Patlabor series (Anime/Manga/OVAs, including movies)

Putting this up as I've recently rediscovered the series, especially with a live-action series in production for a possible 2014/15 release.

For starters, I've found these long lost Newtype images I saw on the net once.

Features Noa, Goto, Nagumo and Shinshi in their pre-SV2 days

Features Asuma, Kanuka, Hiromi and Takeo

No Ota pre-SV2 photos though.

Edited by Ominae on Dec 8th 2019 at 5:59:55 AM

I'm totally necroing an old thread, but I recently started watching Patlabor (the TV series) on Hulu, and this thread came up when I searched the forums, so...

For those not familiar with it, Patlabor is a classic Real Robot show from the 80s. 20 Minutes into the Future (of the 80s, so I believe it's actually supposed to be set in the 90s), mecha called "Labors" are used construction and heavy industry. However, the widespread use of labors has forced the police to adapt to the situation with the use of "patrol labors", or "patlabors" to enforce the law in incidents involving labors. (The first episode has a disgruntled construction worker going on a drunken joyride in his labor, for example.) The series follows Tokyo's Special Vehicles Division, responsible for handling labor-related incidents in the city. Special Vehicle's First Division, staffed with top officers and given access to cutting edge equipment, is considered an elite unit. The Second Division is... not. Naturally, Patlabor follows the misadventures of the Second Division.

A friend of mine has been a big Patlabor fan for years, but I've never gotten into it until now. I've only watched the first few episodes, but I'm enjoying it a lot so far. What really sold me on the series was episode three — the first episode involves Second Division getting a new officer and some new Patlabors, and the second is them getting training and assignments for the new equipment. The third episode is them finally being on the clock for the first time... which means they spend all their time hanging out, waiting for a call to come in, and getting themselves into trouble trying to kill time. The conflict of the episode involves the flagrant misuse of department equipment (they send the department speedboat out into Tokyo Bay on a fishing expedition to bring back something to eat... and accidentally run it aground, so have to send the patlabors out to rescue it, which ends up with one of the patlabors going headfirst into the bay, so they have to get their other patlabors out to help it...) and trying to keep their boss from finding out.

If you're looking for an adrenaline-pumping mecha action show, Patlabor probably won't appeal to you. But if you're in the mood for something amusing and low key, with interesting characters, intelligent writing, and a dash of mecha for extra awesome, Patlabor's a good fit.

If there's any interest, I'll post my thoughts about the show here as I watch it. If not, well, I probably won't keep bumping a dead thread if no one else is saying anything.

I watched the first Patlabor movie some time ago.

It was a pretty good Real Robot movie; I wasn't too familiar with the cast of characters but it didn't impede my enjoyment too much. I heard the second film is actually even better and an amazing political thriller but haven't gotten around to seeing it yet.

Watched the first eight episodes at this point. I'm enjoying it a lot, though I'd say that episode 3 is still the highlight of the series so far. Not much to say about the plot, since it's pretty episodic with nothing resembling a Myth Arc yet, so I'll talk about the characters instead.

• Noa: An interesting combination of Naïve Newcomer and Only Sane Man, given that she's new to Division 2 so hasn't been corrupted by their insanity yet. I'm certain that she'll eventually combine her own down-to-earth sensibility with their unique brand of madness into her own special blend of Crazy Awesome.
• Asuma: The second-most responsible person in Division 2, basically Noa but more experienced and less uptight. He's got some chops as a labor pilot due to being the heir to a company that builds labors, and it's implied in the second episode that he throws his match in the tournament to determine who gets to pilot the division's patlabors. Not sure what the deal with that is yet, but I'm hoping something happens and we get to see him and Noa piloting side-by-side at some point. Pretty sure his family connections are going to be important eventually.
• Ota: Seems to exist only to explain why Division 2 is considered such a walking disaster. A good portion of their problems could be solved if he were fired, or at least moved to a non-piloting position. It would be explained if he were erratic but really really good at his job, Bunny-Ears Lawyer style, but that hasn't really been demonstrated yet.
• Kanuka: The Ace and a stick in the mud. Needs to spend more time punching Ota in the head. Seems like the writers tried to give her an American name, but not very hard. (Her full name is "Kanuka Clancy", which sounds like... well, what a Japanese person would think a normal American name sounds like.)
• Hiromi: Extremely large and extremely nice. To the point where he nearly cried when Asuma pointed out that he had a demeanor more suited to a farmer than a police officer, thereby proving Asuma's point. (It should be noted that this conversation took place while Hiromi was contentedly tending the division's tomato plants.) I'm pretty sure he could also punch a labor to death if he had to.
• Shinshi: Pretty high strung. Could probably use a beer and/or some anxiety medication. Hasn't done much of note yet besides starting a fight with Ota over Ota's presumed lack of respect toward Shinshi's wife.
• Goto: The Division 2 chief. He's either Brilliant, but Lazy or just doesn't give a damn. I'm not sure which yet, but I'm leaning towards the former. His crush on Shinobu is cute.
• Shinobu: The Division 1 chief. Straightforward, no-nonsense, and aggressively competent. Seems to be bemused and bewildered in turn by Division 2's miraculous ability to avoid blowing themselves up. Makes a fun contrast to Goto.
• Sakaki: Maintenance foreman. Bosses everyone except Goto around and they take it from him, because seriously, you don't screw with the guy who's in charge of servicing your mecha. An interesting combination of Reasonable Authority Figure (he's strict, but fair) and Bad Boss (everyone is terrified of him), mostly because the amount of wacky hijinks Division 2 gets up to is in no way reasonable.
• Shige: Sakaki's Number Two and more a hands-on mechanic. Seems to be the source of half the wacky hijinks that keeps everyone in eternal terror of Sakaki. Basically the Hypercompetent Sidekick to Division 2 as a whole.

Other miscellaneous thoughts:

• People in Special Vehicles seem to be inured to the sight of debris large enough to crush them hurling towards them at high rates of speed. Everyone else freaks out and gets the hell out of the way, but Special Vehicles officers just watch it land (invariably just to the side of where they're standing). Either it's an occupational hazard that they've just gotten used to, or they're Genre Savvy enough to realize that Nobody Can Die in this show.
• I really like the fact that Division 2 consists of three patlabors (one of which is a reserve unit not typically sent into the field), six pilots (only two of which are actually assigned to a patlabor, due to the fact they work better by learning a given pilot's movement patterns), and a small army of mechanics and support staff. Even if most of them are nameless generic background characters, it gives me Real Robot warm fuzzies to see several dozen people responsible for taking care of just three mecha — and fairly small, limited-performance ones at that.

Strictly speaking the mechanics and maintenance crew support both Divisions 1 & 2. Its just the shenanigans are more likely to spiral out of control when Division 2 is on shift

I enjoyed the second movie, though it's cause of the political tones of how Japan is after the Cold War.

Interesting that Oshii had the live-action movies follow up from the second movie.

The manga did diverge a lot. Headgear justified that they want to have full copyright privileges when the manga was published in Japan at the time. I'd love to read all of it, but low popularity didn't do it with Viz.

Edited by Ominae on Dec 8th 2019 at 5:29:34 AM

Oh, are they? I sort of got the impression that the two divisions were in completely separate facilities, as we never actually see anyone from Division 1 hanging around except Shinobu. Though now that I think about it, the two divisions seem to be on a week on/week off schedule rather than handling different areas of Tokyo or anything like that. Of course, that raises the question of why they have separate mecha rather than sharing the Ingrams and just swapping the movement data out as necessary. Oh well, whatever.

Watched up through episode 11. Division 2 ends up dealing with military labors a lot, don't they? The episode with the Soviet defector was funny, both for showcasing The Great Politics Mess Up and for the conversation where the federal agent gives Asuma a list of all the intelligence operatives in the room — including a stray dog working for Mossad. (I'm still not sure if the guy was messing with Asuma or not, but it was funny either way.)

The next two episodes were a two-parter that just seemed a little weird. Kanuka's grandmother is in town, but wanders off in a fashion that convinces Kanuka that she doesn't intend to come back. Meanwhile, four West German military labors and a Super Prototype (with Frickin Laser Eye Beams and electronic warfare capabilities that can both jam communication and pull Instant Sedation on a labor) hijack an island so that they can test their prototype on the labors inevitably sent in to check it out, which doesn't make sense on a number of levels. (Shouldn't West Germany be allies with Japan? If they are, why are they risking an international incident by using Japanese patlabors as guinea pigs? If not, why are they risking war instead? When the JGSDF labors show up, why do they want their presence kept secret?) Not to mention the image of Division 2 yelling a each other about Kanuka's grandmother while fighting for their lives against military labors is a little surreal. And then the grandmother thing ends up being nothing when they find her hanging out at the military base where her husband was stationed (before he left for the Korean War, where he was killed). It had a really Trapped by Mountain Lions feel and doesn't even lead to much in the way of character development for Kanuka, while the main plot felt like we only got half the story (which could have been expanded on with the screentime given to Kanuka's grandmother).

Division 1 is seen as more professionals with old labors while Division 2 is made of bad cops, but with new labors.

- IIRC, they were smuggled by Utsumi via Schaft and he wants to use them for the combat data to make their own labors. Some officials see it as illegal, but I don't know if they did something about it in the manga.

Utsumi even used the Eco-terrorists as scapegoats when the Brockens were given to them.

@JGSDF

- Dunno if this is correct with the details, but the JGSDF used the prototype labor as a secret...

Be fair. It's mostly Ota. Otherwise Division 2 is fairly competent.

Unfortunately, that's how far their reputation goes in-universe anyway...

Yeah, Ota seems to be Division 2's only real problem. Like I said, seems like 90% of their issues would be solved if they moved him out of a piloting position. ...actually, I wouldn't trust him in the command car, either. So he should be driving the carrier instead of Hiromi, while Hiromi moves up to the command car and Asuma takes Ota's piloting spot.

Watched a few more episodes. The one where Noa and Kanuka fight, so Goto takes the team out drinking was hilarious. I'm not sure whether to blame the 80s or Japan for that solution. It's rather fitting that Noa is sickeningly cheerful the next day while everyone else has a miserable hangover.

I definitely liked the TV series, I was kinda "eh" on the first movie, and I am interested in the live-action revival.

The live-action sequel is not bad for attempting to revive the series...

Given that they were able to use a fuctioning Ingram.

Ohta problems is that, in training and if he didn't have access to firearm, he was reasonably competent.

Points on if.

Really, that guy will be a huge assets in other Real Robot shows, but alas, this is not. Also, in one episodes when he got amnesia (it's a long story), he ends up reasonably well in civilian Labor while helping others. Ohta problems is that he's too gung-ho for his own good, like Shinn Asuka, if you say so. In high-tensile situation where agressiveness and decisive action are the keys, like, say, terrorism or military labor situation, Ohta perform reasonably well (probably the best in that scenario), which is probably why they keep him in the first place.

The main problem is that firing an anti-mecha weapon in a city is almost always going to be a bad idea. The question isn't whether or not a stray shot will go through walls, it's whether it will stop before it penetrates an entire building. It's pretty much impossible to safely fire unless you can guarantee that the shot will hit the target labor without ricocheting... which is impossible to guarantee.

Not to mention that the stun baton seems much more effective anyway. We've seen it disable military labors when the revolver shots just bounced off them. I'm honestly hard-pressed to think of a situation where the revolver would be the superior option.

Anti-labor firearm was used the same reason why police officers use firearm in RL; it was safer for officer to point and shot from distance, rather than going mano-a-mano (yes, I'm aware of the irony) with, say, bipedal, 20 t-something construction crane in the hand of desperate people, who may or may not be understand their vehicle well. Noa was good with baton and close combat, and dislike hurting anyone in general, so she using baton more often than her firearm.

Also, regarding Ohta, I think that his presence (in meta) is mostly to provide comic relief (this was 80's, after all, the golden era for Buddy Cop Show), while subtly reminds anyone that this is not an example of good police officer. The reason he didn't canned soon because Rule of Funny defeat Rule of Drama in this case.

And regarding Ohta, my theory is Goto simply let Ohta pick his gun, on the basis that if he didn't get his gun, he'll much likely to die/ injured becuse Hot-Blooded shenanigans. It is stupid, but, well, Rule of Funny.

The difference is that your standard police sidearm is much less likely to cause collateral damage than a mecha-sized version is. Hell, police often use hollow-point bullets specifically to reduce that sort of over-penetration problem, whereas an anti-mecha projectile doesn't even have that option because mecha are generally going to be harder than buildings, so anything designed not to punch through walls wouldn't be effective against the intended target, either.

Basically, you can safely fire a conventional police handgun by making sure there's nothing behind your target that your bullet would harm if you miss or overpenetrate. The same is not true of a mecha-sized revolver, since a projectile that powerful would easily pass through walls and the like, so you have no way to know what sort of collateral damage you're risking by pulling the trigger.

I watched the original series of OV As (aka "Early Days") last month, and I really loved it, so much I felt sad when it ended. Initially I didn't know what to make of the massive tonal difference with the first movie (which was my first exposure to the franchise), but i quickly grew to love the characters. It also allowed me to get a better understand of the movie, primarily a lot of the character dynamics which I had flown over my head when I watched it.

I currently have the blu-ray for the TV series waiting in the mail. It seems to be more of what I loved about Early Days, so I'm def. looking forward to it.

@Labor firearm: While I didn't watch the show for a while, from what I remember, the bullet never seems to overpenetrating anything. I tend to think that the bullet is mostly a concussion shell, designed to give big explosion that can damage, but not necessarily destroy labor, and when fired on cockpit, hopefully can stun the pilot (but not necessarily maiming him) or damaging labor system enough that said pilot had no choice but to surrender.

Or something like that.

I chalk that up mostly to narrative convenience, honestly. It's just not the kind of show where they want to show corpses of innocent bystanders with gaping holes in them due to Ota being too free with his shots.

In any case, I'm still enjoying the show but I haven't had a chance to watch anything recently because I moved this weekend. Once I get my entertainment center set up in my new place, I'll be able to watch more episodes.

Re the Revolver Cannon (yes, that's it's actual name): There was a series of shorts released with the third movie called Mini-Pato. They used chibi art to go into some of the details of the series and if I'm remembering correctly they use a variant of dum-dum rounds that are designed to expand on contact with the target to minimise the chances of over penetration.

Ah, that's fair enough, then. And it actually goes a long way toward explaining why they're absolutely useless against military labors — expanding rounds make really big holes in anything they can penetrate, but are absolute crap against armor. I still think it's rather silly (construction labors would necessarily have a pretty tough exterior in order to protect them on the job site, and anything able to pierce that would probably go through walls just fine too), but if it's mentioned by official materials, then that shows the writers were thinking about it at least enough to come up with a Hand Wave.

I've watched up to about episode 30 at this point. Random thoughts:

Kanuka, the local American, is the most Japanese person on the show. I about lost it when she shows up out of fucking nowhere, wearing a kimono and wielding a bokken, and beats the shit out of two rival yakuza groups worth of mooks simultaneously. It doesn't have to make sense if it's hilarious enough.

I'm actually a bit surprised that they actually had Kanuka leave at the end of her six months, rather than enforcing the status quo and extending her stay for some reason. Not sure how I feel about Kumagami yet, though she doesn't seem to be quite as much of a hardass as Kanuka was.

My favorite episodes are the ones that deal with the shenanigans that Division 2 gets up to on its own, rather than the ones involving them fighting something. The episode about their feud with the only restaurant that would deliver to HQ was hilarious.

On a related note: the best character in the show is Goto. The second best is the army of anonymous interchangeable mechanics, collectively. They are the best at shenanigans.

Patlabor has an odd amount of supernatural elements. They fight a monster in one of the earlier episodes (eventually explained as an escaped animal from a genetic testing lab), a dinosaur/sea monster thing they find in the caves underneath the sewers, and then ghosts. Not even Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane "weird things with more than one possible explanation", it's just straight up fucking ghosts and no one really bothers to say otherwise. Very odd, in an otherwise pretty physics-friendly Real Robot show.

Oh hey, random kid (who is secretly an ace pilot) beats up the protagonists in an arcade based on the mecha they fight with? I remember that from G Gundam and Zoids: New Century, too. Three examples makes it a trope, right? I'm sure there are others around somewhere. (Noa and Asuma get off pretty lightly, comparatively. At least no one knew they were labor pilots when they got shown up. Bit from Zoids embarrasses himself by being a professional pilot who gets beat by "just a kid", and Domon from G Gundam ends up blowing up the arcade by overloading the machine trying to keep up with his "just a kid" opponent.)

August 10 Declared Patlabor Day in Japan and Mobile Police Patlabor Opens Its Official Website, Twitter, Instagram for New Project "EZY".

Patlabor 30th Anniversary Art Exhibition Heads to Osaka in August