To be completely honest with you, I really don't know what to think of this series. The anime viewer in me found it to be a downright hilarious watch, while the critic in me found this to be a mediocre production from a relative new production company. Inferno Cop is brought to us by the production company Trigger in their first production to hit the anime market. To be honest, I can't rip Trigger that much since most production companies first works are never that good. I guess the good news for Trigger is, they never even tried to be good with Inferno Cop.
Inferno Cop is a three-minute anime series that uses still framed characters with linear backgrounds. There is no "animation" in the sense that there are multiple frames in a constant flow, but rather the still frame animations are moved manually within the scenes. It's about the equivalent of cutting out shapes, pasting them to Popsicle sticks and moving them around in the scene. The best way to describe it is "cheap." You can tell the animation budget was extremely low for this series and perhaps that was the intention. The producers of this series intended to make an incredibly goofy, slapstick humor comedy that you can get a laugh at with how cheaply it's made.
So what's Inferno Cop about? Well...it's premise is a little insane. It's essentially about a cop from the bowels of hell that serves justice in a city known as Jack Knife Edge Town. His mission is to take out an organized crime syndicate known as Southern Cross. There is a revenge scheme as Southern Cross killed Inferno Cop's family and Inferno Cop sells his soul to hell for the power to take down the syndicate. However, don't expect that narrative to hold true, since the story takes odd twists and turns and becomes more about the strange situations Inferno Cop falls into. The plot is relatively similar to Ghost Rider, although that is just one thing I'll mention about this series.
The strength of this series was in its humor, especially with the inclusion of pop culture references, anime and non-anime a like. There are subtle stabs at anime, video games, and movies...some include the aforementioned Ghost Rider, Star Wars, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, Dr. Who. I could go on-and-on about the pop culture references, but I found it hilarious at the brilliance at how they were used. I found the overall scriptwriting was extremely funny and while I found the seiyuu work to be flawed, I have to give them credit for staying in-character with it's insanely written script.
The biggest weakness with Inferno Cop is essentially skin deep. There was minimal effort put into this series from a production standpoint. The animation is the cheapest I've ever seen in an anime, the voice acting sounded like it was done by a couple guys in their basement...much like Girl-chan In Paradise for those that watch flash animation cartoons, and the music was cheaply produced and lacked variety.
Overall, Inferno Cop is a pretty simple anime to define. It's a series that's made to get a cheap laugh...and if nothing else, it's a nice series to watch if you've got about 5 minutes to kill. While I know I criticized its animation and overall production, the thing is I felt that it in a sense helped with it's dumb, watered down brand of comedy. Part of the laughs with Inferno Cop does come from how cheaply it's produced. This is a series where if you really like the cheap comedies you can watch on Adult Swim, then I'd highly recommend this series. I'd compare it to something like Robot Chicken except it has more of an on-going narrative rather than sketch comedy. It is honestly one of the better anime shorts I've ever watched, if nothing else. At least I got a laugh out of it, that's more than I can say for something like Chitose Get You! If you're looking for an anime short with an amazing narrative, I wouldn't recommend Inferno Cop, but if you're looking for a cheap laugh without taking up most of your time, than Inferno Cop is the way to go and I wouldn't be surprised if you found yourself shouting "Inferno Cop" in Engrish throughout the series.
