Patlabor WXIII
I've been a Patlabor fan for a long time and wanted to see the final movie, but I delayed viewing because I'd heard it was rather dark and disturbing. The movies in general tend to be somewhat more violent and serious than the TV series or OVAs. WXIII finally climbed to the top of my rent-DVDs-by-mail queue and I sat down to watch. I don't watch all that many anime films, and right off the bat I was surprised at the lush quality of this movie. The character designs are highly realistic (no green hair here), and the animation very detailed. Clearly this one mustn't be watched half-heartedly, but rather demands one's full attention. It quickly became clear that the principal characters are not members of SVD2, but rather police detectives Kusumi and Hata; indeed, for awhile I wondered if the Patlabor crew would appear at all. They finally do show up, but are very much supporting characters. The mystery which Kusumi and Hata unravel was fairly interesting; the obsession which the people behind the Patlabor films have with government conspiracies was very much evident yet again. I was surprised to learn that the "monster" here isn't some sort of rogue Labor, as is usually the case. The solution to the mystery wasn't what I was expecting, but it didn't exactly thrill me either. I found the ending to be unsatisfying; a sad, miserable story rather than a rewarding, meaningful one. Still, the movie wasn't nearly as dark as I'd feared, and packed a lot of technical quality.
Last updated Saturday, July 14 2007. Created Saturday, July 14 2007.
|
