Studio: Production I.G.
Director: Mamoru
Oshii
Screenplay: Kazunori
Itō
Voice Cast: Jinpachi
Nezu as Yukihito Tsuge; Ryunosuke Ohbayashi as Kiichi Gotoh; Yoshiko Sakakibara
as Shinobu Nagumo; Daisuke Gouri as Hiromi Yamazaki; Issei Futamata as Mikiyasu
Shinshi; Michihiro Ikemizu as Isao Ohta; Miina Tominaga as Noa Izumi; Naoto
Takenaka as Shigeki Arakawa; Osamu Saka as Seitaro Sakaki; Shigeru Chiba as
Shigeo Shiba; Tomomichi Nishimura as Detective Matsui; Toshio Furukawa as Asuma
Shinohara
Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles
Moving on from
the first 1989 Patlabor film, a
great deal changed even in terms of character designs, the original character
designs of Akemi Takada from the
first film (with Masami Yūki contributing
here) moving to a notably more realistic tone alongside the mood of this
sequel. That is not to say all has changed – humour is still here, as this
franchise follows Tokyo Metropolitan Police Special Vehicle Section 2, Division
2, consisting of a large lovable nitwits kept together by Kiichi Gotoh.
This film’s
story however feels like a proper start to director Mamoru Oshii’s serious era as a director, in mind to the likes of Angel’s Egg (1985) in-between his
comedies beforehand, with a huge emphasis needed to for how screenwriter Kazunori Itō is an integral part to the
film’s virtues and deserves his credit greatly. The tonal shift is noticeable
though, in mind that over the three films for this franchise, let alone the OVA
series and the other entries, the Patlabor
project created by Headgear - a group
consisting of manga artist Masami Yūki,
director Mamoru Oshii, screenwriter Kazunori Itō, mecha designer Yutaka Izubuchi, and character designer Akemi Takada - the franchise has juggled
multiple tones over the multi-media formats it has been adapted into. There has
been an emphasis on different characters in Division 2 over these different
tiles. Noa Izumi, the plucky female member who loves her Patlabor manga, was central to other entries, whilst over the three
films you have Asuma Shinohara central to the first 1989 film's action mystery,
and WXIII: Patlabor the Movie 3 (2001)
focusing on police detectives Kusumi and Hata in what becomes a monster film. Patlabor 2 follows Kiichi Gotoh himself
with Shinobu Nagumo, the female captain of Division 1, as the central leads in
a political thriller.
A cerebral
political thriller, which just exists in a future 2002, this begins in a
prologue set in South America for a military skirmish, where a man named Yukihito
Tsuge as the last survivor of his squad who intends his revenge a long time
later on his homeland of Japan. This revenge is a terror campaign on Tokyo
which, in its many stages, exploits all the flaws in the bureaucracy. How this
is show is startling and where the themes come in, dealing with a post World
War II Japan which has lived in peace, Goto representing this and Tsuge becoming
a figure who wishes to bring the terror of war to the Japanese public. Tsuge's
plan uses something as seemingly simplistic as exploding a car on a bridge,
without casualties, to start the domino effect where everything starts to
collapse to his advantage. There is a heightened piece of melodrama as,
disgracing her early in her career and undercutting her ability to progress, Nagumo
had a romantic affair Tsuge when he was married and teaching her in the early
stages of her career, causing a drama in how she will have to be the one to
catch Tsuge when possible, the emotions hanging over her head.
The Japanese Self-Defense Force is a target
of the film, the film created in the aftermath, in 1992, when the National Diet, the legislative branch of
Japan’s government, passed the U.N. Peacekeeping
Cooperation Law that permits the JSDF
to participate in U.N. operations
under strictly limited conditions, which led to the JSDF participating in U.N.
peacekeeping and monitoring operations in Cambodia and Mozambique1. Oshii and Kazunori Itō's film clearly viewed this in a very negative light,
as the prologue is set in such a peacekeeping operation where, not allowed to
directly attack the enemy, former JSDF member Yukihito Tsuge as a captain found
his entire squad wiped out, and his revenge involves using the resulting power
struggle he creates between the Tokyo
Metropolitan PD and the JSDF to
his advantage. This story, and how it becomes part of the discussions on war as
a concept against peace in Patlabor 2,
is more meaningful when one is aware of this history footnote.
How the plan Tsuge
has goes is fascinating, including the film still tapping into salient details
of how organizations can make huge mistakes, all timeless in spite of this film
being set into the 2000s. Hubris and a terrorist group able to exploit this
come into mind here, such as deliberately bringing suspicions to the military
for the car explosion, or having the police and military at each other’s
throats in a misguided power flex from the police’s leaders. Other tactics,
like blowing up bridges or finding a way to take out military vehicles with
ease, i.e. causing martial law to have to be brought into place so they are on
the streets like sitting ducks, are uncomfortable realistic as tactics if there
were enough resources for someone to use. Even more overtly tropes from action
films, like blimps which fake out mock chemical gas attacks when shot down,
come with the theme in this of Tsuge to cause terror on a public who have never
seen conflict. This is obvious but prescient in mind to how, when in a war back
in the 30s and 40s, Japan was utterly destroyed and required to be rebuilt from
the ground up decades, leaving lasting scars anime like this have tackled as a
theme decades later.
It is an Oshii film as an auteur, his focus on
contemplative scenes and dialogue exchanges fully here. Even the one playful
touch of including a Bassett hound in a cameo throughout his career at this
point onwards, a breed of dog he is obsessed with, appears here near the end.
This is however a team effort and screenwriter Kazunori Itō just with this film would have won currency from fans
of the medium for how well done this is. Production
I.G. is on top form here, and whilst there is a noticeable change in the
character designs, it is not as drastic as presumed. The characters are far
more realistic in appearance, but it is credit to the film, alongside some of
the intricate mechanical animation here, that it feels not as abrupt a change
between two films. Again as well, there were three films, and the third film,
not involving Mamoru Oshii nor Itō, looks just as different as a film
into the 2000s where the switch to digitally animation techniques is noticeable
on productions, so the franchise has always had an edge of letting each of the
stories, least for these films, be different. The music by Kenji Kawai, as with the first film, shows as well why he was as
integral to the image of Mamoru Oshii
films, or more aptly also how they sound, adding an additional depth to what
has gained significance as one of the best anime films from the nineties with
considerable reason.
This is more so
as, in another team’s hands, it would be still a good film if done well, an
action anime which could still tell this story but in a more overtly comedic
and over-the-top fashion. This could work as a more pulpy narrative, and still
could have been a great anime, and it says a lot that when the humour is here,
such as the sudden mission to buy everything edible in a store from Division 2
members, it still matches Patlabor 1
because the characters were established as a team of miscreants who just
happened to be a police force. The decision, even with these characters, to
take this cerebral tone which Oshii
himself would run with from Ghost in the
Shell (1995), the lengthy contemplative visual scenes, the extended
philosophical discussions between characters, and match it with action scenes,
when they happen, which was distinct and effective at its best. Together both
films are admirable in their virtues, and it is not a surprise as well how
greatly regarded the sequel is just by itself.
======
1) Patlabor:
The Movie 2 (1993) Movie Review, written by Erick Kown for Beyond
Hollywood, published on October 11th 2004.
