Format: Region A Blu-ray, NTSC, Japanese Dialogue with optional English Dub and English Subtitles
Length: 101 minutes, 13 minutes x 3 episodes (Minipato)
Production Date: 2001, 2002 (Minipato)
Currently in Print (as of writing): Yes
Set in the year 2000, two years before the events of “Patlabor 2 the movie”, “WXIII Patlabor the movie 3” opens with a shot of a fishing boat out in Tokyo bay. The captain complains to a fellow fisherman over the radio about recent small hauls when a cargo plane flying overhead catches his attention. Before it crashes into the sea, the contents of the plane spill out of it; very large fish and various other sea creatures fall into the ocean, some hitting the boat causing it to rock violently. Two months later Detectives Takashi Kusumi and his younger partner Schinichiro Hata, are called in on a Labor accident in the harbour. A number of Labors have been attacked and their pilots killed, with this being the fourth case. This time there isn’t much left of the Labor pilot. While leaving the car park near the crime scene, Hata notices a woman having trouble with her car and offers her a lift to the university.
At police headquarters, Kusumi goes over the current Labor case they are working on. Four Labors have been damaged, and several pilots have been killed or hurt. All have been Schaft Labors which leads to speculation the incidents may have been terrorist attacks. However the trail leads them to mysterious giant goby which have appeared in the bay. They’re in same area where the attacks have taken place. In fact the attacks started 10 days after the cargo plane crashed. The timing is too much of a coincidence and the detectives decide to check out the plane wreck. One of the recovered containers, being shipped to a company called Hermes Enterprises, has been ripped open as if a large animal attacked it. Meanwhile another Labor has been attacked. This time it is an undersea unmanned Labor, a Hishii Labor, not a Schaft Labor. The video from the Labor's camera shows a sea animal’s gills and its flipper. Kusumi and Hata investigate Hermes Enterprises and discover they are a dummy corporation.
After Kusumi discovers a lighter in Hata's car, Hata realises it belongs to the woman he gave a lift to. More than a little interested in her, he decides to return it to her. She tells him her name is Saeko Misaki, and she works as a professor at the university. The two start talking and end up seeing each other regularly. After finishing a date with Hata one night, Misaki takes her large suitcase out to one of the piers in Tokyo Bay. Later Hata sources some TV news footage of the plane crash. On the tape, there is a US military boat recovering the plane, and US military personnel on board the boat. A lip reader tells them that one of the men says in English, "Check", "Capsule", and "Baker's Dozen". She can't make out the whole conversation.
Whilst hitching a ride with fellow police officers, Hata and Kusumi are drawn into investigating a power outage at the Babylon Sector Storage Facility. They are unable to get in contact with any of the staff there, and the officers can see that none of the lights are on at the facility. The officers and Hata and Kusumi enter the building and investigate but nobody seems to be inside. The power returns and a large and quite bizarre monster appears and starts to attack the staff and police officers. Some are killed, but Hata and Kusumi manage to escape. While trying to pin down and eat Kusumi, the monster falls into the cowling of a Labor and into the bay and disappears under the water. The police later manage to obtain some genetic material from the creature, and Hata escorts one of the team from forensics to the Toto Medical Lab to have the tissue analysed. While waiting in the foyer he sees Saeko and discovers she works there. She invites him into her office for a coffee and is surprised to learn he is a police officer.
Kusumi discovers that the cargo plane previously stopped over at the Marshall Islands where US Military Facilities are located. He also manages to link Toto Medical Lab with Hermes Enterprises. The pieces are coming together, but soon Kusumi realises that Hata is seeing Saeko and that she along with others from Toto Medical Labs are key suspects Hata doesn't want to believe she could be involved in this, and sets out to prove him wrong. Unfortunately at every turn he takes, it seems that Kusumi was right. In fact she's in deeper than they ever suspected. Hata desperately tries to find her to ask her why she has done the things she did, but cannot find her wherever he looks.
“Minipato” is a collection three short “super deformed” films involving the characters from the Special Vehicles Unit 2 (SV2). In the first episode Captain Gotoh introduces the audience to the guns that the Patlabor units use, and discusses the ammunition and the impracticalities of them. Shige introduces the audience to the Ingram AV-98 Patlabor and discusses the history of robot anime and how Patlabor came to be. In the final episode Captain Shinobu reports on the main problem the SV2 faces; food. She tells the story of how the members of the SV2 became addicted to dried Goby. To solve Goby shortages, Gotoh practically turns the fishing and drying of Goby into an industry, and ends up marketing Goby over the internet.
“WXIII Patlabor the movie 3” is the much maligned third instalment of the “Patlabor” films. Originally conceived to be an OVA in 1994 as a side story not involving any of the characters from the original series despite being based on one of the manga stories, it eventually was announced as a film in 1997. The original studio producing it, Triangle Staff, went bankrupt and the film was eventually produced by Madhouse and made its debut at the Tokyo International Fantastic Film Festival on 10 December 2001, but wasn't released in cinemas until March 2002. Whereas the original films were written by Kazunori Ito and directed by Mamoru Oshii, this film is written by the relatively unknown Tori-Miki and directed by the underrated Takayama Fumihiko (of “Orguss 02” and "Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket" fame).
Fumihiko (with thanks to the music by Kenji Kawai) does his best Mamoru Oshii impersonation. Well, visually at least. There are no long Oshii-esque philosophical monologues from any of the characters in the film. Like the first two films, and indeed the Patlabor franchise as a whole, there isn’t much Labor (robot) action in the film at all, save the last 10 or so minutes of the film. In fact there isn’t a lot of action at all, save for the monster sequences. The SV2 appear for 10 minutes or less in the 101 minute runtime, so it’s not really a Patlabor film at all. What we have instead is a detective story with monster movie and military conspiracy tacked on. Not only does the movie delete most of the SV2 scenes from the manga story it was based on, it also removes the two original detectives (Matsui and his partner), and replaces them. Those detectives also appeared in the first two films. I don’t know why they did this as I think it caused confusion amongst some people who had seen those films.
Interestingly most of the monster sub-plot of this film seems very similar to the 1989 movie “Godzilla Vs Biollante”. Make of that what you will. Depending on if you are a fan of Patlabor or not, you may or may not enjoy this film. I think to a degree you could watch it without knowing anything at all about that franchise. As a suspense/detective film it works reasonably well. Fumihiko for the most part builds up the tension well and the film just looks fantastic. However some of the plot involving the monster is rather hard to swallow such as parts of the explanation of the monster’s behaviour comes off as forced. But the key to the film is the relationship between Hata and Saeko as well as Hata’s working relationship with his detective partner Kusumi. Those parts are particularly well written.
This release from Maiden Japan (Sentai Filmworks’ other video label) comes as a bit of a surprise. I really wasn’t expecting them to release “Minipato” on blu-ray as it’s never had anything but a DVD release in Japan. Unlike the main film which looks fantastic (and has a much better English translation in the subtitles than the old Pioneer version), it looks rather low resolution, and is presented in letterboxed 4:3, though so were the Japanese, US and Australian DVDs. “Minipato” is quite a treat for fans of the franchise with direction by a pre-Ghost the Shell Kenji Kamiyama and scripts by Mamoru Oshii. It’s dialogue heavy, but fun. The animation is essentially done with filmed paper puppets on sticks, then with animation matted over the top with CG effects. I don’t know if it works all the time, but it is an intriguing and amusing series of shorts. The limitations of the CG of the time are apparent unfortunately.
Unfortunately Maiden Japan’s BD lacks all of the extras all of the previous English language home video versions this film had. It’s a bare bones release. Summing up, the main feature has the misfortune of living up to expectations it can’t fulfill due to “Patlabor” being in its title. As a release in the franchise, it is a bit of a curio. If you forget it's a “Patlabor” movie, then it is a pretty interesting detective/suspense/monster film that mostly hits its mark. “Minipato” is hilarious but is for fans only. This disc gets 7 out of 10 from me.
Remaining Backlog: Four series, 11 movies, two OVAs also waiting for second parts for two shows to be released before viewing them.
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