ACCA: 13-Territory Inspection Dept.

Episode 3

ACCA's world might appear painfully peaceful, but in between eating cake and doing boring paperwork, the coat of bureaucracy has been eroded by a false sense of security from years of immobility. Hidden under the surface, individual hot spots have grown to full-scale volcanoes, boiling with conflicting agendas and ready to erupt at a moment's notice. The signal seems to be the crown prince's coming of age ceremony, creating a rift in the kingdom's power balance which has to be either prevented or exploited. Or so everyone assumes.

Characters generally assume a lot in ACCA, only to form a whole array of expectations, defensive strategies, and alliances based on their suspicions. So far, we don't know with certainty whose suspicions are justified, but in the end, it might not even matter who was the first to think of coup d'état-ing anymore. What brings down the current order will likely not be the thought, but the actions taken to prevent what was assumed to have been plotted, whether this intel was accurate or not. The question is no longer who will be able to execute the conspiracy up their sleeves successfully, but who can use their knowledge of the secrets up other people's sleeves to their own advantage. A red herring might be smelly, but if cooked well and placed in the right spot, it will be enough to provoke people into revealing their own delicacies - at least people with a lower smell threshold than Jean.

Episode 3 sees several new candidates step into the densely populated ring of possible coupists. There's the absolutist inclined crown prince, who acts like a character voiced by Mamoru Miyano is bound to behave, dreaming of a return to the monarchy's glory days. He's an idiot, but idiots in power are far from harmless. Danger of the more sophisticated kind comes from the Privy Council President who might have set up this whole get-together to flush out everyone's true intentions. It's not entirely clear how much he was able to predict the king's non-abdication, but it's clear that we're expected to pay attention to avoid losing track of who suspects who to what purpose, so let's recap, because this is fun:

Mauve - intelligent and sexy without being objectified - suspects the outlying districts will rise up in revolt against the crown prince's ascension, with one of Lilium's family members possibly among them. Lilium, now fully joining the ranks of plotters, suspects Grossular framing Jean to distract from his own coup d'état schemes. Grossular, who we often see framed in high Dutch angles to create additional tension, might really suspect Jean (but might also be plotting to set him up). If it turns out to be the former, Grossular's suspicions are based on what Nino told him. As it turns out, Grossular isn't the only one Nino has been reporting to. Jean's “friend” still appears to be the one pulling most of the strings. Blatantly spying under the cover of daylight, he's the craftiest of them all, even dragging Lotta into the lion's den by using his knowledge of what kind of girl the crown prince favors. Yikes. Nino is truly scary, but he's also intriguing in his motives. Is he a revolutionary who wants to see the current system burn? A royalist pushing ACCA towards self-destruction? A patriot using his friend to expose the rotten elements in the administration? Or simply a mercenary selling out everything and everyone to the highest bidder?

Nino obviously has very little moral doubt over using his friends and betraying their trust, but as long as ACCA doesn't dig deeper into his agenda, he might as well try to turn Jean from a scapegoat into a real conspirator out of necessity - if everyone assumes him to be a rebel, and if he might end up being punished for everyone else's crimes, he might as well put his deductive talents to use and take them down with him. I'd say that would make a pretty good cure for perpetual boredom.

Considering Jean's mind, it's actually baffling to see him distributing and accepting goods between individual districts with such levity. Everyone else sees the importance of his position, so is it not at least a little strange that he's so blissfully ignorant about all of this? With everyone projecting their own fears, ambitions, and desires onto him, they've already turned Jean into a crucial figure in the kingdom's future - and ACCA's with it. This brings us to the question of what ACCA really stands for, something everyone offers a slightly different take on. Is it a symbol of peace, order, or power, and which of those three appeals to Jean? Interestingly, ACCA's eponymous bird mascot had to die to become the symbol of peace.

All the while, I'm thinking what an attractive target this assembly of the 13 district chiefs, members of congress, ACCA's branch chiefs, the Five Chief Executive Officers and the royal family all in one place would make for our arsonist should they gravitate toward terrorism, and how much violence it will ultimately take to maintain order and keep the peace. Jean's question at this point shouldn't be if something like this could ever happen, but if there's still a big enough lid to cover all these hot spots.

ACCA manages to let its slow set-up spill effortlessly into plot, and it's already moving at an impressive pace. Despite a ton of conflicting agendas and even more secrets, the show's tangible world keeps threats real and immediate while still finding time to sneak in vaudevillian cowboy costumes and male sailor uniforms as a district's formal attire for a chuckle in-between all the tension.

Rating: A-

ACCA: 13-Territory Inspection Dept. is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.