Sushi Police

Sushi Police was a satirical social commentary that's based on the actions of the Japanese Minister of Agriculture, Toshikatsu Matsuoka, who, upon eating at a place he deemed unauthentic for serving sushi alongside Korean BBQ, proposed an idea that would see to it that a dispatch unit of undercover inspectors would go around secretly evaluating sushi to determine its authenticity. Those that pass this secret inspection would receive the approval to be listed as "authentic," as well as sponsorship deal on a Japanese government website. And like this ludicrous idea that received huge media backlash in 2006, this too was equally panned by the few anime viewers that saw it. The anime turned the real-world incident into a big, dumb, nonsensical spoof that saw these "Sushi Police" do exactly as this proposed idea would suggest: inspect sushi. This then led to non-comedic hijinks, espionage, and sushi-zilla... or at least that's what I vaguely remembered when I was picking my nose. Sushi Police desperately try to lampoon Japan's nationalistic sense of pride but don't know how to do so without being on-the-nose about everything in the worst way possible. It's a show that becomes a self-defecating satirical piece with as much integrity as the Korean BBQ that launched its inception. Do I suggest this? No. Even with those that are aware of the events that surrounded the creation of this anime, the actual product was still drab. It isn't funny, it isn't insightful, and it isn't going to encourage any sort of discussion. However, what it will encourage is a nice 3-minute nap. It was simply 2deep4me bruh. After I watched it, cried, self-defecated all over my couch, curled up in a fetal position and I rocked myself to sleep.

A show or movie based on a very simple premise or pitch is called a "high concept piece". This is a 13 episode anime entirely based on mocking a stupid quote by a nationalist Japanese politician. Sushi Police takes thin premise to a whole new level. On the surface, this could be a clever, little satire that mocks the growing wave of Japanese nationalism and calls for rationality through comedy. However, this would have worked better as a 5 minute SNL sketch. At 13 episodes that are 3 minutes, this is 40 minutes of the same fucking joke done OVER and OVER until they pretty much forget the satire and make a Godzilla spoof because even the show writers realized they were trying to stretch too little material over too long a running time. A defender of Sushi Police could point out that One Punch Man is beloved despite basically being the same joke over and over. However, One Punch Man actually had a massive art budget and fight scenes that aesthetically looked cool. It wasn't just, "I'm early, better think of a Superman...Superman! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBLspvxgTdQ

Sushi police, as many have stated, is a social commentary but we don't care about that, most of the reviewers here have also stated the facts. We want a good anime to watch, so is it good? Not really would be the short answer. The characters are bland with no personalities. They are just stereotypes to go with the story and provide jokes here and there. As far as character development goes, it doesn't happen a lot but not saying that it is totally out of the anime. Since the episodes are only 3 minutes 30 seconds long, it is hard to cram personalities into a full story with an opening, a plot and an ending. For what it does, the story moves on pretty well, I guess it doesn't really get boring. You can also check out my well edited(and funny) review on youtube where I go into more detail. Channel name is MudanTV - Sushi Police Anime Review.

Sushi police is a gag show parodying a comment once made by a Japanese politician that there should be a government agency that evaluates sushi places overseas as authentic or not. More broadly the show also makes fun of Japanese nationalism. The animation is mostly 3d with some 2d bits; even though the character design isn't very pleasing to look at and some of the textures are pretty off; despite those problem which is common to 3d television animation, there's a lot of genuinely good sight gags where the animators take advantage of the medium, and the movement is dynamic enough that most of the time it didn't bother me. The comedy of the show is also pretty decent, every episode has a least a couple of good gags based on the main characters or some wacky slapstick. the nationalist parody element is somewhat undercut by the stereotypical portrayal of other countries; which while usually good natured, in at least one episode (3) is so poorly researched that it borders on the offensive. The fact that the episodes are only 4 minutes each honestly does a lot for this show, I watched them after and in between my regular anime watching before binging the last few; I'm pretty sure the concept wouldn't work if the episodes were 20 or even 10 minutes long. The credits at the end have fun sushi facts, which I found genuinely interesting, seeing as how you probably stumbled onto this show by googling "anime about sushi", they're probably one of the coolest things about the show. If you can stand the 3d animation, most episodes are worth their runtime.