Mamoru Oshii has created an amazing work of political and military intrigue wholly different from the haunted proto-ghost story of Patlabor: The Movie. Although it parallels its predecessor in some plot elements (lone madman with delusions of affecting a world-change), the movie departs from all other aspects of "typical" Japanese cartoon work and enters a realm reserved for potboilers like Three Days of the Condor and The Hunt for Red October.
Commander Gotoh, caught between his loyalty to his men, his sense of duty and his relationship with one of his troops and a coming civil war finds himself on the sword point of a massive socio-political upheaval with overtones of covert U.S. backing. What it all leads to is a potential breakdown of civilian governance of Japan and an end to that nation's independent self-rule. The terroristic acts of a lone military mastermind who bears a grudge against short sighted bureaucrats - and has the reasons for his contempt proved time and again during the crisis he engineers - push Japan into a state of near panic as the military and the police including Commander Gotoh's Special Vehicles Unit face off against one another. Will the final showdown end in the madness of a civil war? Watch the movie, find out.
Forget preconceptions about Japanese cartoons, and discard the mental image brought up by the "giant robot" on the cover of the DVD. The "Labors" serve as mere background icons (much as the powered armor did in R.A. Heinlein's seminal Starship Troopers (not the execrable movie loosely based on that work)) and as subtle statements on the separation of men from society by duty and law.
Please, if you have a prejudice against Japanimation, don't let it override your judgment. Don't miss this one. It's that good.
Commander Gotoh, caught between his loyalty to his men, his sense of duty and his relationship with one of his troops and a coming civil war finds himself on the sword point of a massive socio-political upheaval with overtones of covert U.S. backing. What it all leads to is a potential breakdown of civilian governance of Japan and an end to that nation's independent self-rule. The terroristic acts of a lone military mastermind who bears a grudge against short sighted bureaucrats - and has the reasons for his contempt proved time and again during the crisis he engineers - push Japan into a state of near panic as the military and the police including Commander Gotoh's Special Vehicles Unit face off against one another. Will the final showdown end in the madness of a civil war? Watch the movie, find out.
Forget preconceptions about Japanese cartoons, and discard the mental image brought up by the "giant robot" on the cover of the DVD. The "Labors" serve as mere background icons (much as the powered armor did in R.A. Heinlein's seminal Starship Troopers (not the execrable movie loosely based on that work)) and as subtle statements on the separation of men from society by duty and law.
Please, if you have a prejudice against Japanimation, don't let it override your judgment. Don't miss this one. It's that good.