Review of Police in a Pod

Had this been a pure police drama, I would probably be giving this anime an eight or nine right now. During the few times the anime strictly focused on the drama and dropped the jokes, it was quite good, but those times are so few and far between that it just highlighted how bad the rest of the show is. The problem is that the anime has a bad case of identity crisis. It doesn't know if it wants to be a gag comedy or a serious drama. The anime will go from all out comedy one minute then become knee-jerkingly serious the next. Thereis no build up to the serious scenes and by the end they were even using jokes and gags during the serious parts. Considering the type of crimes and accidents this anime tackles, the jokes make the show seem insincere and juvenile - it felt cowardly, as if the writers and director were too scared to tackle serious crimes or accidents and were hiding behind poorly timed jokes.

The comedy was not very funny; some of the jokes, especially during the later episodes, come in at inappropriate times. Throwing in jokes and gags during episodes that discuss the assault of young girls felt very distasteful. Not only do the jokes take away from the seriousness and tone of the situation, it makes the Japanese police in this anime look incompetent and foolish, especially the protagonist.

By the end, I came to hate the Kawai. All she does the entire show is complain about being a police officer and how hard the job is. It's the police, it's supposed to be a difficult and demanding, selfless job. There is no personal growth in the series at all. She starts out hating her job and wanting to quit and it feels the same at the end as well. She doesn't do much the entire series. Instead, it’s those around her that actually do the heavy lifting. Who wants a superstitious, out of shape cop who is always scared and complains all the time as the protagonist?

Hakozume: Kouban Joshi no Gyakushuu is all over the place. It wants to be a bunch of different things at once; it reminds me of that figure of speech “jack-of-all trades, master of none”. Comedy-dramas are notoriously difficult to pull off as you have to time the dramatic scenes very carefully around the comedy and this one fails miserably.

3/10