Mobile Police Patlabor is a 7 episodes long OAV series which serves as an introduction to the more widely known movies. The subtitle (The Early Days) says it all, as it depicts the humble beginnings of Special Vehicles Unit 2 (SV2), which we will follow in the later installments. Think: the first few episodes of The Wire. We see how they are preparing their base of operation, how they receive their Labors, and so on. And that’s pretty much all that’s here. No grand ideas (like in Movie Two), not even an attempt at those. All we see is how the Unit starts and their first few cases.
It’s only this, but it never sets up itself to be anything more. Not everything needs to be full of difficult questions and even harder answers. Early Days on its own is cool if you’re deeply into Mecha, but I am not. For me, this OAV is only an addition to the Movies.
But it changed how I look at the first movie. I was not sure what it actually was all about. Was it pro-technology? Was it a warning? Well, the opening here is a love song sung by one of the pilots towards her Patlabor (named Alfons). Yep, it seems Patlabor was techno-fetishist all along. Nothing here prepares us for Movie 2, but it makes the first movie better.
The seven episodes here are, in order:
- the start of SV2, and we get to know Noa (who is one of the main characters in Movie 1),
- mission to protect the mayor,
- underwater monster story (sic!),
- hostage situation,
- ghost story (sic! again) while the unit is on vacation (with mandatory hot spring scenes),
- the plot of second movie, but without the smart parts,
- a long chase scene.
It’s all light-hearted and more often than not a bit goofy.
Technically, this is a very pretty anime, The movies follow the style we see here, with bigger budgets though. But what we see here is a great, old-school animation. OAVs tend to look better than TV series, and this one is no exception.
My gripes with the OAV are more with my expectations than with the Early Days themselves. It fulfills its aspiration to be a nice, short series. Nothing here even points towards bigger ambitions. But I saw it after Palabor 2: Movie which was intelligent up to a fault. And even though I deeply enjoyed every minute, it’s not what I came for.
So, if you liked Movie 1 and want more - sure, this series gets my thumbs up (and therefore rating). But if the Movie 2 floored you but left hungry, don’t expect this series to come anywhere that level of ambition nor quality.
