This movie was recommended to me by Cos, also more than a year ago. Finally we see another anime that shows that mecha have more uses than warfare. Engineers and construction-workers also love to use them in the setting for this movie, as it follows local policemen on mechas. The key part of the story is the operating system they run on. Their creator left a nice-farewell-present with it, before killing himself.

There are three major plusses in this movie. First of all: the mystery. It’s fun to gradually learn what the creator of these operating systems was up to, and some of the revelations make quite a nice impact. Even though the guy is dead, he turned into one of the most interesting characters of the movie because of this.

The second good point: it’s refreshing. While the movie has the basic ingredients of a regular thriller, it manages to add enough extra to improve the realism of it all. Especially the female lead profits from this, as she manages to avoid the pitfall that strikes almost all other similar characters. While she starts out as an ordinary support character, just there as a plot-device to develop the main lead, she changes drastically as the climax approaches, and in the end, she really has her time to shine. It’s also not like our main characters are the only ones in the world who realize the complot. Other parties also take actions to solve it once in a while. This realism sets Patlabor apart from all those other mecha and police-shows out there.

The third good point is the interaction between the characters. They’re not 100% serious all the time, and need a break once in a while, their conversations are quite realistic, they know exactly when to use comedy and some of their banter is quite fun to watch. Especially the chief of the police-unit was interesting, with his stoic yet involved attitude.

So, the bad points? Some side-characters aren’t fleshed out well enough, and only a few of the characters are lucky enough to have a bit of background. It’s a pity, because the characters could have worked out even better if we knew something about them, but this movie doesn’t even attempt to bother with it. One of the reasons why the creator of the operating system turned into one of the best characters was because he is the only one with a well-fleshed out background.

The climax also raises one plot-hole that it never answers. I won’t mention it, for the sake of spoilers (I already feel I used a bit too many of them for this review), but you should be able to recognize it for yourself. The ending also is good, due to an added twist, but the aftermath is a bit lazy and too short. Still, if you’re looking for a more realistic and down-to-earth movie that’s more than just flashy-action scenes and still involves mechas and conflict, this is a pretty good choice.

Whoa, plot twists! Before I start with them, I must say that I finally realized how incredibly versatile the second half of this anime had been. It started out as a case-based series, then, with Kirie and Maki it turned into science-fiction, then with Takami and Aiko, the political undertones of this series suddenly got lots of attention, and the past two episodes have yet again changed the main focus, as they start to explain all of the mysteries in the series. It’s hard to name a series where the difference is so noticeable.

Anyway, this episode: Yoko’s background. It seems that her original world has been visited by a Koemushi-like creature as well. Yoko wasn’t part of the pilots, but her brother was. He already was a huge brat at that time, but it seems that the group of children had also decided to battle until their deaths. Then, if I understood things correctly, the gray Koemushi came with a revelation when Yoko’s brother was the final pilot left: if he were to travel to different worlds, enlisting people for the very same game, he’d be allowed to live. With this news, he became overjoyed, and gladly accepted this for the chance to keep living. Yoko, while she didn’t like this, still decided to accompany her brother.

They then travelled through countless other worlds, where their robot always ended up defeated at one point. Then they reached Kokopelli’s world, where they met him. Things were a bit different in that world, as Yoko entered a class as a transfer-student in order to get them to sign up, and she became friends with them. Kokopelli’s daughter was among that class, and Kokopelli was their teacher. He was the one who nudged his daughter to enlist.

Kokopelli became like Tanaka when he found out the true nature. I guess he felt responsible for it, and offered his life, in exchange for others (aka, his daughter). Obviously, with Koemushi, this didn’t turn out as planned. In the end, only he and his daughter remained alive. I think that it’s then when they knew about the final pilot being the one to remain alive. Kokopelli offered himself, to keep his daughter alive, though Koemushi had different plans, and chose the daughter instead. When Kokopelli’s wife tried to commit suicide along with him afterwards, he suddenly was begging for his life. After that, he went on to help Koemushi and Yoko.

At least, that explanation makes the most sense. There are quite a few details in this episode I didn’t get, like why didn’t Kokopelli turn into a Koemushi as well? And why did he so easily throw his life away in the first episode? Why didn’t we see the last fight of Kokopelli?

And holy god, I suddenly realize how similar Yoko and Koemushi are to Jun and Kana! With Kanji being the next pilot, And after that only Seki and Jun are left, and it really seems like Koemushi is trying to make Jun into the next Koemushi, due to Kana being there. There’s also a thing I’ve been wondering for the past few episodes: the final pilot. Now that Kirie killed two, and Tanaka died, there should be no need for it. But according to THAT Anime Blog’s entry of episode 17, the line-up that Koemushi mentioned consisted out of all the pilots (Komoda - Jun - Seki - Tanaka - Kanji). This has confused me for quite a few episodes already.

Anyway, next episode should be awesome: Kanji is going to pilot! (at least, I hope ^^;)