Web Animation / Inferno Cop

He's the purgatorial flame of this shithole...He is Inferno Cop!

"Justice has grown weak, the corrupt dwells in the streets of Jack Knife Edge Town... The weak scream helplessly yet again..."

— Opening Narration

Inferno Cop is a Web Original short Anime series by Studio TRIGGER, co-founded by Studio Gainax director Hiroyuki Imaishi and other staff of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann and Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt fame.

This should tell you something.

The premise is as thus: Inferno Cop, a messenger of justice, came back from hell to avenge his family's death by the hand of the nefarious organization called Southern Cross and to protect innocent citizens from those who dwell in the darkness. But in the dark shadows of the skyscrapers of Jack Knife Edge Town, everyone is out for his head...

...yes, even newborn babies, a Superhero Judge in tights, zombies, the FBI and a Mecha clone of himself. Mix this plot with a hefty dose of Affectionate Parody of every anime ever, very Limited Animation:^note This is done to maximize profits so the money can be spent on projects like Little Witch Academia and Kill la Kill, which cost a lot more than this and crude jokes and you got Inferno Cop. Basically, Axe Cop as an anime.

A sequel was announced in 2017, with Over Justice taking on a major role. However, nothing had come out of it since it's announcement and is stuck in Development Hell. Compare Axe Cop and Kung Fury.

This series is available for streaming on Youtube.

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Inferno Cop provides examples of:

• Action Hero: Violence is Inferno Cop's first, last, and only solution to every problem.
• All There in the Manual: The Data Files serve this purpose. Southern Cross members are apparently from the same university... and Inferno Cop himself is in his early twenties, which we really didn't guess at all, aside from a flashback to his family getting murdered.
• Ancient Conspiracy: Southern Cross.
• Animesque: Inverted. The series' art style seems to be heavily influenced by American comic books.
• Anti-Climax: Many of the episodes' cliffhangers are resolved this way, but it doesn't matter since it's humorous.
• Anti-Hero: Inferno Cop. Flaming skeleton out of hell, looking for vengeance? Check. Willing to shoot innocent, beautiful bystanders taken hostage by the FBI? Check. Abusing the goodwill of midget pre-humans? Yup.
• Artistic License – Geography: When a map of the United States is shown during the report about the zombie outbreak, almost every location is hilariously wrong. ^note Alabama and Georgia are labelled a Florida; Iowa, Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan are all labelled as Massachusetts, Los Angeles is somewhere in Oklahoma or Arkansas, and New York is in Idaho. About the only thing the map gets right is Mexico.
• Artistic License – Paleontology: The Dilosmonotolcoltsaurus, Edolnixcyunotops, Cerasauloarupenatolpritex and Igniorxdeltosuriel are not, in fact, real dinosaurs. Crazy, huh?
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: The Southern Cross Organization is reportedly responsible for hundreds of criminal acts such as terrorism, warfare, and shoplifting.
• Autobots, Rock Out!: Standard Inferno Cop background music when it's not absolute silence.
• Back from the Dead: Auntie Grenda does this in the final episode.
• Bad Cop/Incompetent Cop: The police are implied to be this. The first policeman to appear does not care about an Attempted Rape of a pregnant woman since the thugs pay 'taxes' (actually they're bribes). He also watches the animes illegally.
• Big, Thin, Short Trio: The FBI, which consists of three people, one big, one thin, and one short.
• Bottomless Magazines: In episode 1, Inferno cop fires his revolver 14 times without having to reload.
• Broken Record: The token female of Southern Cross won't stop repeating about how excellent their new plan is.
• Clip-Art Animation: The characters are cut-out models who don't change - they even get reused as different characters.
• Contrived Coincidence: Inferno Cop needs to take Hellfire Boy's remains to Egypt. He conveniently finds a poster advertising a world cruise for 99 yen. Amusingly this is a completely unnecessary plot device due to him winning 1,000,000 yen in the previous episode.
• Cool Car:
  • Inferno Cop's police car is on fire.
  • Inferno Cop himself is one for a few episodes, after becoming a cyborg.
• Cool Mask: Mister Judge and Hellfire Boy.
• Cool Shades: Inferno Cop sports these - even when he's wearing goggles.
• Complexity Addiction: Southern Cross’s plan to kill Inferno Cop was to severely injure him, recover his body, reconstruct him as a cyborg, then have him commit evil deeds to pay his Shockingly Expensive Bill, with the intent being to make him kill himself out of shame.
• Cowboy Cop: Inferno Cop, supposedly an undead cop given life to reenact vengeance on his enemies. Subverted for laughs, later on, as it reveals Inferno Cop is a branch of cops somewhere in Japan, and Inferno Cop gets admonished by his boss.
• Cozy Voice for Catastrophes: The narrator sounds completely neutral and unfazed by all the weird stuff going on in this show.
• Creator Provincialism:
  • An American racing prix pays its prize money in... yen.
  • News reports as shown in the series follow a distinctly Japanese placement of things onscreen and have lots of onscreen text in Japanese, even though, according to the news channel's zombie-tracker map, Jack Knife Edge Town is in either eastern Colorado or western Kansas.
• Credits Gag: The credits in the final episode move at a snail's pace...until it gets to the cast list, at which point it becomes Unreadably Fast Text...and then it goes back to the snail's pace for the rest of the credits. In total, the finale spends twice as much time on the credits as it does on the actual episode.
• Crime of Self-Defense and Hilarity Sues: Inferno Cop is convicted of murdering a baby, which is technically true - in this case, the baby started to attack after transforming into a huge seamonster.
• Crossover: One of the two special episodes (which were only shown at conventions), was a crossover between Inferno Cop and Little Witch Academia, with the LWA characters being portrayed in the same style as Inferno Cop. Lotte also appears at the end of the second one.
• Cultural Translation: In episode 6, when Mecha Cop eats the food given to him from the proto-humans, he describes the taste as being like Family Mart fried chicken (Famichiki), though the subtitles say it "tastes like Dxritos Locos Tacos."
• Cyborg: Inferno Cop after his upgrade by Southern Cross. He now also has the power to turn into a car and go back in time.
• Damsel in Distress: The pregnant woman in the first episode and the nurse in the fourth.
• Death of a Child: Well, it's okay to kill babies, when they're actually mutant sea monsters working for the local Ancient Conspiracy. Also, a baby head is the first to die in the Episode 8 race.
• Defeat Equals Explosion: Everyone Inferno Cop shoots winds up exploding.
• Dem Bones: Inferno Cop.
• Dull Surprise: Due to horribly bad voice acting, everyone who isn't a Large Ham falls under this.
• Escaped from Hell: Inferno Cop escapes hell partway through the series. Downplayed, as he wasn't dead in the first place, and he just took a convenient exit pointed out to him by his elderly aunt.
• Enemy Mine: Inferno Cop and Mecha Cop plunge into the Cretaceous Era and have to team up to return to the present.
  • A lesser example, but in the final episode, all the prior villains cheer on Inferno Cop as he fights Claudia.
• Everything's Deader with Zombies or Zombie Apocalypse: At the end of the fourth episode, a zombie outbreak happens. This has no bearing on the plot and doesn't come up again.
• Face–Heel Turn: The Pregnant Woman goes from being an innocent hostage to a villain.
• Flaming Skulls: Inferno Cop, again. His skull even burns whilst lying in a hospital bed or underwater. The only time it's not shown burning is when Claudia turns the entire population into Inferno Cops to differentiate him from everyone else.
• Foreshadowing: Inferno Cop's Fact File mentions him having secret, unbelievable power in his left hand. At first this seems to be referring to his gun, but by the last episode it's referring to Devil's Satan Hellhound Grenda's Kind Hand.
• Form-Fitting Wardrobe: Mister Judge wears some sort of superhero spandex costume.
• Gag Series: Small-budgeted parody of gritty vigilante-fighting-for-justice-in-rotten-towns-shows, and shonen/seinen anime in general.
• Gainax Ending: Parodied. The last episodes toss out any "plot" the series had in favor of mashup of Neon Genesis Evangelion and House of M... just as how Neon Genesis Evangelion opted to go for a bizarre apocalypse than continue its series.
• Giving Someone the Pointer Finger: An alternate version of Inferno Cop's usual render, as shown in media such as Space Patrol Luluco and the Anime Expo/AnimeNext special episodes, depicts him pointing forwards instead of brandishing a pistol.
• A God Am I: Inferno Cop is worshipped as a god in one episode, and it goes to his head. In a more traditionally villainous example, Claudia in the final episode claims her power exceed a god's.
• Golden Super Mode: Inferno Cop gets one in Episode 13 in order to restore everyone in Jack Knife Edge Town back to normal.
• Heel–Face Turn: Mecha Cop was apparently built to kill Inferno Cop, but becomes a hero after his first episode.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Hellfire Boy is used as fuel so Inferno Cop can pass Mr. Judge in the American Grand Prix. Unfortunately, it's all in vain; Mr. Judge still wins the race and the prize money. Double Subverted in that Inferno Cop still wins the same amount of money for coming in second, and Hellfire Boy somehow survived getting burnt to death to bang his hot girlfriend in the Distant Finale.
• Hot-Blooded: Inferno Cop gets this way during particularly tense moments. Considering he's literally on fire, not a surprise.
• Hypocritical Humor: Inferno Cop, when dealing with Mecha Cop, says that he relies too much on machines. Inferno Cop then turns into a car and defeats Mecha Cop with ease.
• I Choose to Stay: Mecha Cop decides to stay in Hell once he learns that the people there appreciate him when he does good deeds for them. Inferno Cop, on the other hand, is all too happy to get out of there.
• I Don't Like the Sound of That Place: Jack Knife Edge Town.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: Damn, Inferno Cop is skilled.
• Improbable Weapon User: According to side material, Mister Judge uses his scales as weapons.
• Incendiary Exponent: Everything the hero owns, including his own head.
• In the Hood: Members of Southern Cross.
• Large Ham: Everyone.
• Larynx Dissonance: Everyone is voiced by a small group of men. Even the crying, high-pitched damsels and babies (that turn into sea monsters).
• Limited Animation: Aside from Inferno Cop's flaming head and the occasional visual effect, there isn't any animation. The show could be faithfully reproduced with stick puppets.
• Love Makes You Evil: The Pregnant Woman from the first episode, aka Claudia, eventually overtakes the world with Inferno Cop clones out of love for him.
• Meaningful Name: Inferno Cop is a cop out of hell. Mister Judge is a judge. Mecha Cop is a robot.
• Medium Blending: Fire, explosions and a desk in the hospital are all film or photos.
• Misplaced Wildlife: The dinosaurs from Episode Four show up in the ending... which is in the year 2085, in the middle of a city going an apocalypse. For some reason.
• My Name Is Inigo Montoya: "I am the purgatorial flame of this rotting shit-hole...Inferno Cop!"
• Nebulous Evil Organisation: Southern Cross, whose members are all cloaked in capes with hoodies, speak in ominous phrasings, mark their people with cross-shaped scars and call themselves "priests". Their current goal is unknown (other than to end Inferno Cop). Parodied when it's retconned so that their sole purpose is to make sure Inferno Cop doesn't become everyone and vice versa.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Inferno Cop - cyborg undead skeleton rogue policeman who can turn into a time traveling flaming car.
• Only Six Faces: The standard male model has appeared as a Southern Cross thug, a judge, a doctor, some zombies, a mummy pharaoh, and a newscaster. And Inferno Cop.
• Out of Focus/What Happened to the Mouse?: Southern Cross's role dissipates over the series, to the point they spend several episodes not being brought up, and not until the very end, where they go from "criminal organization" to "ancient conspiracy planning to stop Inferno Cop from turning everyone into Inferno Cop". This is intentional.
• Pokémon Speak: The FBI goons hired by Southern Cross. FBI! FBI!
• Product Placement: Some of the episodes feature ads for the show's merchandise, complete with Japanese "Skip This Ad" button. It doesn't do anything.
• Retcon/Re Vision: Mocked when Inferno Cop goes from lone wolf swearing revenge on the local crime syndicate for murdering his family to being a regular cop that's part of a police agency made up of flaming skeleton policemen, also called "Inferno Cop", and Southern Cross goes from crime organization to a cult seeking to stop the transformation of everyone into Inferno Cop. All Played for Laughs.
• Rule of Cool: The series runs on this. It has flaming skeletons, a judicial system based on fighting tournaments, zombies, dinosaurs... It's one big parody of anime's usage of this.
• Serial Escalation: This is just getting weirder and weirder and everything happens on a larger scale now, with the Zombie Apocalypse and Ancient Conspiracy to God himself. ...Still Played for Laughs, though.
• Shout-Out: April O'Neil apparently moved to Jack Knife Edge Town and changed her name to Ariel Suzuki.
  • The sixth episode features Ewok lookalikes... and their "ancient transcript" is written in Grongi.
  • Remember the opening title call for Inferno Cop... and then compare it with the title call for Dennou Keisatsu Cybercop. Looks familiar?
  • Southern Cross is a mysterious cult-like criminal organization who turn Inferno Cop into a cyborg but fail to brainwash him into one of their own. Sounds like Showa era Kamen Rider!
    • The Southern Cross High Priests are a walking shoutout to the Gorgom High Priests from Kamen Rider BLACK. Their cloaked outfits◊ are nearly the same, they're both comprised of Two Guys and a Girl, and both of their gathering places are in a dark void with floating lights and fog everywhere.
  • One of the dinosaur heads is actually Gigan's.
  • Mecha Cop strongly resembles Doc Robot. He's also got a fair bit of War Machine and The Winter Soldier in him.
    • The inside of the pyramid in episode 10 is reminiscent of Pharaoh Man's stage from Mega Man 4.
  • One of the bullies mention wanting to go play Dreamcast at his house. According to his Data File, Mecha Cop's CPU was made from a used Sega Saturn. This also possibly doubles as a shout out to Gainax, who favored Sega's systems when they still produced them.
  • The ritual and the... winged angel aliens in episode 11 is a reference to the initiation of Third Impact. It's even called "Third Destroy Finale".
    • In the same episode, the Lambda 7000 Driver is referenced, except changed to Lambda 2000.
    • Everyone becoming Inferno Cop, including God Himself, in a bid to rid the Earth of humans and be one with each other, to be replaced with perfect specimens is a blend of End of Evangelion and House of M. The Pregnant Woman even turns into The Scarlet Witch.
  • Inferno Cop's finishing move involves his hand growing to awesome powers and exploding a Godlike enemy, sacrificing himself in the progress.
  • Inferno Cop's sacrifice has him remembered by no one, except for one special person, and works to keep his sacrifice upheld.
  • Inferno Cop himself seems oddly similar to The Punisher and Ghost Rider.
  • Inferno Cop was brought back from death by pure rage, fueled by his need to avenge his murdered loved ones.
• Skull for a Head: Inferno Cop and Mecha Cop.
• Stylistic Suck: Limited Animation, less than three minute long skits filled with anti-climaxes from the same people that animated Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt and Project × Zone's opening, and also this one excellently animated commercial trailer for a light novel series.
• Surreal Humor: Devolves from parody of hardboiled revenge seinen anime to a surreal mockery and mishmash of every anime trope, ever, such as traveling back into time, meeting your aunt in hell, and fighting mummies in Egypt for no reason at all.
• Surreal Theme Tune
  • Gratuitous German: The ending song is primarily in German; while it contains a few buzzwords vaguely related to the series...
  • Word Salad Lyrics: None of it makes much sense. Take, for example, this:
    Inferno Glas! Polizei... von der Hölle!

...which roughly translates to "Inferno Glass! Police... from Hell!" Why would one read the first part as "Inferno Glass" can be up for debate, there has been a Twitter convo regarding this between a watcher and... Inferno Cop (actually the official Twitter account for the show). Inferno Cop's response? "Be it 'cop' or 'cup,' both seems the same to me." One might also speculate the lyrics is referring to a book title.

• Race Lift: Hellfire Boy goes from being white (pre-reveal) to black, to... white again in the Distant Finale. His mom is also revealed to be Ariel... who is Japanese.
• Time Skip: Mocked with Episode Five, where Inferno Cop wakes up from being tossed off a cliff in the year 2085. It has absolutely no bearing on the plot, except for zombies.
• To Hell and Back: Inferno Cop and Mecha Cop accidentally wind up in Hell after becoming Gods (and annoying Real God himself). They only find a way out after Inferno Cop's aunt gives them directions.
• Troperiffic: This series is filled to the brim with various tropes associated with anime and manga, most of them parodied or played for laughs.
• Unexplained Recovery: The nurse at the hospital and Ariel get blown up repeatedly... and always come back, no worse for the wear.
• The Unfought: The large Southern Cross member with the cigar is never directly interacted with.
• Unreadably Fast Text: When the credits gets to the cast list in the final episode.
• Unscrupulous Hero: The titular character. For some idea, when the FBI took a nurse hostage, he was so outraged at their cowardice and disregard for civilians that he immediately opened fire. Keep in mind that his gun creates massive explosions.
• Vice City: Jack Knife Edge Town.
• Zombie Apocalypse: In the third episode, Inferno Cop awakens from his accident to find out that he's in the year 2083 and there are zombies. For no reason at all. It has no bearing on the plot, except for looking cool.

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