I've been a fan of Patlabor since I first saw Patlabor 2 on cable about a year ago. I just thought, "Hey, an Oshii film", without expecting much. It sure wasn't the mecha anime I expected. It played like an animated Tom Clancy movie, with the mecha as backdrop. It was the smartest, most complex anime I had seen. Although I still haven't seen much of the preceding OVAs and TV series, I really enjoyed the first 2 films. So when I heard that a Patlabor 3 had just been released in Japan, I was eager to see it. But it won't be until February 4th, 2003 that Pioneer releases it in both a "movie-only edition" and a "special edition". I bought this because I wasn't going to fork out $60 on a movie I might not like. I'm glad I did this because now that I've seen this set I doubt I'll buy the Special Edition. Not because I didn't like the movie (I loved it!). But because every single extra in the $60 special edition is included in this $21 set!!! Well, sans the English dub, anyway. You might say: "Screw the extras. They're never subtitled!". Not here. All extras are subtitled in English and Chinese! And the menus are animated to boot. From my experience, this is by far the best HK-DVD ever made.

Presentation: It's a gatefold set with a plastic transparent slip cover. As you can see in the image, the cover is a beautifully printed and balanced collage of scenes united by a nice water-ripple effect over them. The backside doesn't match the beautiful cover though. It’s just a bit of art and mostly Japanese text over white. The inside of each flap contains poster art that matches with that of each disk, and the disks are held by lock system similar to that of the MI Ghibli set and the Bandai Jin-Roh movie only disk. The only real downside is that the set is labeled on its side with "WXIII PATLABOR THE MOVIE 3 + MINIPOATO". As you can see, they misspelled Minipato (oh well).

Menus: The menus are animated, but sadly, in Japanese (or Chinese?).
 

DISK 1 -----------------

Movie: Patlabor fans know how this show has evolved since its manga origins in the 80's. The original OVA's where action-comedies. While the movies toned down the humor to something a bit more subtle, in favor of intrigue and character development. Now, after a long hiatus, a new production team takes over with WXIII Patlabor 3. Instead of focusing on Special Vehicle Unit 2, the story centers on two new characters (at least I'd never heard of them). Veteran police detective Kusumi and his young partner Hata search for the cause of several deadly labor accidents in and around Tokyo Bay. As each detective searches for the causes of the incidents and their connection to each other, they soon uncover a labyrinth of deceit with connections to the Japanese and American militaries. At the same time, Hata becomes involved with a young woman, Saeko, a college professor and genetic research scientist. As they continue their investigation, the detectives find that the incidents may have been caused by a genetically engineered monster, and Kusumi begins to suspect Saeko may have some involvement. The drama and intrigue leads up to a climax where Unit 2 must work together with the military to lure the monster into a brutal showdown. This film strays even further from its origins in tone and its central characters, but what the show is about is still there. You see, Patlabor has always been about mankind handling its lack of control over technology, against corrupt people and indifferent politicians. This time around, it's not giant machines, but genetic technology. That means that the Patlabors have even less to do with the story than before. They don't appear until about 1:15 into the film. It lives up to the intrigue and character development of Patlabor 2, but takes a turn for the tragic and pessimistic. WXIII is a dark science fiction film, with the a sense of tragic beauty. It plays like a modern noir (has a lot in common with "Se7en"), mixed with "Tom Clancy type" intrigue, and foreshadowing tragic elements. It's not that it lacks humor. As its predecessor, it's subtle and smart. And it's that slightly higher IQ requirement that will draw some people away. Hey, there's smart anime, there's dumb-fun anime, and the stuff in between. This definitely falls in the smart section, along with Jin-Ron and others. Basically, if Dragonball Z is your thing, don't bother with this. [A little note: 99% of the profanity comes from the only english-speaking character in the film: an American - Are they saying something?].

Video: The film is presented in its theatrical 1.85:1 aspect ratio, which appears to be non-anamorphic (though I could be wrong, because it's clearly a DVD rip). It's probably the best animated video transfer I own (HK-DVD or R1). I didn't see film or compression artifacts, grain, or any type of video flaw. It's just beautiful. Like a lot of modern anime, the colors where given a paler look to give it a realistic feel that looks very nice. It looses points on 2 things: 1) the Anime-Cartoon URL and e-mails show up at the beginning (not a biggie, but they could've been placed apart form the feature), and 2) the Manga International logo appears at the opening. Seriously, what's the point? When Anime Studio or Mac rips this off (and they will), they'll put their logo over MI's. If the video transfer is this good, and it's worth showing off, don't cheapen it!

Audio: It comes with both 2.0Ch and 5.1Ch Japanese audio tracks. To sum up the description of the 5.1 track, well... IT ROCKS! It sounds incredible. You'll notice it from the prologue. We're looking at a boat near the coast when we hear a plane flying overhead. And that’s exactly how it sounds like! The rear speakers flair up and the sound moves to the front. After that "things" begin to fall into the ocean. We hear the splashing from behind us from each rear speaker, and as the falling objects begin to fall into frame, the front speakers come into action. And in various scenes, the sound of rain fills the room. Does your Gundam Trilogy 5.1Ch set do that?

Music: I must say that this is Kenji Kawai's best. He's usually used (or underused) for just ambience. I don't think he's ever done a real action cue for an Oshii film. Here, he expands the Patlabor score to fill the few action scenes with music that is sometimes thunderous, and sometimes tragic.

The Extras:
- SPECIAL 1: Everything About WXIII (24 min). A publicity-type "making of" that opens with the film's trailer and goes into Patlabor history, the WXIII film, as well as Minipato. It's more like an HBO/Showtime "making of" than a documentary, since it seems to have been played on TV sometime before WXIII's release. The segment on the history of Patlabor is the best part.
- SPECIAL 2: Behind WXIII Patlabor 3 (29 min). This one focuses on the film, as the creators are interviewed about various topics, from its origins and story, down to the music. It's structured into episodes and is not bad. Visually, WXIII is not a very innovative film, but the bits on the animation and CGI where quite good. I would've liked to see a little something on the sound mixing, though.
- SPECIAL 3: Meet the cast (28 min). This is the last of the documentaries, and probably the best. It's structured on the relationship between the characters as the actors discuss the casting process, their rolls, and the story in general. The chemistry between the actors for Hata and Saeko is fun. Another amusing part is when the actors recall that during the casting process they were told to act-out lines that they had no idea what the hell they meant until they read the script.
- SPECIAL 4: The Say Young 21 Patlabor Special (54 min). It's a special played on the eve of the theatrical release of WXIII on the Japanese radio program "Say Young 21". Who knew they still did publicity on the radio? It starts with 2 guys talking about Patlabor and then the original cast (in character) takes over. Later, they go out of character to talk about their work. This audio plays over a storyboard collection from WXIII. I don't know if this includes ALL the storyboards made, but it seems that way. They play in order, scene by scene.
- Pilot Film From 1997 (2 min). This is a sort of teaser released in 1997, probably for a press conference or for funding purposes. WXIII had being conceptualized little after the release of Patlabor 2 in 1993. So it comes as no surprise that some of the animation for the film is this old.
- 5.1Ch Sound Art Gallery (6 min). No, it's not a gallery of sound effects. It's a background art presentation, played along Kenji Kawai's score. The music is available in both 5.1Ch and 2.0Ch audio.

Subtitles: Ok, the part that worried me the most when I bought it. What can I say? I'm definitely satisfied. The subs are not perfect, but are far from bad. During the film, the subs where 99% head on. If I saw any spelling problems, it must have been just once. But there’s a major error, though. About 1:11 into the film, Kusumi is explaining a plan in a conference with the heads of the military. When Kusumi offers an idea, a man responds, but his reply is displayed briefly in the subs. And when the man talks in a calm voice the subs display "Hey, you! You fucking asshole! Get off of me right now!". I thought: "WHAT?!" But after 5 seconds we hear the loud-mouth American say the lines. The subs immediately synch up after that. It was distracting yet funny. On the other hand, the subs during the extras are a bit more careless. The scenes from the movies are not translated in the same way as the feature, and there are spelling errors here and there. They are definitely more literal translations than the feature. A weird thing is that in the extras Hato is called Joe, and Saeko is called Gako. But they're not bad over all, and they're definitely understandable. This are the only subtitled extras I've seen apart from those on R1's. Even the people who spend good money on R2's aren't this lucky.
 

DISK 2 -----------------

Movie: For those of you wondering what tha heck is Minipato, it's basically 3 cartoonish animated shorts (running at about 10 min. each). They're directed by Kenji Kamiyama, written by Mamoru Oshii, and played by the original cast. The first episode played at theaters as a double feature with Patlabor 3. Much like South Park, they seem to be poorly animated, using cheap techniques (in this case: paper stick figures), but are actually mostly computer animated as well. Each starts from a certain topic, and goes on a crazy ride from there. The first one ("Cry of the Revolver Cannon!") is hosted by Gotoh, as he discusses Patlabor fire arms and general concepts of ballistics. Gotoh isn't the star here though. His discussion seems a bit stretched at times. The fun part of the short is the animation itself. It’s actually kind of funny on its own. Another highlight from this, and the following shorts, is Ohta. He's even more insane here (to an unintelligible level), and absolutely hilarious. The second is the best of the pack: "Ah, the Glory of the '98 AV!". As you can guess, it's about the Patlabors themselves, but it's also a brilliant satire of mecha anime in general. This one is hosted by the funny and fast talking Shiba. You'll really get a crack out of all the little references, from Voltron and Gundam, to Evangelion, its take on mecha toys, and the stereotypical characters of these shows. It’s nice to know that the creators of Patlabor don't take themselves seriously. Episode 3: "The Secret of the Special Vehicle 2" centers on Shinobu's tale of the secret story of Unit 2. It starts of from what we do know of the Patlabor world, and then humorously turns it all upside down. This one is basically a self satire, mostly composed of cartoon versions of scenes from Patlabor past (specially the movies). You'll miss a lot of the humor if you're not familiar with the Patlabor flicks. But if you're familiar with Spielberg, you'll get a nice little reference at the end. -- All in all, some really funny stuff.

Video: Presented in a flawless 1.78:1 aspect ratio transfer that shows off the vibrant colors.

Audio: 2.0Ch and 5.1Ch audio tracks available. Maybe not as dynamic as in WXIII, the 5.1 is quite good. The rear speakers are used mostly used for music and a few sound effects.

Extras: The "making of" is almost 35 min. long (it's longer than the feature!). If I have any complaint it's that it runs for a bit too long. It can get a bit boring at times. Still, more is better than less, as us capitalist say. It covers from conceptualization, art design, animation tests, dialog recording, to computer work and music. It’s composed of interviews, and recordings from the people at work. The best stuff here is the brilliant cast doing some crazy dialog. Also, the animators having a great time doing tests by playing with stick figures. The "making of" is followed by two versions of the intro (text-less & karaoke), and finally a 15 sec. TV spot.

Subtitles: Definitely not as good as WXIII. They misspell some words and names, but not too drastically though.

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WOW. I think this review got a bit out of hand. Anyway, in conclusion: SWEET JESUS! I wasn't expecting this! I wasn't expecting anything! If you have the most remote interest in Patlabor, noir films, detective stories, horror movies, or zany anime comedy, get this set. It’s the most complete HK-DVD made thus far.