Kidô keisatsu patorebâ 2

This is the follow-on 16 episode OVA to the original 47 episode TV series & is directed by Mamoru Oshii who then made Patlabor II (movie) & Ghost in The Shell (movie). No better pedigree.

A mixture of action, comedy & finely drawn personalities - Patlabor is one of my most favourite anime series bar none.

This is an excellent continuation of the original 47 episode TV series & I would recommend it to anyone, but try to watch the original TV series first.

Cute & sassy Nao-chan pilots her Patlabor 'Alphonse' to ultimate victory while worrying that he'll get scratched more than that she's facing death or disfigurement on every mission - you'll love her! Patlabor = Patrol 'Labor' (a Police 'Labor'), a huge powered armoured fighting exoskeleton with the pilot inside. Used to combat 'Labor' crime, as 'Labors' are employed extensively in construction & many other industries. Set in the near future in Japan.

I gave this 9 because I never give 10 except to masterpieces. But this is masterly enough & appeals to all ages, family friendly but with real depth under the zany action & comedy!

Everybody's written comments on this thinking that this is the movie, "Patlabor 2." Really this entry is for the series of 16 half-hour episodes produced from 1990-1992, between the two movies, after the television series came to an end.

These episodes, called "Patlabor: The New Files" in their American packaging, continue the silliness of the original material, and add sophisticated character exploration, additional intrigue, and experiments in style and tone, as the production team tests the waters for the serious art, design, and themes of Patlabor 2 the Movie.

If you haven't seen any other Patlabor stuff, don't start here: you'll be lost. The characters are not introduced, people come and go, and entire plots are jokes about earlier pieces of the story.

A good place to start is "Patlabor: The Original Series." Watch some of that, see the first movie, then check out these "New Files" stories. They're worth it, and they'll help you see the lighter side of the second movie that all the other comments here are talking about.

If you're hooked, the Patlabor TV series, all 47 episodes of it, has been translated and lucky you if you can rent it, it's a lot of fun. (The New Files is both a continuation of the teevee series and a riff on that material. The more of the teevee series you've seen, the more you'll appreciate how the New Files is playing with the Patlabor world.)

These are the following adventures of the Patlabor series continuing where we left off from the TV series. Made, voiced, animated and produced by the same people from the previous ones. The cool thing about this one is we get to see continuations and comebacks from the previous TV series. As well a large number of character developing episodes that don't have anything to do with the Patlabors. But with the characters we all know and enjoy to watch.

It's the last and second shortest Patlabor series, but it was fun until it lasted. And I've already consider Patlabor to be the best Mecha-Sci-Fi anime in existence.

All 16 episodes are available on a 3 disc set. The first 5 are dubbed, while the others are only subtitled with Japanese. A lot of people prefer in viewing them in Japanese, so there's no fuss over it.