As far as I'm concerned this series is a typical mixed bag. The first half of the episodes are slapstick comedies which at least I don't get at all. Obviously this kind of humour doesn't really translate interculturally, which makes the first half of the series hard to suffer through to say the least. The second half and especially the final three of the 12 episodes however are more dramatic and the final episode is a direct continuation of Oshii's cinematic outing Patlabor 2, which is my favorite piece of work in the entire Patlabor franchise. All in all, I had both a very hard and quite a good time with this series and I can encourage fans of the animated show to give this a try. At the time of this review the show is available in Japan and in Germany, the latter locked for Region B and only containing German subtitles. But in 10 years, who knows...
Review of The Next Generation: Patlabor
