Patlabor: The Movie Manga 118 minutes English/Japanese English Subtitles 07/25/2000

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With Thanksgiving so quickly approaching I can barely contain my jubilation. I don't really like any holidays save for the one where we make turkey and then proceed to feast on it until we're too full to move. In fact, I do believe Thanksgiving's so nice that this year we're doing it twice. That's right, after the family oriented activities of Thursday are done we're moving right into the realm of Fan-service.com's first annual Thanksgiving day celebration, replete with peas and mashed potatoes and yams and a turkey, stuffing and cranberry and whatever else we can figure out how to make. The Patlabors of the world have a reason to unite and rejoice now too, seeing as how their operating system (OS) wasn't good enough they're all being upgraded to the HOS (Hyper Operating System). I'm not really sure why, but I'd assume that the original OS wasn't running fast enough. Either way it spells big fun in little Tokyo and even the Mobile Police are joining in on the celebration. Let's just hope they're not deadbeats like last year when they didn't bring a dessert. Oh wait, they're not coming to OUR party.

 

But much like the Indians, who we all know ruined the first Thanksgiving of the pilgrims, there's a rough military Labor out causing trouble in the wilderness. His plan of action in that addled robot brain? To destroy the Patlabor party and contrinbute to the general screwing up with of the world as we know it. As it turns out, the crab robot is only the precursor to things to come. Robots are going berserk everywhere around the city and it's up to Izuma** and his loyal sidekick Noa to slueth their way through the mystery and find out just who's causing all these problems for the poor citizens of Tokyo, many of whom have never had the luck of celebrating one of the best traditions known to man. If only someone had told them that they could just read the back of the keepcase then we probably could've skipped an hour of the movie. And let me tell you, good reader, that it takes a strong man to resist a short haired redhead, and that man is Izuma. Low in rank, but big in heart, this son of a Labor technician is just the man for the job of finding out what the hell is going wrong with the city before it's destroy for the god knows how many-eith time in anime history. Myself, I'd be too busy asking her if her curtains matched the carpet. That's one girl that could give me a tomato any day, if you know what I mean. And if you've seen the movie, sadly, you do.

 

These two are on the case! And they need the staunch backing of the entire 2nd division if they're gonna work things out before vibrations in the earth's crust send out mystical signals that will doom the entire world, and thusly doomed, they'll never have a Thanksgiving again. Especially Japan, who has yet to celebrate Thanksgiving for a first time. This I can only attribute to their strange lack of Indians. But oh well, their loss. The dub is actually pretty acceptable for something that was done so long ago, aside from Noa's voice actress and her tendency to overact everything and a few other mispoken lines everything works out pretty well. For some reason I can't help letting out that little bit of English blood in me when I say the word. "Patlabour" I'll pronounce it, and make an ass of myself while appearing almost high class. Not matter how much I try to stop myself I just can't, it's ingrained in my blood, just like how I always put that extra "u" in "favourite". Why does the spell checker in Microsoft Word consider that incorrect? I can't change who I am, you animals!

 

Listen, you knew this was going to get a good review, it's a robot anime and more so it's robot anime where the robots are piloted by cops. If that's not a recipe for success then I should just hang up my apron and spend my entire life watching too much cable TV and never doing any school work. Considering that's what I do at college anyway I'm pretty much damned whether I'm right or I'm not. But it's all good because I'm right anyway, this is like that episode of Columbo where the kids rigged a gun in the hood of their car to kill a professor while they were in class. Only the gun is a bunch of GIANT ROBOTS and the class is a bunch of fucking EVIL GIANT ROBOTS. If Andore could sit through this thing then I see no reason why any normal person wouldn't be able to watch it twice in a row. While the Japanese might not understand the concept of turkey and mashed potatoes, they sure do know how to mix of a mean meal of robots and conspiracy from beyond the grave. If this is your cup of tea, or even if it isn't, you should give it a shot. Who doesn't like a good mystery drama? I myself was brought up with a supply of Magnum P.I., Hawaii 5-O, and Jim Rockford they might as well have just stuck an IV from the TV right into my vein. And turkey, don't forget the turkey.

**Whom the animatiors seem to have a penchant for having him go goofy faced at the drop of a hat.