Patlabor 2 - The movie

Swarms of tanks roam freely through the city. Police and soldiers at every street corner. The leaders of power are in complete chaos: police against army, army against army; secret services against everybody. What is going on? Is the Venetian army trying to occupy the Campidoglio? Has the Lega decided to carve Italy into slices? None of that. It is simply one of the many inconveniences you can run into when living in Tokyo, and it is also what happens in the second Patlabor film.

While returning from a conference on the evolution of the use of labors in the police following the latest developments of the “Babylon Project”, Shinobu (commander of the 1st special vehicles section) witnesses a terrorist attack. The Yokohama bridge that connected the Honmoku and Daikoku quays is hit and destroyed by a missile. Through a video obtained mysteriously from an American network and broadcast on television, it is discovered that the missile was dropped by an F16 J in service with the Japanese ASDF.

The ASDF denies any involvement in the incident. Not convinced of the truthfulness of the footage, Goto (commander of the 2nd special vehicles section) asks Matsui (an investigator and friend of Goto) to look into it. In the meantime a man named Arakawa contacts Goto and Shinobu (who, for those who don’t know the series, is a woman; Shinobu, not Arakawa. – Ryo’s note), introducing himself as a member of the JSDF (Joint Staff International Investigation Bureau) and showing an alternative videotape of the events concerning the attack.

In the videotape one can see, half hidden, the presence of an F16 S, a different model of aircraft from the one detected in the footage shown on TV and not in service with the ASDF. Arakawa also reveals that on the night of the bombing of the bridge a USAF aircraft disappeared during a training flight. The USAF unofficially admits it is the same F16 S spotted in the area in question shortly before the explosion. The JSDF believes that behind what happened there is a paramilitary group to which belong figures from the army, politics and the war industry.

The objective of this group is to change drastically the political situation in Japan, which has become too used to peace. The leader of this group is a man called Yukihito Tsuge (an old flame of Shinobu from their police academy days). Arakawa asks Goto for help with the investigation. At first Goto refuses, but later, because of a second incident, he decides to cooperate in the investigation. The second incident involves the Misawa air base of the USAF and the ASDF. As a consequence of the incident, Misawa and the other air bases are surrounded by police forces, including the 1st and 2nd sections. Considering the intervention of law enforcement insufficient, the Chief Cabinet Secretary (Who? Goku? – Ryo’s note) decides to have the JSDF forces intervene to maintain order in the metropolitan area and in preparation for future emergencies. The possibility of a full-blown civil war takes shape, which pushes the United States to intervene. It is in this scenario that Tsuge and his group act to carry out their objective, while Goto gathers the members of the old 2nd section (Noa, Asuma, Shinshi, Hiromi, Ota) to flush out and stop Tsuge. In short, a big mess!

The film, which came out 4 years after the first one, boasts the direction of Mamoru Oshii and careful technical realisation. The animation is very good, with a good dose of computer graphics which, while not reaching the levels of “Ghost in the Shell”, is used wisely without ending up in ugly overlays and contributes to creating that sense of reality present in Patlabor 2. The film alternates long moments of dialogue with moments of tight, incessant action in Oshii’s typical style.

There is abundant use of the wide-angle lens and of the typical shots of large urban and non-urban spaces, accompanied only by music without spoken words. The character design is entrusted to Akemi Takada, whose line is hardly noticeable, and Masami Yukii. The final effect is a little atypical for those used to the design of the OAVs and the previous film (although there were differences among those too). The mecha design is by the usual Yutaka Izubuchi (excellent as usual. – Ryo’s note). The music is entrusted to the omnipresent Kenji Kawai (Ghost in the Shell). The fundamental meaning of the film lies in the motivations that push Tsuge to attempt the coup d’état and in what he experienced in the jungle when he was wounded and the considerations this led him to make. All of this is summed up in the dialogue at a distance between Goto and Arakawa after the meeting at the aquarium. It almost seems that Oshii is denouncing a certain kind of attitude of the industrialised world, which supports war in less developed countries and intervenes only if it can gain a political and economic advantage. The question hovering over the whole film is: is an unjust peace better than a just war (Is life a dream or do dreams help us live better? – Gigi Marzullo’s note)?

The question that tormented me more than any other after seeing Patlabor 2 was: but why did they call it Patlabor (well, maybe Pasquale 2 wasn’t very suitable… no offence to those named Pasquale. – Ryo’s note)? As an old Patlabor fan, I had always thought it consisted mainly, besides the labors, of the members of the 2nd section (Noa, Azuma, etc.), Shinobu, Shige and the other supporting characters. In Patlabor 2, those of the second section, and the labors too, appear for barely 15 minutes in the entire film. Matsui appears more than Noa and the others put together. The real protagonists are Goto, who while pretending to submit to Shinobu plays the lion’s share (in one scene Goto is even seen really pissed off. – WDIM’s note)(I am a great admirer of Goto, I always believed he was the protagonist, never mind the labors… have you seen the Patlabor OAV “Karuizawa for two”? Simply unmissable… – Ryo’s note), and Shinobu, who in fact doesn’t do much except in the final part.

Final verdict: absolutely worth seeing, especially if you are a fan of Patlabor or of Oshii (really a gutsy director. – WDIM’s note)