Winter 2022 First Impressions – Police in a Pod

Streaming: Funimation

Episodes: 13

Source: Manga

Episode Summary: Kawai is on the verge of quitting her job as a police officer. It was the only civil service position that she could qualify for, and that in itself is no way to choose a career. Just before she submits her resignation, however, she’s partnered with Detective Fuji – a beautiful, if somewhat unorthodox, officer who’s been demoted into the position. Kawai struggles to see how Fuji’s attitude toward their work has somehow managed to survive the near constant verbal abuse they both receive from people who get caught in their traffic raids and other arrests.

After a very unusual (and enlightening) interrogation session with a local thief, and a safety presentation at at nearby elementary school, Kawai begins to see the facets of her job that she didn’t previously appreciate. While it’s true that issuing citations on a regular basis sometimes cultivates an adversarial relationship with members of the public, there are always those who take those citations to heart and try to change their behavior for the better. Maybe Kawai can hold off a bit on submitting that resignation.

Impressions: Why is it that we should follow rules? A child in this episode poses the question to Kawai when she visits their school. The answer that she provides is textbook broken window theory – when people in a community don’t follow small rules and engage in anti-social behavior, the belief is that it creates an atmosphere in which people “bad actors” feel comfortable committing crimes. Her answer is understandable to me considering her experience, but it’s also extremely unsatisfying. How are we defining “anti-social” behavior? How does riding double on a bicycle open the door to burglary, drug crimes, or violence? It’s a question that I know I’m unlikely to have answered, because my problem isn’t really with the mechanism of how that philosophy manifests, it’s with the philosophy itself.

When I was in high school, I stopped inside a gas station with a few other friends to pick up some snacks. The person working behind the counter immediately keyed in on a friend of mine and accused him of pocketing candy. There was a clear racial component to the accusation. We left right away, but that experience has stuck with me over the years. I think about it from time-to-time when I happen to notice a traffic stop or hear about someone getting arrested for “drug possession” when the pretenses for the search were tenuous at the very best. It reminds me that there are people in the world who treat their interactions with others in a very “us versus them” sort of mindset, and the problem with that is increased when the people enforcing those types of divisions are bestowed with the authority to do so.

This premiere episode of Police in a Pod is very… “illustrative” of something that I dislike about some people who knowingly put themselves in a position to exercise authority over others. Detective Fuji plasters a smile on her face while she interacts with people (who are pissed-off about that interaction) and issues citations, and then rants under her breath afterwards, calling them all names bad enough that the show seems fit to bleep out. The thing that differs between, say, a cashier working behind a counter (who’s also very put-upon by people acting shitty), and a cop, is that the cashier has no recourse against people they don’t like, whereas cops can simply say they “smelled marijuana” on them (something literally unprovable) and make their life completely miserable. In any case, I can’t make myself feel very sympathetic to Detective Fuji’s plight.

So what would my answer be regarding the necessity of rules? Honestly, I think our love affair with hard-and-fast rules is more about perception – the perception of safety and security. But I’m not a fan of retributive justice, and that’s what I think a lot of the rules are meant to support. Life is much messier than checklists and the boxes into which we attempt to cram “acceptable” behavior. My ideal world is one where rules are more focused on guiding how we interact with others and how we navigate our various differences, which are much harder to define. The world seems simple when you can define people as “good” or “bad,” but in reality there are no monsters and no saints.

Yeah, this show definitely wasn’t made with me in mind.

Pros: There are vanishingly few anime series that deal with career women, and often when they do they’re comedies that lack in realism and tend to infantilize the characters. This series has some air of truthfulness to it. I think the bit that felt most “real” to me was when Kawai and Fuji are asked to go speak at the elementary school. There’s a feeling of “but you’d be so good at it” that felt appropriately reductive the way that gender essentialism usual does (just because I’m a woman doesn’t mean I’m good with kids by default).

Cons: This is likely a result of my general feelings toward policing, but there were moments in this episode that I think were meant to be comedic, but they just fell completely flat for me. I think the major issue (aside from politics) is that the characters just aren’t that likeable. I think the comedy I prefer requires some affection toward the people involved in it, and most of what the characters do is complain about their job and about the people they interact with. I switched jobs a while back because I was just sick of employees coming to me to talk (extremely dubious) shit about each-other, and I just don’t need to relive that in my entertainment.

Content Warnings: Alcohol use/drunkenness.

Would I Watch More? – I really wish that this had been a series set in some different field. I really want to celebrate anime series that feature adult women, context, as always, is key. I think my personal beliefs just make it impossible for me to really enjoy as-is.