capsule : repugnant , overlong anime that makes it clear how the genre sometimes gets its bad name . anime , like any other genre or group , gets an undeservedly bad reputation from its worst members . aside from the wretched and overrated overfiend , there's other culprits : the insanely dull odin , for one . and angel cop , which is just plain vile . what can you say about a story where the title cards are spelled out in splattered blood to the sound of machine-gun fire , and then goes downhill from there ? angel cop is like a bad version of sylvester stallone's cobra fused with a really low-rent rip-off of the first power and some robocop thrown in for good measure -- which is really saying something , since first power and cobra were wretched to begin with . any association with robocop is a slur on that fine movie . the whole thing clocks in at slightly under two and a half hours -- edited together from five half-hour pieces , but while they were doing that , they could certainly have brought the story down to a less painful length . the plot : an avowedly communist cell named the red may are trying to destabilize japan through acts of terrorism . to combat this threat , the police have created a black-bag ops group who work above the law . ( yes , i'm quoting pretty much word-for-word . ) their leader's so macho he doesn't bother wearing a shirt , but this has to be the first anime where i've seen a normal guy who looked like he had more scar tissue than healthy flesh . oh , i'm sorry -- that's chest hair , combined with particularly bad character animation . he is assigned a new partner , a female cop named angel who's probably even more violent and undisciplined than he is . in a scene where the partner's got a gun to her head , she blows away one of the other terrorists in the room , splattering brains and bone all over the wall . in detail . part of the story ostensibly concerns how angel goes from an unfeeling bitch to someone with a bit more heart , but the way angel cop plays that point off is by giving her the nerve to ultimately blow her partner's brains out ( and all over their enemy ) . oh . angel is , as are the rest of the characters , mostly nonentities who do what the plot and the screenplay tell them to do -- which is shoot people , blow things up , fall out of windows , and karate-chop people to death . their enemies are not much better , although they get a few allies who are marginally interesting ( before they get killed rather unceremoniously ) . i wish there was more to leave out , but i'll sum by saying angel cop is a good way not to introduce someone to anime . 
