Techno Police 21C

This was my first anime and what anime really it is!

Story 10/10 - The team of police men is gathered by an interesting way not only as a team but how they meet. The tank that they chase later on acts at times as if its alive even if its following orders.

Art 9/10 - The art is common for that time but most people today may not like it.

Sound 10/10 - The music is old style but its really enjoyable.

Characters 7/10 - The characters are well formed as personality and specially the robots, but i think that Vigorish could say something and not only stay ... silent and even its big its almost unnoticed in the whole story.

Enjoyment 10/10 - Even after all those years I still watch it on my computer and I plan to keep it for my children. :)

Overall 9/10 - I will give it 9 not 10 only because I was hoping for a remake or more episodes after all these years.

Welcome to....The Future!!!!! Or, at least how some people may have envisioned the future. And yes, it is even more ridiculous than you would have imagined. With strange-shaped, boxy Techno-cars, and weird Techno-weapons, and soaring Techno-buildings in a big Techno-city!

But mostly, it seems the future is all about the robots. Robots everywhere! Including the main character's partner, the clunky-but-lovable Transformers Guy.

Ah, but the Techno future setting to all of this is just the backdrop. The real gem of this movie is the story - the HILARIOUSLY bad story, that ... is. As easy-going country cop goes to the Big City, and there's this super-ultra-mega-powered tank that no one can stop, that is being chased all over the city, as they try to stop it. And, you guessed it, wacky hijinks ensue.

The artwork and animation quality is laughably sub-standard (comparable to, say Saber Rider and the Star Sheriffs. Or Future Police Urashiman.), and this whole mess was made even more precious because I watched the wholly inappropriate and poorly done Hong Kong dubbed version. Which, I suspect, is probably the ONLY way to watch this -- because it sort of brings out the ridiculousness of each scene. Techno Police definitely falls into that rare "So bad it's actually fun to watch how bad it is" category.

Sometime back rewatching the Bubblegum Crisis OVAs, I looked up who the character/mechanical designers were (something I'd surprisingly only recently started doing with anime), and learned that Bubblegum Crisis was initially conceived as an update of this 1982 film. A joint production of Toho, Artmic, and Studio Nue, Techno Police 21C is a bit of an early '80s curiosity. Supposedly it was an attempt at producing more adult oriented animation, it's kind of cheaply made, and despite the apparent deaths that occur, it still feels like a goofy children's cartoon. Which is made much worse by the English dub.

Taking place in a super futuristic ... city called Centinel City in the year 2001 (or at least that's what the English title card tells us), Techno Police 21C is about a "special vehicles squad", which is in fact just a team of three people, who each direct a man sized robot called a "technoid" to aid them in ending the crime wave that has plagued the city. While miracles of science, the technoids seem to only be programmed to smash things, but luckily they have the ability to learn and thus the Techno Police have to teach them how to socialize and become better cops.

Techno Police 21C (I suspect "21C" comes from the fact it takes place in the 21st century), is rather silly on it's own, but holy crap does the English dub ramp up the silliness. Dubbed in Hong Kong, the anime sounds like many a kung fu flick from that era, which is funny at first, but that passes pretty quick and makes watching a chore. Not to mention the dialogue being totally ridiculous, making something that was supposed to be geared towards adults feel like a joke. The mechanical designs are kinda cool in an early '80s sort of way though, but this is definitely not a hidden gem. While pretty awful, it's not entirely useless by virtue of it serving as the inspiration for what would become the significantly better Bubblegum Crisis years later.