Project Otaku Power-Levelling: Part 3

Part 3 in your mouth! Swallow, BITCHES!



Ah, humorous urban colloquialisms. Anyway, let's get to it. My brain froze for a bit, but I'm back with the reboot and hopefully coherent thoughts on this series. A little behind so here's me *almost* catching up. Friday night/Saturday morning I marathoned Mobile Police Patlabor with my trusty friend Traveler.

Mobile Police Patlabor


This series is straight out of the eighties. Not in a bad way, either. The OVA is not an action series, so it relies on the characters' relationships to make it through seven 30 minute episodes. And, to be honest, it works well for them. The first episode is somewhat boring, but after the characters are introduced properly, the other six episodes are a breeze.

...Such a breeze I performed a marathon on all seven episodes in a single night after coming home last week on a Friday after midnight. >_<

Patlabor reminds me of Gunsmith Cats: Both the premise *and* the show is set up to allow for long-form plots and self-contained stories, but use the more self-contained stories for the purposes of not overstretching a short episode count.

Fortunately unlike Gunsmith Cats, Patlabor is allowed to "breathe" in a full-length television series later on, because these characters are awesome. From Chief "Serious Guy" Sasaki to Captain "Laid Back Guy" Goto to trigger-happy Ohta, these characters feel like real police officers more than anime characters. Most of my enjoyment of this series came from watching this squad interact with each other.

...Which is good, since about the middle of the series, I think the writers have mistaken the show for Ultraman, 'cause suddenly the criminal cases are over and the team is dealing with undersea "Loch Ness" monsters and ghosts for 2 eps. (The ghost thing is awesome though..)

The end of the series makes up for it, though. A three part finale that sees the team take down a terrorist. Its an intense ninety minutes, balancing drama with the Patlabor style that by now you must have come to love.

All-in-all, the OVA series of Patlabor was awesome. Not the mech series I wanted, but a welcome surprise nonetheless.

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