'Special Crime Investigation Unit—Special 7' Episode 2

This episode serves as a means of deepening the logistics of the world, what the various races' benefits and drawbacks are, the characters' strengths and weaknesses, their relationship with each other, and what their personalities are like. This episode focuses the narrative on the way the group the Special Seven operates, while tackling a crime. As a result of the group having been created to take down the cultist that worship the dragons, now that they had been taken down they have no purpose and so are left to scavenge cases from other departments so that they have some relevance in remaining in operation.

As we got further into the episode it became all the more evident on just how similar this collection of characters are to other groups that you can find in an ensemble anime. However, considering we are still in the opening of the show, I am hoping that they develop into some truly interesting characters. Once more after the episode has ended we are shown more of the overarching villains making their moves behind the scenes, so that they are ready to take on the heroes when the time comes. If anything, this overarching plot so far that the show is hinting at is the least interesting thing about the show, primarily because it is something that has been seen countless times before. I am far more interested in the dynamic of how these different individuals of different races coexist in the same group.

To the actual meat and potatoes of the episode itself, the premise of the episode is interesting, and it showed off the strengths of Ichinose in particular; who seems as if he had been modeled directly after Hiei, while mixing is personality with Shikamaru from Naruto. They go out of their way in this episode to highlight just how much of an intelligent character he is, going so far as to not even focus on the character that introduced the show, driving Nanatsuki to the background, relegating him to the Watson role while Ichinose is acting as the Sherlock stand in. I can only hope that this is to set up something far greater later on in the show. Though this seems to be quite contradictory on the part of the show considering the equal screen time that was afforded to the two in the first episode.

The actual case that the group has to take on involves a string of murders that occurred in the same building right after the other. In this particular case, certain characters stood out more than the other because of the type of case this is. Akane and Rokusuke were nearly non existence with the exception of the squad introduction scene we had early on in the episode, though thankfully they each had a chance to shine in the previous episode, somewhat. I am wondering why Kajuku is a part of the group, because as it stands he is a glorified valet that has a similar personality to Kyoya from Ouran Highschool Host Club.

While the case had an intriguing starting point, it soon devolved to the point that my interest was waning quite a bit. So much so, in fact, that I cannot even remember a large portion of the middle of the episode. While the show had a promising start, this episode was quite a let down in my opinion as it does nothing new with the idea of the different races living in the modern day. You could even replace the different races with different humans, and you would not have anything all that different. As such I see this as an underutilization of the premise, and a waste of potential.

There are only 12 episodes in this show in total, and so I will give it one more chance to see if it does more or remain a merge of The Mentalist crossed with Bright in anime form. As far as a gimmick goes, it is enough to get me through the door, however, once the novelty has worn off, I am looking for more.