{"id":76150,"date":"2024-01-14T01:27:01","date_gmt":"2024-01-14T01:27:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.alltheanime.com\/?p=30482"},"modified":"2024-01-14T01:27:01","modified_gmt":"2024-01-14T01:27:01","slug":"patlabor-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gamefootballmobileanimeiphone.com\/index.php\/2024\/01\/14\/patlabor-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Patlabor 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Andrew Osmond.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

The first Patlabor <\/em>film is an excellent cerebral thriller. Patlabor 2 The Movie<\/a><\/em>, though, is an artistic statement. Thirty years old, it\u2019s still the anime that feels<\/em> the most like live-action. It\u2019s only tangentially a mecha film, with the title Patlabors on screen for a fraction of the running time. This is really a film about terrorism, and terror\u2019s effects on a \u201cdeveloped\u201d country, eight yearsbefore 9\/11. Like Ghost in the Shell<\/em>, it\u2019s a conspiracy thriller with arthouse leanings. But it\u2019s also memorable for a charged forbidden-love subplot, which adds so much to its beauty.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

As in the first Patlabor<\/em> film, Tokyo comes under an oblique threat, a mindgame. A bridge is destroyed by a missile that flies out of nowhere; a phantom plane causes panic in Tokyo\u2019s airspace. The Patlabor <\/em>characters are approached by a security insider, a comically sinister-looking agent called Arakawa, looking like a sneering vampire. He\u2019s the film\u2019s Deep Throat informant about what\u2019s going on, and he wants the Patlabor <\/em>team to investigate privately.<\/p>\n

To be precise, Arakawa consults the team\u2019s captains, Goto and Shinobu. Fans of Patlabor <\/em>will be familiar with these two\u2019s professional relationship, and the teases that it could go further. A year before Patlabor 2<\/em>, there was a memorable video Patlabor <\/em>episode (part of Patlabor: The New Files<\/em>), in which Goto and Shinobu must spend the night together at a love hotel, though the story veered between tantalising and creepy. The pair\u2019s portrait in Patlabor 2<\/em> is subtler. Early on, there\u2019s a gem of a scene when Shinobu rages at Goto for going behind his back, with Goto looking hilariously childish as he tries to mollify her.<\/p>\n

But this is a film about grown-ups. In 2002, Oshii said, \u201cI find that I\u2019m no longer much interested in female characters that are younger than thirty.\u201d His comment also seems to apply to males. The film starts by cheekily misleading Patlabor<\/em> fans. Following a pre-title prologue, we spend several minutes with the youngsters Noa and Shinohara, who usually take the leads in the Patlabor<\/em> stories. But in Patlabor 2<\/em>, they\u2019re quickly relegated to bit-part duties, with only a few more scenes \u2013 and one of those scenes shows Noa resolving to be more grown up.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

At the same time, the grown-ups can\u2019t forget their youth. The big shock in the story is what it reveals about Captain Shinobu, who we\u2019ve always respected for her coolheaded leadership. Now we learn that when she was younger, Shinobu was a star member of a Labor R&D team. There she had a forbidden relationship\u2026 with her married teacher, Tsuge, whom Arakawa claims is behind the Tokyo attacks.<\/p>\n

While technically a subplot, this strand gives Patlabor 2<\/em> its beating heart. Oshii\u2019s later Ghost in the Shell<\/em> would have yearning frissons between Kusanagi and the Puppet Master, but Patlabor 2<\/em> serves up full-blooded film noir<\/em> romance. As in Ghost<\/em>, one of Patlabor 2<\/em>\u2019s most exquisite sequences takes place on a canal. Shinobu takes a boat through a snow-specked night, until she sees her quarry. Her expression remains impassive, but a train runs in the background behind her, its lighted windows opening her soul. Then Shinobu points a gun and shouts for Tsuge to stop, her voice ringing with desperation. It\u2019s one of the most romantically charged cinema moments in anime.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s exquisite, but there are other rich sequences. One is a hushed, lyrical wordless interlude where tanks and soldiers are stationed in Tokyo to guard the city. Tokyo is defamiliarised; each shot becomes a study in incongruity because of the military\u2019s inescapable presence in the frame. Yet we see daily urban life continue around this occupation. Finally there is soft-falling snow, anticipating the rain in Ghost.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

The soldiers may be Japanese, but this sequence conjures memories of Japan\u2019s occupation by American military from 1945 to 1952, and its legacy of the American army bases dotted around Japan. There was similar \u201cOccupation\u201d imagery in 1988\u2019s Akira<\/em> and 1969\u2019s The Flying Ghost Ship<\/em>; in the latter anime, massive tanks smash the cars of terrified civilians. But the situation in Patlabor 2<\/em> is framed as an object lesson to the audience. How would you<\/em> respond to a \u201cterror\u201d crisis, and would your reactions only make the situation worse?<\/p>\n

Oshii\u2019s scenario is the grim antithesis of a film like Mamoru Hosoda\u2019s 2009 Summer Wars<\/em>. In Hosoda\u2019s film, Japan is thrown into chaos when an A.I. programme wreaks havoc with the nation\u2019s infrastructure \u2013 exactly the kind of situation Oshii loves. However, Hosoda has Japan being protected by a wise, elderly, influential matriarch with a samurai spirit, who marshals Japan\u2019s leaders, old and<\/em> young, to fight the enemy. In Patlabor 2<\/em>, Tsuge\u2019s attacks teach the reverse lesson. Japan\u2019s leaders can only escalate the crisis, immersed in their power play and blinkered strategies.<\/p>\n

Again, Shinobu is used to advance the film\u2019s case. There\u2019s a long scene where she browbeats her own all-male superiors in a conference room, and it\u2019s terrific. It\u2019s like the more openly sexy tongue-lash in Satoshi Kon\u2019s Paprika<\/em>, where the icy woman scientist Chiba lays into the geek genius Tokita: \u201cJust indulge in your freakish masturbation!\u201d Just moments after the browbeating, Shinobu is smacking black-suited men down in an elevator. By Oshii\u2019s standards, it\u2019s wondrously crowdpleasing.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

But there\u2019s one more important sequence in the film that\u2019s very different, and arguably represents the real<\/em> Oshii. It\u2019s abstract, there\u2019s a didactic monologue, and it takes the film far outside what we\u2019d expect from a thriller. It involves Goto travelling to headquarters on a speedboat, travelling through Patlabor<\/em>\u2019s familiar setting of Tokyo Bay\u2026 although it\u2019s an exceptionally bleak Bay, under an overcast, bruise-coloured sky. Goto doesn\u2019t speak, but we hear a conversation he had earlier, with the vampiric Deep Throat agent, Arakawa.<\/p>\n

This sequence is so far \u201coutside\u201d normal Patlabor<\/em> that Goto isn\u2019t even on screen for most of it. Instead we get slow panning shots of the Bay\u2019s infrastructure, bleak and ostensibly ugly, but lifted to an austere beauty by the film\u2019s artists. Atop that, there\u2019s Kenji Kawai\u2019s ambient soundtrack, softly lapping as in the \u201coccupied Tokyo\u201d sequence. Mostly we\u2019re not hearing Goto in this sequence but Arakawa, a character that Patlabor<\/em> fans don\u2019t know from Adam, imposed on us without warning.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard not to think of Arakawa\u2019s voice as Oshii\u2019s own spoken commentary on the film. A decade earlier, in 1984 masterpiece Urusei Yatsura: Beautiful Dreamer<\/em>, Oshii had included a deeply mysterious shot of a strange boy looking through a window at one of the lost characters. This boy never appears anywhere else in the film. Oshii later commented, \u201cIt\u2019s an outsider looking in. Basically, it\u2019s me, the director.\u201d In Patlabor 2<\/em>, Arakawa\u2019s heavy voice is that of actor Naoto Takenaka. Ironically he\u2019d go on to dub Samuel Jackson\u2019s Nick Fury in the Marvel movies, embodying the military heroic fantasy that Patlabor 2<\/em> mocks.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

In another interview, Oshii said, \u201cWith sequels like Beautiful Dreamer<\/em>, Patlabor 2<\/em> and Innocence<\/em> [Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence<\/em>], the only way I can take them on is to bring them into my own \u2018field.\u2019\u201d Notably, all three Oshii films include prominent monologues that seemingly channel the director\u2019s thoughts. It\u2019s something that viewers may see as either an exasperating indulgence, or as an auteur breaking with commercial templates \u2013 Oshii studied Jean-Luc Godard, after all. His approach isn\u2019t unique in anime, though; there were similar monologue devices in the rural scenes of Isao Takahata\u2019s Only Yesterday<\/em>, made two years before Patlabor 2<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Arakawa talks of Japan\u2019s role in the modern world, acting as an unsinkable aircraft carrier for American aggression. Near the end of the film, it\u2019s casually suggested that America is waiting for the chance to turn the clock back to 1945 and control Japan directly again. Despite being enemies, Arakawa and Tsuge clearly agree on these points, and Oshii too. In an email to Brian Ruh, author of Stray Dog of Anime: The Films of Mamoru Oshii, <\/em>the director was unequivocal. \u201cTsuge is the other self of Mamoru Oshii. Tsuge\u2019s political thoughts and opinions, if there are any, are all mine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oshii had been an activist back in his high school days. Like many of his peers, he opposed the postwar relationship between Japan and America, where bogus rhetoric about \u201cpacifism\u201d hid Japan\u2019s complicity in US aggression. In Patlabor 2<\/em>, Arakawa and Goto talk about \u201cunjust peace,\u201d which Arakawa suggests is merely war redefined. While these arguments go back decades, and mirror the views of activists far beyond Japan, Patlabor 2<\/em> had a more recent real-world catalyst.  <\/p>\n

The film was made just as Japan\u2019s Self-Defence Force \u2013 the country\u2019s military force, ostensibly established for protective purposes \u2013 was operating overseas for the first time. In 1991, SDF minesweepers went to the Persian Gulf in the aftermath of the Gulf War. A year later, hundreds of SDF soldiers went to Cambodia for non-combat duties, such as repairing roads.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

That\u2019s referenced in Patlabor 2<\/em>\u2019s pre-title prologue, which shows SDF soldiers in UN helmets, operating military Patlabors \u201csomewhere in south-east Asia.\u201d The SDF soldiers are targeted by hostiles, but their command HQ forbids <\/em>them from engaging, as that\u2019s ruled as an offensive action by a defensive force. In the panic, most of the Japanese soldiers are killed. The rest of the film is framed as a response to this military sophistry, which put the soldiers in a lethal position.<\/p>\n

Taken literally, the story in Patlabor 2 <\/em>isn\u2019t much more credible than a summer action blockbuster. Instead, this is a poetic, artful film \u2013 I haven\u2019t even mentioned the plethora of bird imagery, which Oshii claimed had no symbolic meaning, but which is full of the spiritual yearning that would be fulfilled in Ghost in the Shell<\/em>. And yet Patlabor 2<\/em> has a sobriety, a maturity and a contemporary grounding that make it feel<\/em> extraordinarily like live-action – more than Perfect Blue<\/em>, Grave of the Fireflies<\/em>, Your Name<\/em> or indeed Ghost in the Shell<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The film\u2019s aesthetics help enormously. On the excellent Anim\u00e9tudes<\/em> site, Matteo Watzky has an extensive article on Patlabor 2<\/em>\u2019s production. Compared to the first film\u2019s designs, Watzky says, \u201cCharacters feel older, more mature and meditative\u2026 They are also far less \u2018anime-like\u2019\u2026 Noses and chins became much rounder, eyes smaller and the features of the face are generally heavier\u2026 I\u2019d say that their most essential feature is their minimalism \u2013 the lack of details, but also of distinct expressions, which makes them particularly well-adapted to the mysterious, slow, mood of the movie\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

While there\u2019d be a third Patlabor<\/em> anime feature eight years later, it would be very different and would not involve Oshii. The director would revisit the film in 2015, in the live-action feature The Next Generation Patlabor – Tokyo War<\/em>, which serves as both a remake and a sequel. There are also echoes of Patlabor 2<\/em> in an anime series by Oshii\u2019s prot\u00e9g\u00e9 Kenji Kamiyama, called Eden of the East<\/em>. Made by Production I.G in 2009, it\u2019s a comedy thriller, but it provocatively suggests many Japanese youngsters wish<\/em> for a terror attack like the one in Patlabor 2<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Kamiyama told me, \u201cIn Eden<\/em>, I wasn\u2019t specifically inspired by Oshii, but after I made the series, there were people saying that it looked like my interpretation of some themes taken up by Oshii in Patlabor 2<\/em>. So I realised there was probably something inside me, but it wasn\u2019t a specific inspiration, I didn\u2019t have it in mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

More recently still, Production I.G made Psycho-Pass: Sinners of the System<\/em>, a trio of cinema films set in the SF world of Psycho-Pass<\/em>, and directed by that franchise\u2019s mainstay, Naoyoshi Shiotani. The middle Sinners<\/em> film, \u201cFirst Guardian\u201d also has soldiers betrayed by their superiors, while there\u2019s a shadowy antagonist who might be dead already, and an airborne attack on a Ministry of Defence building that openly homages a similar sequence in Patlabor 2<\/em>\u2026 Except that the attack scene in the first film was far more bleakly beautiful.<\/p>\n

Andrew Osmond is the author of 100 Animated Feature Films<\/a><\/em>. Patlabor 2<\/a><\/em> is being released in the UK by Anime Limited. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Commercials Cooperation Advertisements:<\/b><\/h2>\r\n


(1) IT Teacher IT Freelance
<\/p>\r\nIT\u96fb\u8166\u88dc\u7fd2<\/a>

\u7acb\u523b\u8a3b\u518a\u53ca\u5831\u540d\u96fb\u8166\u88dc\u7fd2\u8ab2\u7a0b\u5427! <\/a>
\r\n\r\n\u7535\u5b50\u8ba1\u7b97\u673a -\u6559\u80b2 -IT \u96fb\u8166\u73ed\u201d ( IT\u96fb\u8166\u88dc\u7fd2 ) \u63d0\u4f9b\u4e00\u500b\u65b9\u4fbf\u7684\u7535\u5b50\u8ba1\u7b97\u673a \u6559\u80b2\u5e73\u53f0, \u70ba\u5927\u5bb6\u914d\u5c0d\u4fe1\u606f\u6280\u672f, \u96fb\u8166 \u8001\u5e2b, IT freelance \u548c programming expert. \u8b93\u5927\u5bb6\u65b9\u4fbf\u5730\u5c31\u80fd\u627e\u5230\u5408\u9069\u7684\u96fb\u8166\u88dc\u7fd2, \u96fb\u8166\u73ed, \u5bb6\u6559, \u79c1\u4eba\u8001\u5e2b.
\r\n\r\nWe are a education and information platform which you can find a IT private tutorial teacher or freelance.
\r\n\r\nAlso we provide different information about information technology, Computer, programming, mobile, Android, apple, game, movie, anime, animation\u2026 \r\n<\/p>\n


(2) ITSec
<\/p>https:\/\/itsec.vip\/\r\nSecure<\/a> \r\n

\r\n

www.ITSec.vip<\/a>

\r\n

www.Sraa.com.hk<\/a>

\r\n

www.ITSec.hk<\/a>

\r\n

www.Penetrationtest.hk<\/a>

\r\n

www.ITSeceu.uk<\/a>

\r\nSecure Your Computers from Cyber Threats and mitigate risks with professional services to defend Hackers.

\r\nITSec provide IT Security and Compliance Services, including IT Compliance Services, Risk Assessment, IT Audit, Security Assessment and Audit, ISO 27001 Consulting and Certification, GDPR Compliance Services, Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA), Penetration test, Ethical Hacking, Vulnerabilities scan, IT Consulting, Data Privacy Consulting, Data Protection Services, Information Security Consulting, Cyber Security Consulting, Network Security Audit, Security Awareness Training. \r\n

Contact us right away.

Email (Prefer using email to contact us):
SalesExecutive@ITSec.vip<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Andrew Osmond. The first Patlabor film is an excellent cerebral thriller. Patlabor 2 The Movie, though, is an artistic statement. Thirty years old, it\u2019s still the anime that feels the most like live-action. It\u2019s only tangentially a mecha film, with the title Patlabors on screen for a fraction of the running time. This is [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":105,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-container-style":"default","site-container-layout":"default","site-sidebar-layout":"default","disable-article-header":"default","disable-site-header":"default","disable-site-footer":"default","disable-content-area-spacing":"default","footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[61,122,127,129,124,128,125,132,131,133,126,130,123,66,94,88,97,56,64,65,60,112,40,75,95,104,33,120,105,101,98,115,30,29,41,86,70,69,68,72,71,26,118,108,87,46,55,48,52,54,51,50,83,62,58,57,109,35,59,63,85,79,82,96,80,27,81,114,44,42,43,45,38,39,110,117,100,111,116,73,89,90,92,91,93,84,20219,78,37,102,34,36,77,67,74,99,113,119,28,121,32,47,49,53,103,31,76],"class_list":["post-76150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anime","tag-airpods","tag-anime","tag-anime-characters","tag-anime-cosplay","tag-anime-edits","tag-anime-merchandise","tag-anime-movies","tag-anime-news","tag-anime-recommendations","tag-anime-reviews","tag-anime-series","tag-anime-streaming","tag-animes","tag-app-store","tag-app-store-samsung","tag-appgallery","tag-appgallery-oneplus","tag-apple","tag-apple-music","tag-apple-tv","tag-apple-watch","tag-bbc-sport","tag-best-mobile-games","tag-bixby","tag-bixby-xiaomi","tag-champions-league","tag-cyberpunk","tag-cyberpunk-2077","tag-fantasy-football","tag-fifa","tag-football","tag-formula-1","tag-fortnite","tag-free-fire","tag-free-mobile-games","tag-freebuds-pro","tag-galaxy-a52","tag-galaxy-note-20","tag-galaxy-s21","tag-galaxy-watch-4","tag-galaxy-z-fold-3","tag-game","tag-games","tag-golf","tag-harmonyos","tag-how-to-backup-iphone","tag-how-to-factory-reset-iphone","tag-how-to-reset-iphone","tag-how-to-restore-iphone","tag-how-to-unlock-iphone","tag-how-to-unlock-iphone-5","tag-how-to-unlock-iphone-6","tag-huawei","tag-ios","tag-ipad","tag-iphone","tag-live-soccer","tag-lol","tag-macbook","tag-macos","tag-mate-40-pro","tag-mi-11-lite","tag-mi-home-security-camera-basic-1080p","tag-mi-home-security-camera-basic-1080p-huawei","tag-mi-smart-band-6","tag-minecraft","tag-miui","tag-mlb-scores","tag-mobile-game-design","tag-mobile-game-development","tag-mobile-game-marketing","tag-mobile-game-monetization","tag-mobile-games","tag-mobile-gaming","tag-nba-scores","tag-nba-standings","tag-nfl","tag-nfl-scores","tag-nhl-scores","tag-one-ui","tag-oneplus","tag-oneplus-9-pro","tag-oneplus-buds-pro","tag-oneplus-nord-ce-5g","tag-oxygenos","tag-p40-pro-plus","tag-patlabor","tag-poco-x3-pro","tag-pokemon","tag-premier-league","tag-pubg","tag-pubg-mobile","tag-redmi-note-10-pro","tag-samsung","tag-samsung-pay","tag-soccer","tag-sports","tag-steam","tag-steeam","tag-top-10-anime","tag-valorant","tag-when-do-the-iphone-7-come-out","tag-when-does-the-iphone-7-come-out","tag-when-is-the-iphone-7-coming-out","tag-world-cup","tag-xbox-series-x","tag-xiaomi"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gamefootballmobileanimeiphone.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gamefootballmobileanimeiphone.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gamefootballmobileanimeiphone.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gamefootballmobileanimeiphone.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/105"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gamefootballmobileanimeiphone.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76150"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gamefootballmobileanimeiphone.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76150\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76151,"href":"https:\/\/gamefootballmobileanimeiphone.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76150\/revisions\/76151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gamefootballmobileanimeiphone.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gamefootballmobileanimeiphone.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gamefootballmobileanimeiphone.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}