Man, Hyper Police took its sweet time getting here. It first aired in Japan back in 1997, showing off a futuristic fantasy world, cute female leads, and mildly risqué humor. It was a cartoon cop show with cat ears, and that played directly to fans and companies on this end of the Pacific. Yet Hyper Police made the fansub circuit without getting snagged by anyone, and only five years later was the series published by relative newcomer Image Entertainment. And now, a wider American audience is free to take in this tale of crime, punishment...and, uh, furries. Don't worry, it's okay.
Hyper Police sets itself in the 22nd year of “the New Holy Era,” after some unspecified disaster has forever altered all of civilization. Cities still stand and humans walk the streets, yet they do so in the company of dog-headed people, horned demons, pig-folk, talking mushrooms, wolf-men, and other anthropomorphic breeds. Recalling Richard Scarry books, Blade Runner, and Michael Swanwick's The Iron Dragon's Daughter all at once, this backdrop is the former Tokyo district of Shinjuku, where a rising crime rate has prompted businesses to provide police officers for hire.
Among these bounty hunters is the Police Company's Natsuki Sasahara, a teenaged cat-girl learning the local beat under the not entirely platonic eye of her werewolf partner, Batanen. Though brimming with squeaky-voiced pluck, Natsuki is lacking in marksmanship, and she inadvertently wounds Batanen during a routine arrest. While he recuperates, Natsuki is paired with a muscular human woman named Naoko Kondo, who loves guns and loathes “monsters" due to some childhood tragedy. Shunning Natsuki's help, Kondo takes off after the nastiest criminals she can find, though it isn't long before her tough independence lands her in the clutches of a hulking ram-horned demon, from whom only Natsuki can save her.
Natsuki's ensuing victory brings her to the attention of Sakura, a vagrant fox-woman who's out to complete her set of nine tails (and thus her sense of self-worth) by devouring a small yet magically potent creature. Short, spiritually powerful Natsuki fits the bill, so Sakura begins stalking her. When that fails to result in a meal, Sakura joins the Police Company and manipulates her way into being Natsuki's new partner.
Hollywood's stockpile of cop movies may have birthed some bizarre takes on the mismatched-partners cliché, but I've never seen anything as odd as Hyper Police's pairing of a perky cat-girl and a multi-tailed fox woman who wants to eat her co-worker. Yet somehow, they're entertaining. Natsuki amuses in a shallow sort of way, and though Sakura initially tries to bump off her prey/partner at every chance, she isn't as ruthless (or as effective) as she'd like. The supporting characters are also mildly fun: Batanen proves a likeable mentor to Natsuki even when he's doing his best to stifle his unvarnished attraction to her, while Kondo has a semi-interesting past and an amusing affection for firearms, though, like Kome from Blue Seed, she's swiftly pushed into the background.
It's also easy to like the show's inventive fusions of fantasy staples and cyberpunk stereotypes, from mithril-tipped bullets to roving police hovercraft to Raijin and Fujin, the two mice who live in Natsuki's hair and transform into bloblike, electric gauntlets during combat. Shinjuku's shattered futurescape is filled with all sorts of monsters and beast-folk, to the point where humans are, as Natsuki tells a crook, “protected under the Endangered Species Act.” It's a setting that seems ripe for exploration, and for some detail on how the world came to be this way.
Yet neither is given much notice in the introductory episodes of Hyper Police, which send the characters into routine tales of police work and monster-hunting. Too much attention is spent on Natsuki being kittenishly adorable around her supportive friends, and the other members of the cast seem marginalized by the lighthearted aura. Even though the following episodes provide some sporadic doses of reality, it's nothing new to the formula. Hyper Police also has a penchant for perverse gags, most of which would be harmless if Natsuki didn't look a lot younger than her given age of seventeen (Still, it's less creepy than the original manga). And unlike other shows that feature the shimmering, round-eyed character designs of Keiji Goto (Nadesico, Gatekeepers, Sorcerer Hunters), Hyper Police lacks anything above low-grade TV animation.
With this being the first Image DVD to come my way, I was interested to see what sort of dubbing studio the company would use. Unfortunately, I can't tell, since the disc is devoid of any English credits, and the voices are unfamiliar and problematic. For the first episode, Natsuki's actress puts on a tolerable tone that's cute without being excessive, but for the rest of the disc she switches to an annoying, childish squeal, and it almost sounds like an entirely different person. Kondo (pronounced as in “Mom moved into a condo after dad burned the house down.”) has a forced tough-girl inflection, while Batanen vacillates between monotone and appropriately gritty. Sakura comes off the best, as her actress gives off a throaty intonation reminiscent of Wendee Lee. The Japanese cast is the better of the two, though Yuko Miyamura (Asuka in Evangelion, Caska in Berserk) is almost as piercing of a Natsuki as her dub counterpart, while Sakura's actress, Chiyako Shibahara, sounds like she's constantly pissed off for no reason.
Image's release of Hyper Police may have been fairly quiet, but it's worth seeking out, barring some aversion to “furry” characters (and really, those here are downright tame compared to the term's usual connotations). Though it wastes some of its potential, the show remains fairly enjoyable fluff, unique in style if not in story. And style counts for something here.
B-
