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Giant Crime-Fighting Robot Action! Patlabor is certainly one of the better known anime universes out there. It started as a manga, was made into a 7 episode OAV, a 47 episode TV series, an additional 15 episode OAV, and three movies. This disc contains the first five episodes of the TV series. The setting is the "near future" (which in 1989, was around the year 2000!) where giant robots known as "labors" have been adapted to nearly every conceivable industrial, construction, and military application. However, a number of elements, from terrorist organizations to disgruntled pilots, have resulted in labors being used to commit various crimes. Fighting fire with fire, the police have created their own labor units, known as Patrol Labors ,or Patlabors for short. The movies have been available domestically for several years in both VHS and DVD format, but this is the first time that an attempt to bring the extended Patlabor universe to the US has been attempted. Overall, I think this attempt has done very well. The story mainly follows the adventures of the Second Special Vehicles Section, Division 2. Members of this organization include a young woman named Noa Izumi and the brash and hyper, Isao Ota. These two are the pilots of Division 2's Patlabors. Joining them is Asuma Shinohara, the young heir of the multi-national conglomerate that built the Patlabors. They are commanded by a Captain Kiichi Goto, who is far smarter than he tends to let on. These five episodes do a great job of establishing not only these characters but also a host of other secondary characters. We see Division 2 getting its hands on brand new "Ingram" Patlabor models, and the kinds of training Ota and Noa must complete in order to earn the privilege of piloting one of them. The later episodes on the disc give a good impression not only of what life is like from day to day, but also what actual missions entail. Since this series dates from 1989, I must admit that I wasn't expecting a whole lot from it visually. However, the quality of the animation and the transfer to the DVD are surprisingly excellent. To be sure, the hair styles and some of the clothing styles smack of the '80's, but overall the visual look of this series has held up very well. The technology and the mecha employed also appears to be pretty current...the pilot's data is kept on a CD, at least, instead of on one of the old 5" floppy disks! The music is pretty decent...the opening theme is rather catchy, although I could do without "Midnight Blue," the song that plays over the ending credits. One interesting feature to the opening and closing songs is that the Japanese lyrics are displayed along the bottom of the screen not in Romaji, but in Japanese characters. This is a nifty touch, and while I'm not sure if this is a feature of the original Japanese version or if it was added by the subtitlers, I wish more series had this feature. The dubbing is adequate, although I hope that some of the actors grow into their characters a little more in later episodes. One problem I had is that the English voice actors in the movies are different from the ones used here. While this is a natural result of the dubs being handled by different companies, it never the less creates quite a bit of disconnect for me when my only previous exposure to the Patlabor universe has been through the first two movies. The exhaustive extras on this disc include an introduction to the characters and the Patlabor universe, a biography on the director, an art gallery, and the scripts to the episodes. These are a lot of extras, but unfortunately you will need a computer with DVD-ROM drive to access them all. Having watched the Patlabor movies, I was hankering for more Mobile Police action. The episodes on this disc more than deliver. While the tone of these episodes are a bit more light-hearted than the tone of the movies, they are never the less very enjoyable and entertaining. This disc, with 5 episodes, two vocal tracks, and a wide range of extras, is a worthy addition to any mecha freak's collection. I highly recommend it. By Andy Rucker |
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