My Thoughts on Patlabor 2: The Movie

This is the third installment in the Patlabor franchise I've watched, and it's safe to say that my feelings on it so far has been very mixed. It's not terrible, there are enjoyable things about it, but there have also been a lot of dull moments. There are interesting ideas but not the greatest execution, in my eyes. The first movie was an improvement on the original OVA that started the series, mainly due to being written and directed by Mamoru Oshii, who is a lesser known legend of the time but a legend none the less mainly due to being the creator of Ghost in the Shell, Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, Angel's Egg, and Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade. Also I'm pretty sure he created the Ghost in the Shell manga too, but I could be wrong about that. And this movie is also better, but again only marginally once again. The biggest problem I had with the previous two installments is that I found it difficult to care that much about the characters. That's something that Gundam and even Macross had above Patlabor. The main purpose of those anime were the philosophical themes of course, but they had interesting characters used as vectors to relay those themes. That's also the case about the Ghost in the Shell movies that Mamoru Oshii did later, too. While that flaw isn't completely fixed here, it is a bit better. My favorite scene in the movie happens not long after the hour mark, where we get this decently lengthy scene of a woman, who's probably the best character in the movie, sails on a boat across some kind of canal. it's snowing, and this scene is successful at being rather sad and melancholy. I was also more invested here than before with the conflict between the police too, and how their constant bickering with each other was clearly making life worse for the citizens they're supposed to be protecting. Like in the previous movie the animation is also pretty good here, not as good as modern anime movies obviously but that should go without saying.