Cop Craft Episode 7

Girls on Ice

I’m pretty sure this new arc of Cop Craft is unrelated to the hentai smuggling operation from the previous episode, but it does touch on some similar topics. Specifically, I’ll be discussing how both adult content and photography play a role in this week’s episode as well.

Last week we learned that hentai is a highly sought after commodity beyond the Greater Gate, but why exactly is that? Is it solely due to the fact that Semanians don’t have photography in their world, or is there more to it? Could it also have something to do with Semanian culture?

In this episode we see Tilarna infiltrate a Semanian brothel and pose as a prostitute. She does this as part of a sting on the business, but she also ends up catching a high profile, Semanian politician as well.

However, my question is this, is there a reason we only see Semanians involved? Does this brothel solely employ Semanian girls and is its target audience solely Semanian men? Or was it a coincidence that we only saw Semanians involved?

Based on what we’ve learned from Tilarna — the fact that she doesn’t seem to know anything about sex — it’s easy to assume that it’s a fairly taboo subject in her home world. Perhaps the Semanians view Earth as a place where they can break the taboos of their home world and are therefore more willing to partake in things like hentai smuggling, brothels, and other crime.

Tilarna herself is a knight, so perhaps her world is a highly structured one with a more utilitarian outlook. Perhaps it’s ruled by a religious organization of some sort. Or maybe it’s just more conservative in it’s view of sexuality than our own.

Mr. Mozeleemay

The politician who got caught up in the sting operation is Mr. Mozeleemay, a Semanian man who’s currently running for the mayor’s office. He has a wife, but it doesn’t seem like they have any children of their own.

Mrs. Mozeleemay is an interesting woman. She clearly knows that her husband hasn’t been faithful to her, and she doesn’t attempt to hide her disdain. However, she’s not about to let her way of life be destroyed just because her husband got caught up in this situation.

As we learn later on, it’s Mrs. Mozeleemay who puts out a hit on the person blackmailing her husband with evidence about the crime he committed. She seems to be the true power holder in their relationship, but she exerts this power from the shadows and for her own gain.

But back to Mr. Mozeleemay, the fact that he’s running for mayor is a pretty big deal. I’d imagine that it would be difficult to run for an office of any kind on Earth as a Semanian, especially considering there seems to have been a war between the two worlds not that long ago.

Did he take part in that war? Or did he and his wife come to Earth after peace had already been achieved? And how large is the Semanian population in the city in which he’s running? I’d imagine there would be many humans who still don’t want a Semanian to hold an office of any kind purely due to their own racist ideologies.

Whether you love him or hate him, you have to give Mr. Mozeleemay credit for his achievements in what we can assume is a difficult field for any Semanian to break into.

Zoey, Daily Life Photographer

One of the women Tilarna meets while infiltrating the Semanian brothel is Zoey, a prostitute who happens to be a daily life photography hobbyist. Zoey represents the other side of how the technology of photography can influence Semanians.

She’s not interested in how photography can be used to make hentai for sexual gratification, but instead sees it as an art form in and of itself. Her photographs are exclusively daily life shots, meaning she takes pictures of real people doing real things in their natural environments — such as a man sweeping the street in front of his shop.

After the sting operation, Zoey was arrested and later released on bail. In return for a reduced bail, she agreed to wear a tracking bracelet, though this fact never actually turns out to be important. I assume it was just to keep her from running, not to keep tabs on her every movement around the city.

During her time out on bail she befriends Tilarna, who she believes is a girl from a rich family who ran away from home, not a cop. As the two grow closer, she confides in her that her dream is to open an exhibition hall to showcase her photography to the world.

It’s too bad Zoey had to go and blackmail Mr. Mozeleemay, because otherwise her dream may have come true. I imagine her work would be widely popular if she opened her exhibition back in her home world.

Cops & Criminals

The police learn that Zoey had been accessing the client records while she worked at the brothel. She then sold these records to Mr. Mozeleemay so that he could leak them to the public in an attempt to have his case thrown out by mixing in false names.

If some of the names on the client list turned out to be fake, then who’s to say his name wasn’t also falsely put on the list? This would have been a major blow to the investigation. So, as her friend, Tilarna decides to be the one to confront Zoey about the information she was selling.

Unfortunately, Zoey doesn’t take kindly to being lied to about who Tilarna really was. But that doesn’t matter for long, because an assassin shoots her from a building across the street. Zoey dies from the injuries she sustained.

So why does Zoey’s story matter? Because it’s clearly going to have an impact on how Tilarna views the world. At the start of the series Tilarna’s view on justice was fairly black and white. If you were a criminal, then your rights are void and you must be a terrible person.

However, she’s changed over the course of the series. Tilarna from episode 1 would never have viewed a prostitute like Zoey as someone she could befriend. She would have seen her as a criminal, not someone she has anything in common with.

What Tilarna learned from her brief friendship with Zoey is that good and evil isn’t as black and white as she once thought. There can be truly good people who do bad things. But at the same time there are still truly evil people out there, such as those responsible for Zoey’s death.

Conclusion

What are your thoughts on this episode of Cop Craft? I thought it was actually really good, though I didn’t expect Zoey to be gone so soon. I figured she would join the police force and put her photography skills to work as a crime scene photographer.

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My review of the next episode is available here.