Special 7: Special Crime Investigation Unit

警視庁特務部特殊凶悪犯対策室第七課 -トクナナ- (Keishichou Tokumubu Tokushu Kyouakuhan Taisakushitsu Dainanaka: Tokunana)

7.3(1)

Otaku Den

6.1(17,193)

MAL Score

Ranked #10565

Popularity #3620

Action
Fantasy
Mystery
Detective
Urban Fantasy
Vampire

Episodes: 12
Duration: 23 min per ep
Aired: Oct 6, 2019 to Dec 29, 2019
Status: Finished Airing

Synopsis

Tokyo has settled into an uneasy normal where humans live side by side with elves, dwarves, vampires, and other supernatural beings. Dragons—once said to have held dominion over this world—have vanished, leaving behind legends powerful enough to attract danger. A ruthless faction calling itself “Nine,” obsessed with the miracles tied to those godlike dragons, unleashes violence and destruction across the city, forcing the police to respond with an extraordinary unit: Special 7, a handpicked team whose talents go far beyond standard law enforcement.

Newly minted detective Seiji Nanatsuki is pulled into the chaos when a bank robbery escalates into a hostage situation. During the incident, he crosses paths with Special 7 member Shiori Ichinose, and his actions help bring the crisis under control. Recognized for his strong sense of justice and straightforward demeanor, Seiji is unexpectedly recruited into the elite squad.

Thrown into cases unlike anything he imagined, Seiji learns that investigations with Special 7 mean working alongside partners of different species, each with their own unusual abilities and distinct personalities. With everyday crime still simmering in Tokyo, the team tackles extraordinary incidents while racing to thwart Nine’s escalating plans.

Otaku Consensus

Special 7 earns its modest cult appeal through brisk case pacing, a functional buddy-cop rhythm, and Yuuichirou Higashide’s preference for compact supernatural mysteries over lore dumps. Critics and viewers were much harsher on the presentation: Anima&Co.’s production is repeatedly described as serviceable rather than stylish in motion, and the larger Nine conflict drew complaints for limited plot depth despite a well-liked opening and occasional “Starsky and Hutch but fighting terrorists” energy.

Why You Should Watch

Watch Special 7 if your favorite part of urban fantasy is procedure: witness statements, jurisdictional friction, tactical raids, and specialists treating magic as another category of evidence. It scratches a lighter version of Psycho-Pass’s law-enforcement itch and a lower-budget, more police-station-focused corner of Blood Blockade Battlefront’s mixed-species city energy, without demanding a sprawling mythology chart. The appeal is the adult-team texture: guns and terrorism sit beside elves, dwarves, and vampires, and the cases move fast enough that the show rarely idles. Viewers who value immaculate action animation or hardboiled moral philosophy should calibrate expectations; the draw is compact genre comfort food, a brisk supernatural cop show whose modest production puts most of its chips on ensemble banter and case momentum.

Key Characters

S
Seiji Nanatsuki
Seiji is the audience’s entry point into the unit, and his appeal comes from being a blunt, justice-first rookie dropped into a workplace where experience often matters more than idealism.
S
Shiori Ichinose
Shiori functions as the sharper professional counterweight to Seiji, giving the series its core detective-partner tension without turning the dynamic into pure slapstick.

What Makes It Stand Out

1
The series is an original TV anime from Anima&Co. rather than a manga or light-novel adaptation, which helps explain its compact 12-episode structure and case-driven pacing.
2
Nanae Chrono is credited with the original character designs, while Hiroya Iijima handled the anime character designs, making the cast’s visual identity a two-step translation from concept art to television production.
3
The direction is split between chief director Takayuki Kuriyama and director Harume Kosaka, and reviews specifically singled out the early pacing as brisk even when criticizing the limited production budget.
4
Yuuichirou Higashide’s series composition organizes the show around individual supernatural-crime scenarios tied to a broader terrorism thread, a structure one review compared to “Starsky and Hutch but fighting terrorists.”
5
AniList’s tag spread is unusually revealing: Urban Fantasy at 79%, Police at 76%, and Terrorism at 63% dominate, while Cyberpunk at 30%, Gore at 20%, and CGI at 10% show that it only lightly touches those neighboring aesthetics.

Fun Facts & Trivia

Fun fact 1: Its full Japanese title, Keishichou Tokumubu Tokushu Kyouakuhan Taisakushitsu Dainanaka: Tokunana, is far more bureaucratic than the English title and literally foregrounds the police-division framing.
Fun fact 2: The show aired as a Fall 2019 one-cour series, running 12 episodes from October 6 to December 29, 2019.
Fun fact 3: Critical reception lined up closely with database scoring: MyAnimeList lists it at 6.09 from 17,110 votes, while AniList records a 56/100 score and 73 favourites.
Fun fact 4: The background side of the production had multiple dedicated credits: Asuka Kashiwamura as art director, Masaru Satou as assistant art director, and Kio Edamatsu and Takayoshi Fukushima on art design.
Fun fact 5: Ryou Hirata’s prop design credit matters for this kind of show because the police procedural identity depends on tangible gear, weapons, and investigation tools as much as on fantasy species.