I am the purgatorial flame of this rotting shit-hole... Inferno Cop!!

May 20, 2016 8:16 PM

Thrill at the 2-4 minute long, extremely cheaply animated adventures of INFERNO COP, passionate, tireless, easily distracted crusader for justice in Jack Knife Edge Town, as he battles the sinister (and poorly motivated) secret society Southern Cross! (click the "CC" button to turn on English subtitles)

(Ads in Eps. 9-12 end at 0:40)
Episode 1: The Badge From Hell We meet our unstoppable hero.
Episode 2: Deep Blue Baby We learn about the evil Southern Cross. Inferno Cop is punished for his tenderness of heart.
Episode 3: Proof of Justice Mr. Judge brings Inferno Cop to trial for his reckless ways.
Episode 4: Escape from Nightmare Our wounded hero must do battle with Southern Cross's latest henchmen: the FBI.
Episode 5: The Apocalyptic World Inferno Cop must go beyond the impossible and kick reason to the curb to reverse an apocalypse.
Episode 6: From the Ancient Village Inferno Cop enters a strange land and bites off more than he can chew.
Episode 7: Inferno, an incident in Hell Inferno Cop meets his aunt in hell.
Episode 8: Accelerating Spirit Inferno Cop races to win 1,000,000 yen in the America Racing Grand Prix.
Episode 9: Rest in peace, my friend Inferno Cop travels to Egypt to fulfil the last wishes of his delicious dear friend.
Episode 10: King's Intervention Inferno Cop forgets what he was doing and braves lava, spike pits, and final bosses.
Episode 11: Condemn the Evil, Part 1 Third Impact Destroy Finale occurs. Southern Cross arrives to give bewildering exposition.
Episode 12: Condemn the Evil, Part 2 An unexpected character from Episode 1 appears and turns into the Scarlet Witch.
Episode Final: Let's Search for Tomorrow Episode 13: Inferno Cop puts everything on the line to save the world. The credits are twice as long as the episode.

posted by J.K. Seazer (10 comments total)

Trigger, saving anime again. Or was that with Ninja Slayer?
posted by charred husk at 8:26 PM on May 20, 2016 [1 favorite]

Or was that with Ninja Slayer?

Honestly, Uchuu Patrol Luluco blows both of their previous short series out of the water.
posted by fifthrider at 9:14 PM on May 20, 2016 [6 favorites]

THANK YOU. I was just asking myself what I was going to do for the next 2-3 hours instead of being productive.
posted by LMGM at 12:50 AM on May 21, 2016

Honestly, Uchuu Patrol Luluco blows both of their previous short series out of the water.

Seconded. Luluco is similarly manic, but actually has some charm to it. Inferno Cop has to rely entirely on "lol, we made something terrible, but don't you get it, it's actually great because it's making fun of how terrible it is." Which is fine I guess, but it isn't rwally enough to carry a whole series.

Not to say that "so bad it's good" is impossible for anime to achieve, but I prefer when it's done with more finesse, e.g. the currently-airing The Lost Village.
posted by teraflop at 1:02 AM on May 21, 2016 [1 favorite]

I have to say watching Inferno Cop does add to one's enjoyment of Luluco (Over Justice!).
posted by needled at 4:37 AM on May 21, 2016

> THANK YOU. I was just asking myself what I was going to do for the next 2-3 hours instead of being productive.

If you include all the in-show commercials and credits you should be done within 50 minutes.
posted by ardgedee at 4:56 AM on May 21, 2016

Also, yeah. Luluco depends on Inferno Cop (and -- quasi spoiler -- other Trigger series) for more than a little of its own world building. So I'm wary of saying one is better than the other. They're all distinct parts of Trigger's long game.
posted by ardgedee at 5:00 AM on May 21, 2016

I read somewhere that each Inferno Cop episode was literally created in under an hour.

Luluco is one big love letter from Trigger to Trigger, but at least it's done with a sense of humour and last week's Kill La Kill homage made me laugh uncontrollably for about five minutes.

Meanwhile on the serious side of Trigger there's Kiznaiver where seven high schoolers are bound by wounds and given stupid trials, each fitting a certain anime stereotype, which according to the girl running the programme makes them modern incarnations of the Seven Deadly Sins.

That's the real saviour of anime.
posted by MartinWisse at 7:00 AM on May 21, 2016

I have to admit that for the past half-year or so I've been preferring short-episode series to full-length ones. Luluco, Lovely Muuuuco, Lady Monochrome and Tonkatsu DJ Agetaro have been more memorable than most things I've seen recently. I don't know if the short episodes (3-9 minutes long) are leading to a kind of ultra-refined story arc with the same amount of plot a season of 23 minute episodes and none of the digressions, or if it's helping to prevent the soap opera-ish sort of "character development" that tends to happen which rarely does more than reinforce just how much a particular leading role is a particular kind of trope, or what. Maybe there really is less story, but it's the best part of the story. Anyway, I like it.
posted by ardgedee at 12:54 PM on May 21, 2016

Inferno Cop has to rely entirely on "lol, we made something terrible, but don't you get it, it's actually great because it's making fun of how terrible it is."

That was actually my biggest complaint about Kill la Kill. It's instructive to compare it with Gurren Lagann; KLK had all the over-the-top in-your-face cliches of GL, but none of the charm. It's kinda like GL was saying, "Yeah, these are cliches, but let's not forget what was good about them and why we liked them," while KLK was saying, "Yeah, these are cliches, and you should like them precisely because they're cliches, and if you don't, tough."

I don't feel that way about Inferno Cop, though; I find him charming for his hot-blooded enthusiasm in this very silly world.
posted by J.K. Seazer at 4:26 AM on May 22, 2016