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Buried Treasure - Patlabor TV & OAVs

I thought back in the day, and I still think, that Patlabor 2 movie was a masterpiece. One of the best politically charged thriller / action things I've seen, can't recommend it enough.

It's nice to see Patlabor getting some loving Wink

I picked up the OVA's and TV series a couple of years back when there was that fuss about CPM possibly being in trouble (I bought up most of their titles that had any interest for me), and thoroughly enjoyed the TV series.

Whilst the TV series is a bit sillier than the films (and as mentioned in the article the ghost/monster stories did get a bit much), as a whole it's one of my favourite series, with some great moments and some nice character development I think.

I'm getting an urge to watch it again now, which is bad (i've got a large backlog of stuff to watch/do).

What I continually refer to as the most impressive thing about Patlabor is its range: the fact that one episode can be a comedy, the next can be horror, and then the next a political thriller without missing a beat. The secret behind the success is as Justin says: the characters and their interactions with one another serve as the anchor amidst the sea of shifting genres. Okay, maybe he didn't say it QUITE like that.

The political satire "The Seven Days of Fire" is often hailed as one of the standout OAVs of the bunch, but I'm also keen on the two-parter "The SV2's Longest Day" which served as sort of a rough draft of the second film. "Our Karuizawa" is practically a Seinfeld episode as half of its running time is devoted to two characters talking in a car, and the surreal "Snow Rondo" is the sort of thing people typically associate with Mamoru Oshii even though Patlabor and Urusei Yatsura show that he's got a great knack for comedy when he wants to be funny. You know this is a good series when you have to stop and think for a while to come up with a bad episode.

Patlabor's one of my all-time favorites, and I always forget how good the show is on account that it's hard for me to rewatch a series if I'm not showing it to someone who's never seen it before. Unfortunately, the fact that it's got robots in it (right there on the cover no less) and not much in the way of fanservice for either guys or girls means that most anime fans don't even want to remotely consider giving it a shot. But even if you took the robots out of the show completely, the show would be virtually unchanged. What makes Patlabor stand out to this day is that it's one of the few anime where giant robots are just used in everyday life as mundane tools. Heck, the whole reason they're called Labors in the first place is because they're generally used for construction.

Thank you big time for posting this article, Justin. Gives me a a good place to point the newer fans to. Well-written as always. Anime smile

I'm still trying to get my hands on various Patlabor releases. Caught the show sporadically over the years and really enjoyed it. (Third film not so much. -_-) Still crack up over the Ultraman / Griffon labor episode.

Keep up teh good fight. Peace!

Another excellent choice for Buried Treasure. I love the characters from the series, especially Captain Goto. He is way too smart for his own good. In addition, if there's any mecha that I would want to have, it's the AV-98 Ingram.

Patlabor is near and dear to my heart. It's one of the shows I suggest to people who 'don't like anime,' along with Cowboy Bebop.

The beauty of the show is in the cohesiveness of how of it develops... as I watched through the OVAs, the TV series, and the movies, I really began to feel a sense of completeness to the series that is very rare for anime. After experiencing the dark, political grit of the movies and contrasting that with the airy, sometimes melancholic aspects that you see in the OVAs, the light-hearted comedic foibles that pop up occasionally in the TV series seem all the more heart-warming and not forced at all.

The coolest thing about it is that you can then re-watch it and appreciate the characters all the more. I managed to buy all of the series that I didn't already own for dirt cheap when a store in Houston went out of business, and the guy at the counter noted that 'you have great taste.' Smile

For those of you wondering, I suggest watching the original series OVA first, then the TV series, and then you can watch the New Files OR the movies. There is some overlap, but you won't catch any massive life-altering spoilers or have any moments of deep confusion if you should choose to skip around.

Don't knock WXIII, the third movie, either. They took some ballsy spins with re-aligning the narrative, but it still works. Brian Ruh noted that the plot was taken from one of the manga's storylines in his Mamoru Oshii book, but I don't think that degrades the story at all.

One poster mentioned a character from the comics (wong?) being a pedophile... really? I didn't catch that when I read the comic...

I also recognize myself under that public that was expecting Patlabor to be another Mecha series and I became a little disappointed by it, but then the series grew on me and in the end I was already missing the characters. I guess people need to be forewarned that Patlabor is just a Comedy Soap Opera, like for instance Nadesico.
I also think that the New Files are way better written than the TV series.

On a side note, has anyone noticed the immense vocal duties of Chiba Shigeru (Yotsuya-Maison Ikkoku, Megane-Urusei Yatsura, Megane-Dominio Tank Police)?

I'm always surprised when I meet an anime fan who's never seen this, let alone doesn't own any. I always assumed you couldn't really call yourself a fan of anime if you didn't have any of these in your collection.

My favourite part about the second Patlabor movie was how Oshii banished 3/4 of the cast from the first hour and a half so he could make more room for dialogues about sociology and politics. Everyone knows the absolute worst things about Patlabor are the characters and their interactions with each other.

Coincidentally, it looks like CDJapan is running a special on anime box sets that includes the Memorial Box and the New OVA Box. Even with the discounts, the boxes are "only" US$762.85 and US$284.16, respectively. (Of course, if I had the money, I'd buy them since I'm such a completist.)

Has anyone else seen the teaser webpage for Patlabor's 20th anniversary?
http://www.dot-anime.com/tb/headgear/
It would be great if there was something new in the works.

Wow, Patlabor love? This is awesome! I'm so pleased to see it not only get mentioned, but to see everyone posting about how much they enjoy it!

Personally, my favorite is Mini-Pato, but as it was said, it got shafted along with WXIII.

This has been such a pleasant start to me day!

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Forum - View topicBuried Treasure - Patlabor TV & OAVs

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Buried Treasure - Patlabor TV & OAVs