doesn't really know what it wants to be. Is it a futuristic cop show? Is it a political drama? Is it an action flick? Is it a supernatural sci-fi? Each and everyone of those questions have the same answer: “Yes and No”. It mashes all of those themes and subjects together but does so half-assed.

The most obvious reason why the show doesn’t stick the landing is the fact that it’s only 6 episodes. The show sets up a lot of things. Some of them being cyborg modifications, understanding of justice and morality and on top of that some pretty heavy handed politics. In 6 episodes it wants to cover material for at least 24 (and that’s only if we are talking about mediocre writing and not something logical and using any kind of cause and effect structure). As a result most things are hasted and the passing of the show suffers greatly. In just one episode we have a pretty slow and methodical investigation, supernatural killings and a setup to a full blown urban combat encounter. None of those have the time to breathe and mature to fully utilise them. As a consequence this show doesn’t have a proper structure of “And because of that” and instead uses “and then that happened”. Needless to say it butchers any kind of logic.

The second thing that makes this show pretty bad is the main cast. It’s too big. We are introduced to a lot of characters in episode one and the list just get’s bigger as the show continues. Unfortunately almost all characters have just one trait that pretends to be their personality. We don’t even get proper introductions to them, they are just there. The show puts them in some plot elements but because it’s just plot and not story or even proper character introduction You really don’t care if they live or die.
Ok… I delayed it long enough. Let’s talk about my bane of the show…
Angel - Despite giving her name to the title she is by far the most incoherent character in the show. I almost feel glad that she doesn’t have a lot of screen time in the first 4 episodes. She’s partnered with Raiden, the only character that I would say is morally sound. She’s what a 14 year old would consider cool and her design is pretty standard for the 80s, with the hair, jacked and bike. She has a very twisted view on morality and justice. She’s ok with killing terrorists, she doesn’t even pretend to shoot to incapacitate them. Her introduction is the killing of one of the suspects in a rather brutal way. You could say that she wanted to save Raiden’s life but that’s just an excuse. It’s proven she’s an excellent shot so shooting the gun out the terrorist's hands or injuring the limbs would be easy for her. No, she went for the kill. But when someone else wants to do it she suddenly acts like a proper cop should, and that's the moment after she tried to shoot one who used a child as a hostage. It’s pretty clear in the first episode that she’s probably a sociopath that is lying to herself that she’s the good guy.
What’s more idiotic with her writing is her change of heart, I think it was in episode 5, where she acts almost like she cares about civilians and actual justice and not just the “Kill them all and let god sort them out” kind. Suddenly she shows competitions towards two psychers (yes, this show has psychic powers) and even Raiden, hell, she even kisses the man… when he’s unconscious but it still counts. There is no progression to her new state. There is no story here. One episode she likes to kill, the other she decided that maybe protecting others is a better way to do her job. It happens only because the plot demands it to make her final fight more impactful.

If we’re on the subject of morality then the “good” guys aren’t so morally sound (except Raiden). They are not above torturing the subject in some pretty original and gruesome ways to get the information they need. Interestingly the show doesn’t make excuses for them. It doesn’t play the “It’s for the greater good” card. Those cops are doing this because it’s their job and probably the fastest way to achieve their goals. One of the members is even stated to have some (but not much) doubts. I like it. I hate when shows justify immoral actions by trying to make the lesser evil good. This time everyone knows they are assholes and they accept it. Someone has to do it so it might as well be them.

If I had a choice I would give more screen time to the psychers, they actually pretend to have an arc with all the internal squabble and desertion. The three Hunters (as they are called) are a pretty interesting bunch. A kid wielding something of a pyrokinesis, a teeager with teleportation and psychokinesis and a blond, probably 30-something called Lucifer using psychokinesis, energy drain and mind reading. This bunch is more interesting than the main cast.

The investigative parts of the show are what really bummed me out. I love proper detective mysteries. I love the whole shabang: gathering clues, interviewing suspects, putting things together, it's awesome… if done right. Unfortunately this show rushes everything. It has to, it only has 6 episodes. Thanks to that the investigations of the terrorist attacks from the very start of the show is done before the halfway mark and the political drama is revealed an episode later and on a silver platter. The reason why the investigation went so fast is because the plot demanded it, it had no time to set up something logical so it made circumstantial evidence lead to the only proper solution.

The final part is actually the one that I enjoyed and I call it “The 80s fluff” in this category the show serves us all the things You would expect, blood, gore, some naked breasts, shootouts and even a robocop ripoff. If for nothing else the final fight with Lucifer is an entertaining watch and actually properly shows her determination and faith in her cause. She’s not evil for evil’s sake and she doesn’t just take everything lying down. When she’s down, she gets up like a proper villain should (something today's anime writers don't have a damn clue about). She wants to achieve her goal by any means necessary and will stop at nothing to do so. She’s shown as a serious threat and actually defeating her feels earned and not given by some deus ex machina fuckery.

At the end of the day this show is badly written in almost all aspects. It’s a shame because it had a lot of potential. The world was solid, the atmosphere of violence, corruption and distrust was there. I would even say that Angel, Raiden and Lucifer had potential as characters. All that was needed was a writer with the skill to use those elements properly and maybe focus more on what kind of show it wants to be. Shame it never got one.
I guess if You just want to watch a blast from the past with some blood, gore and women kicking ass it can be enjoyable.

good physical design and intelligence, kynestethic understanding beyond most we can see today.
the rest is a rather shallow character development and characters in general. the spirituality of the creation is not well constructed although it does attempt to be phylosophical to the best of its capability.

Puts a big focus on action which can drag out, would've been better with less
clearly a high IQ creator, engineer as you might say, that managed a quality product.

for me it was mostly sensory enjoyment .. the story and politics get confused and confusing, though rather realistic and plausible.
"the jews took over america" , welcome to ... 2024 :) enough said ..