Rated: 3.5 / 5 or 3 / 5, depending on the version.

Sometimes you start to realize that you underestimated just how based 80s and 90s anime can actually be. Sure, us English-speakers who were well-acquainted with it back in the day, and by “well-acquainted” that includes stuff that could only be viewed on VHS or DVD because that would never air on television, knew all about the bloody gory violence. The excessive perverted nudity. The foul-mouthed English dubbing. That’s the standard fair people like me know and love from that era that makes just about any anime made post-2010 (and that’s being generous) seem pussified by comparison.

They can say what they want about how dated the hand-drawn quality looks in general from anime of that era, I far prefer that rough gritty real and passionate hand-drawn stuff compared to most of the CG garbage we get today. Don’t get me wrong, I understand it’s cheaper and easier to do it the way it’s currently being done, and there are plenty of times where it looks great because it was handled with care. But sometimes it’s taken for granted how much effort is to be expected for a level of quality, in a bad way, by the animators themselves (or the production companies that fund them and give them a limited amount of time to make magic happen). If you want a perfect example of what I’m talking about, go watch the 4-episode long show Uzumaki, and compare the animation of the first episode to any episode that came after it. Any episode of Angel Cop looks better than those latter episodes of Uzumaki.

But enough about the animation quality. The English dub of this show is everything you would hope it would be, given the 1990s context for adult anime shows (which you could usually only watch on video; after all, OVAs, or OAVs, by their definition, tended to go straight to video with no television time back in the day, which made them very independent). The excessive amount of cursing because that was cool at the time… made it seem radical… for mature audiences that teenagers fit the description for. Because we were rebels, and we managed to watch that stuff before we hit the age of 17, just as we did for R-rated films like Robocop and Aliens (and corporations knew it too, that’s why they had toy products of Aliens made in the 90s that were advertised in commercials… it was an open secret). This dub has classic lines such as, “He’s a fucking lobster!” or, “You’ve underestimated the power of Japanese technology you evil bitch!”

And yes, plenty of gore to be had. Blood splattering everywhere from bullets, lasers, and telekinesis. And that’s another thing that makes the hand-drawn style more distinct. Seeing actual guts and brain matter and bones amidst the violence. That tends to be too difficult to animate in CG by comparison, so there’s much less of that in this CG-ridden era. They don’t know real violence like we 90s fans do.

As for the plot… well… that’s when it gets interesting. If you watch the American dub, it’s something about Japan becoming an economic powerhouse (it seemed like a possibility during the 1980s) that communist terrorist groups want to overthrow, except that America is putting Japan under it’s thumb to squeeze financial and land resources out of. If you watch the uncensored Japanese version (by uncensored I mean uncensored English subtitles; those who speak Japanese caught onto this detail far earlier than the rest of us), the plot is generally the same, but with far less cussing and more anti-semitism. That’s right, this anime doesn’t hide the fact that America is owned and run by jews who also exploit Japan, alongside other countries America has an iron grip on. Naturally, this part of the story didn’t get through to us back in the day (though in all fairness it seems exclusive to episodes 3 and 6). Not until this DVD (or Blu-Ray) release that came well after the original Manga DVD.

And they weren’t going to let us have this version without a little intro message that gets played before you can start the feature. Not to mention an Extra on the DVD titled “Angel Cop: The Controversy” that goes into a lengthy explanation as to why anti-semitism is bad, for reasons that people in-the-know knows to be bullshit.

Anyway, the whole “kike control” element is what makes this anime extraordinarily relevant in today’s climate, for both the Japanese and Americans. It even adds an extra dimension to the villain woman named Lucifer, one who wants to change the landscape of Japan in order to get America out from under ZOG’s thumb, albeit in a manner the show indicates is very misguided. In fact, it goes along with one of the main themes: wanting to achieve an admirable goal in a manner that is deplorable and hypocritical making it unachievable due to your own corruption. This is shown with the police force, and the Japanese government, along with this villain. Surprisingly deep.

Now, with that said, even with the original Japanese translation and audio, this still isn’t a show that can be taken all that seriously. It’s still rather ludicrous with the stuff that happens in it. And the pacing gets a bit slow and tedious during the last episode when it primarily focuses on the attempts to finish off Lucifer (I just can’t help but laugh at how unsubtle the Japanese are). If you want ludicrous to the point of hilarity, the English dubbing is the way to go. But if you want something that takes itself more seriously to the point that it’s, quite possibly, the most based anime show ever made, watch the Japanese uncut version. Either way, you’ll have an entertaining time.