Patlabor the Original Series

Director
Mamoru OshiiMamoru Oshii, Toshiki Hirano
Production
Tatsunoko Productions, Bandai
Country of origin
Japan
Format
OVA
Running time
7 episodes
Year
1988

Patlabor the Original Series

By Mark McPherson
21st May 04

Mamoru Oshii is one of the most well-admired anime director and screenwriter, but where did all this spring from? Well, it started with him directing the second Urusei Yatsura movie, but he didn't become popular until this series was first released on video.

Patlabor tells the story of Tokyo in the year in the year 1999. Mankind has advanced further with the addition of mechanical machinery called Labors. Labors were intended for construction, but have also sprouted in criminal activity. To combat this, the police has formed the Special Vehicles Division to combat these incidents with police Labors known as Patlabors. However, that is only the prologue.

The real story involves the main characters of SV-2. The headstrong son of Shinohara Industries, Asuma, the robot fetish girl, Noa, the uptight married guy, Sinshi, the trigger happy gun toater, Ota, the loveable giant, Hiromi, the chief officer from New York, Kanuka, and the captain, Goto. All these characters deal with day-to-day details of the unit such as getting food, stopping terrorists, guarding officials, preventing the destruction of Tokyo and encountering foreign terrorists.

The stories are set up fairly well. The first four episodes are basically episodes used for tinkering with the many aspects of the series. For instance, episode 2 involves guarding a meeting with the US ambassadors and another one dealing with a monster in Tokyo bay. While the mecha is good, the main focus of this series is on the characters. All of the characters are colorful and have their own personalities.

Take Noa for example. In the beginning of the second episode, she has a dream that she gets approval from the police to add booster to her Patlabor, allowing it to fly. However, once it starts getting off the ground, it loses propulsion and crashes. Which reminds me, there are also some dips of the hat to Great Mazinger in the series. Another character some people can relate to is Ota. In episode four, a hostage situation takes place at a video store and when things get to heated in the discussions, Ota rushed in with his Patlabor holding the gun right at the terrorists. They yell "DON'T SHOOT!" but Ota shoots anyway. That's how Ota can be.

If you've seen Patlabor The Movie 2, you should be able to see it reflected in episodes 5 and 6 as they are pretty close to what the plot of the second movie was. In the second movie, the story focused on the US opening fire on the Tokyo bridge. In episodes 5 and 6, it involves one of Goto's old enemies holding a nuke and occupying SV-2. However, the memorable scene from the second movie in which the tanks move into the city while it snows is kept in the series. The last episode, which Oshii didn't direct, involved SV-2 stopping a German Labor. It wasn't a bad episode, but just felt to random.

Content wise, theres a bit more in here then there was in the TV series. The best example would be in episode four where SV-2 is at the hot springs when Asuma and Shinshi almost attempt to peak in on the girls. Even more is that when Kanuka hears a scream in the opposite hot spring, she jumps right out, grabs her gun and runs to the other side wearing nothing at all. However, no actual nudity is shown, so it should be appropriate for teenage viewers.

While listening to Oshii's comments on the series, he mentioned that there was a limited budget for the video release. Considering that in mind, the series looks spectacular for it's age. Needless to say, Patlabor is a series that every anime fan must own, mecha fan or not.

9/10

-- Mark McPherson 21st May 04

Patlabor the Original Series Images