Episode 99: The Patlabor Trilogy

[00:00:19] Speaker A: Hello, everyone, and welcome to Odd Trilogies with Logan and Andy. I'm Logan Sosh. [00:00:23] Speaker B: And I'm Andy Carr. [00:00:23] Speaker A: And on Odd Trilogies, we take a trio of films, whether tied by numerical order, cast and crew, thematic elements, and we talk about the good, the bad, and the weird surrounding each film. Get a little yawn out of there. And today it's actually. It's something that we've kind of talked about for doing for a little while. We wanted to do another anime trilogy for a hot minute, and we didn't want to do Zeta just yet. Even though this year is its 40th, we wanted to really have the special time for our dear friend Evan Dossey to come onto the show to do Zeta. But to fill in that space, we decided to talk about a truly odd trilogy. [00:01:04] Speaker B: Yeah. Odder, I think, than neither of us anticipated. [00:01:07] Speaker A: Yeah. That spans a decade plus has a multimedia franchise surrounding it that kind of basically ends at 2006 or 7. And that is the Bat Labor Trilogy. In case you don't know what that is. That is 1989's Pat the Movie A. 1993's Pat the Movie 2, and then 2001's W13. PatLabor the Movie 3. [00:01:34] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:01:36] Speaker A: Andy's face when I said W13. Because, I mean, honestly, I don't know if Andy was like this when I was watching it, but when I was watching W13, I literally spent a good chunk of it in between because I was very invested in the story. But I also was, like, looking up, how do you pronounce PatLabor3? And every response was PatLabor3. [00:01:58] Speaker B: Right. [00:01:58] Speaker A: I said, that's not what I'm asking. I'm asking the first part of that title. But, yeah. What's fascinating about Pat labor and why we kind of want to talk about is because as to both Gundam fans, fans of just Mecca anime in general, it's hard. [00:02:14] Speaker B: Fans of Evangelion, Gurren Lagann, all kinds of crap. [00:02:18] Speaker A: So it's like it. Of course, when you're in that kind of space, you have people that throw out certain franchises where it's like, oh, this is slipped on. This is underappreciated. This was loved at the time, but isn't talked about much now. Palabor is something that has kind of like crossed both of our paths at separate times. [00:02:34] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:02:34] Speaker A: And so we thought if we wanted to do something, you know, Gundam esque, but not really Gundam. Really. The only Gundam thing about it is the people behind it. [00:02:43] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:02:44] Speaker A: And there's Mechs but vastly different types of mechs. [00:02:48] Speaker B: Yeah. If you're unfamiliar with Patlabor, I've heard it described in the sort of niche community of like real. A real robot fans. Real robot show. Like it's real robot for real robot. And in meaning that as we talked about on the Gundam trilogy, real robot being kind of a sub genre of mecha that basically is surrounding or entails using the robots as like tools of society and depicting society in a way that is somewhat realistic or dealing with more real world conflicts. Like Gundam kind of began the genre by instead of having these super divine or alien, you know, futuristic robots that just come to save Earth from evil forces. The central robot, the Gundam, was now a weapon of war invented by capitalists like, you know, and the conflicts therein are all much more reflective of our real world conflicts. And so Patlabor is kind of an even more hardcore on the. On the real robot sense in that basically the premise of these. This franchise is like, what if this police unit used mechas as one of their main tools of operation. [00:04:14] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:04:15] Speaker B: So they've just got, you know, it's kind of. It's like they use it like a police car almost. [00:04:19] Speaker A: So a good disclaimer too, when talking about this trilogy today is that before the trilogy came out, the manga came out in 88. [00:04:27] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:04:29] Speaker A: Before the first film came out in 89 in Japan, there was an ova, which in case you don't know, that's an original video animation, which were really big from the mid-80s all the way up to like basically the 2000s, 2010s, which is basically. [00:04:45] Speaker B: I mean, usually ova is like take the same format of like a half hour TV show, except it's released like directly to your home or theatrically or whatever, rather than broadcast on tv. [00:04:57] Speaker A: If there's like a. If there's a spectrum or one side of the spectrum is like animation for television, which has constraints, which has very strict budgets, very strict timing. And then there are theatrical films of animation which are like years and years of development, huge budgets. OVAs are kind of the in between. [00:05:15] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:05:16] Speaker A: Where it's like very much like being able to have let creators have bigger budgets for smaller amounts of episodes. [00:05:22] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:05:23] Speaker A: And they're sold directly to the audience through video stores. [00:05:26] Speaker B: Right, Right. Basically on the back end, on the development standpoint, it's more like a movie, but the release format is a little bit more like a television. [00:05:35] Speaker A: Yeah. Ova is now as a phrase and term exists solely as a nostalgic phrase because at this point it's onas, which are original net animations. [00:05:45] Speaker B: Yeah. To me, I just say ova for both. [00:05:48] Speaker A: It sounds cooler, to be honest. [00:05:50] Speaker B: Yeah. I don't even think it's the sounds. [00:05:51] Speaker A: Yeah. I don't even think it's because of the nostalgia of it all. I think it's just ova just kind of rolls off the tongue. But before PatLabor One came out, there was an ova called Pat the Early Days, which was seven episodes of just getting to learn of our little team of people, which is the Special Vehicle Unit 2. Yeah, SV2. And basically the show is giving the backdrop that it is not far in the future. It is not the. It is not 0079 of the universal century. It is not a high, high sci fi environment and is literally the series is coming out in 89 and 88. The series takes place in like 98. 99. [00:06:34] Speaker B: Yeah. It is like a alternate reality. [00:06:37] Speaker A: Yeah. In this world, mechs are basically. They're called Labors, which is why it's called pet labor. Where basically labors were created for construction use. And then other departments decided to co opt laborers. [00:06:50] Speaker B: Yeah. Into different purposes. Military, law enforcement, private sector. And then of course, where you go from there is criminals get a hold of Labors and then you have labor crime, which gets the sv2. So, yeah, I mean, basically Patlabor was kind of conceived as this multimedia, this cross media project by this artist group, Headgear, which is pretty much just kind of an assemblage of a handful of prominent or up and coming artists of the time working in manga and anime in Japan. And, you know, they got together basically just to help one another. Almost kind of like a mini union of sorts is like, okay, we're gonna promote each other's stuff and work together and support each other and also sell ourselves to distributors and producers together. And then the payout is like, we all get to keep our copyrights of our own work rather than forking it over to a studio and doing it for them. And so Patlabor was kind of their initial brainchild, was like, okay, what can we all do together? Let's make this. And that's how we get here with the ova and the manga, which then does well enough to beget the movies. Yeah, there's a TV show in there and video games. [00:08:16] Speaker A: By the end of Patlabor, not even the end, but by the hiatus that we're still currently at with Patlabor's content, there is a live action series, there is the ova series, There is a 40 plus episode television series in the 90s. The three films we're talking about today, as well as a live action series with I believe, also a live action film attached to said live action series is a multimedia franchise. They. They succeeded in getting to that point. But it is fascinating to see, and we will talk about it more as we get farther into the trilogy, how a lot of these creatives ultimately went from this to other projects that you can definitely see inklings of that lead to those projects in the future. [00:09:01] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, because Headgear, the kind of people who made it up, ended up being some of them major influential figures in Japanese media. The director of two of these movies, Mamoru Oshii you may know as the director of Ghost in the Shell, Angel's Egg, he made the most famous and popular Urusei y movie, Beautiful Dreamer. And then there's Yutaka Izubuchi, who has designed all kinds of characters in Mecca for shit. You've probably heard of several Gundam series, including Wing War in the Pocket, which is a fan. You know, we're big fans of the Evangelion rebuilds, Shin Godzilla, Shin Kamen Rider, other Kamen Rider series. [00:09:54] Speaker A: So an anno collaborator in some way, shape or form. [00:09:57] Speaker B: Right, right. And yeah, I mean, he even designed the new Gundam from Char's Counterattack, the iconic new Gundam. [00:10:05] Speaker A: The entire team is just filled with people that have been in this industry. [00:10:10] Speaker B: For decades at that point. And this was kind of a platform for them to kind of spring forward from. [00:10:17] Speaker A: Because at this point, Oshi has already made Angel's Egg. A lot of this team has already worked on Gundam or. Or say Yatsuka Yatsura. Yeah, because the costume. The character designer for Pat labor met or at least worked with Oshi on those first two films, which is, I think, seems how they met. Apparently she also owned a jewelry store, according to Wikipedia, but that was it. [00:10:42] Speaker B: There was a name of the store. [00:10:44] Speaker A: No, not a lot of details. And it's kind of interesting because again, by this point, when Pat labor is coming out, Mecha anime is at, you know, at this point you have Macross. You've had Gigantor decades before. You've had Gundam at this point for a decade. Yeah, decade plus. And you know, high off the heels of Zeta and Double Zeta is about to come out, and Yoshiyuki's working on Char's Counter Attack in this era. So like, Mecha is not dying right at this moment. So of course it makes sense that if you're going to go to a studio and be like we want to do a collective and we want to work on a Mecha show. A mecca. Multimedia mecca franchise. [00:11:26] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:11:26] Speaker A: How could you say no to that? [00:11:28] Speaker B: Right. [00:11:28] Speaker A: And then you get to the Great Days ova and it's absolutely fascinating because it really is just three, four out of those seven episodes are absolute goofball chicanery. And then like the final three are serious enough that you're like, I can see inklings of what could be in the films with this. Which is good because all three of the films definitely take from this ova to a degree. It's not like if you watch the whole ova, you're gonna have like callbacks more so than you know. [00:12:04] Speaker B: Yeah, it's. It's kind of an. In the franchise as a whole is kind of an interesting organism because it's. It's almost like everything is static. Like they're all. [00:12:15] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:12:16] Speaker B: Connected, but they're not connected. Like there are technically two timelines in the Patlabor franchise. One being the ova, which is succeeded by the movies. And then there's the TV show, the. The long form TV show which is in its own timeline, which has its own sequel ova later in the 90s. But it kind of doesn't really matter because the characters are fairly static and it's kind of just like episodic, you know, hijinks and things. Each movie and ova and TV episode is kind of a standalone little mission. [00:12:50] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:12:51] Speaker B: Almost sitcom esque. Even when the subject matter is not funny. It's kind of structured like a sitcom. [00:12:56] Speaker A: And. Yeah. That doesn't even go into the fact that the live action series probably has its own timeline. [00:13:02] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:13:02] Speaker A: So there's probably at least three different versions of the Fat labor timeline that are literally all the same groundwork in terms of where they start. [00:13:11] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:13:12] Speaker A: And probably don't have huge differences in terms of like what they talk about. [00:13:16] Speaker B: Right. [00:13:16] Speaker A: Like narratively. [00:13:17] Speaker B: I mean, I have not seen any of the, like the television anime that came in the. In the 90s, but like, what little I know about it is it's basically the same thing as everything we've watched. [00:13:32] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:13:32] Speaker B: It's just in a weekly episodic format. [00:13:35] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:13:37] Speaker B: So it's like. Yeah, it's an interesting beast just as an entire franchise because it's like we've got all these different outlets for it and they're all kind of doing the same thing. And I'm sure they each. They each do have their own merits and warts and things like that. But it's just funny because I don't. You don't see a lot of other properties like it where it's like, okay, every. Every little project is completely disconnected from everything else, but they're all kind of the same and work together, but there's not continuity between them. [00:14:11] Speaker A: Yes. So like, I would assume personality wise, it's pretty much the same across the board with everything. [00:14:15] Speaker B: Yeah, it seems to. [00:14:16] Speaker A: And if they're not, I assume it's the most hated of the fan base that Goto's not the same aloof that he is in this show or. [00:14:25] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:14:26] Speaker A: And yeah. So like. Yeah. The OVA is basically like the first two episodes are like watching the team do pat labor, you know, calls and learning how to run. [00:14:35] Speaker B: It's kind of like a day in the life of this police unit. [00:14:38] Speaker A: Yeah. And then episode three has a monster in it that's. I mean, it's. I don't know what else to say to other things. [00:14:44] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a sea monster. Yeah. [00:14:46] Speaker A: It's can. It's canon that there are Kaiju monsters in the world. Labor on top of mechs that are in the private and public sector. Episode four is a whodunit episode, kind of. [00:14:58] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:14:59] Speaker A: And then five and six are the only two parter in the seven episodes I would argue are the best episodes of the show. [00:15:05] Speaker B: And it's also the most serious the OVA gets. [00:15:08] Speaker A: It's more dramatic, the most backstory of all the characters. We get the most stakes out of all the characters and it's a two parter. And then the last episode is like a. Another one off just kind of, you know. [00:15:20] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:15:21] Speaker A: Trying to stop, I believe, a European, like not a terrorist group, but a European like group steal a Pat Labor. [00:15:30] Speaker B: Right. [00:15:31] Speaker A: A lot of inner like inter political, you know, international politics things. [00:15:36] Speaker B: Yeah. And local politics and bureaucracy. I mean, the sv2 is always kind of running up against like things they're not allowed to do and like lines they're not allowed to cross because they're just a kind of secondary police force. [00:15:49] Speaker A: Yeah. The best way to describe how the show kind of the baseline of the OVA is that it's about a bunch of screwball cops who are not considered the best of the team. There they are the second unit. [00:16:02] Speaker B: They're the second unit of the SV2. [00:16:04] Speaker A: And they are constantly being told by one of their superiors or at least are talked about by their superiors. Magumo who runs. Technically, she usually runs sv1. Who are like experienced veterans who we like never see. We don't ever see in the ova we actually don't see until, I believe, the second film. [00:16:22] Speaker B: Yeah, right. [00:16:22] Speaker A: I think the second film is when we finally see SV1 to a degree. [00:16:25] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:16:26] Speaker A: But basically a bunch of screwball loose cannon cops that have mostly young people too. [00:16:32] Speaker B: Like fairly young adults, I believe. [00:16:34] Speaker A: Yeah. Because I think Noah Izumi, who is the lead for the like for the ova and pretty much the first movie. Yeah, she. I believe it's 1920. [00:16:43] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:16:43] Speaker A: And then I think Asuma is around that same age too. Then the oldest on the team is probably Goto and Maguma, with Maguma probably being in her early to mid-30s. [00:16:53] Speaker B: Yeah, goto's probably middle aged. Yeah, they just. [00:16:56] Speaker A: They constantly say middle age. Never give a specific name or a number for that. But going into the first pad labor film, you know, after we both kind of, you know, separately watched the ovas. [00:17:08] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:17:09] Speaker A: And I was completely caught aback, personally was caught aback by just how silly and just kind of slight, like slice of life, almost monster. Not really full monster of the week, but is kind of like a different problem. [00:17:23] Speaker B: It's that episodic format like, rather than. [00:17:26] Speaker A: Like, which for seven episodes is kind of fascinating. [00:17:29] Speaker B: Yeah, it really feels like and kind of in some ways probably was like a sort of a test run to like, is this something that people want to watch? Because it feels like, you know, kind of a partial season order for a TV show. Like, oh, here we'll give you seven episodes. We'll see if the ratings hit, you. [00:17:47] Speaker A: Know, and it probably helped build the backbone for the long form series in the 90s. [00:17:54] Speaker B: But it is funny to watch just seven episodes of something and basically none of them are connected and don't create any sort of larger narrative thread and are like you said, mostly pretty silly. That also kind of caught me off guard. [00:18:06] Speaker A: Yeah. Because really what the ova kind of gets you introduced to are the possible themes that the films will attach themselves to. Because patlabor1 being basically almost like the tail end, almost like the bow on the top of the Patlabor present of the 80s being the culmination of like, this is probably why you watch the ova for is a fascinating film. This is out the gate because already, unsurprisingly, going from the ova to the film, the production design, the animation, the animation quality, the. Everything across the board is better, which is the case. I mean, again, this is around the time too where like when, you know, even American cartoons are getting theatrical releases, they have to make sure that they don't look like the show on tv because parents and people who are paying these tickets are like, why would I watch a film? It's so silly to say out loud, but it's true. Why would I watch a film of my favorite cartoon if it just looks like my favorite cartoon? I would just watch it at home. [00:19:13] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:19:14] Speaker A: So, like, there are films that almost have gotten away with that in the past with like, you know, in the 80s. We have the Transformers movie, which basically was like a book end and start for like in between seasons of the show. And like, it is technically better animation, but also pretty much looks like how the cartoon did on tv. But going into Pat the movie, it is a huge like step up in a way that like, even design wise, cinematography wise. [00:19:45] Speaker B: Yeah. It's almost more the like presentation than like the act likeness. I mean, the animation is better, but it's kind of more just like more thoughtfully composed, like shot choices and things like that. It feels more like an artsy movie, for lack of a better term. [00:20:02] Speaker A: Absolutely makes sense because again, and we're have to keep bringing this up because it's hard not to think about it is the fact that the man who directs the first two films ends up doing Ghost in the Shell. [00:20:13] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:20:13] Speaker A: And there are. There are thoughts, there are decisions, there are designs, character designs that look to just look exactly like you just pulled them out of Ghost in the Shadow. [00:20:23] Speaker B: Right, right. [00:20:23] Speaker A: And put them in this series. And it's also funny because for a series that is built off of the idea of like a public sector having mechs to run, specifically cops in. In Japan, the Pat laborers themselves. The laborers themselves do not play huge roles in these movies. Right. [00:20:44] Speaker B: It's literally just tools. Like, they're tools. They very rarely play a central role in like the plot or theme of a given story. [00:20:51] Speaker A: Which honestly, I mean, shows the confidence in the team of like, this is. This is the team. This is SV2. This is what they're doing. They're trying to solve a conspiracy theory surrounding a new OS that is making all these Pat laborers go. Or not all these laborers go haywire. [00:21:09] Speaker B: Yeah. Which I guess, you know, having said what I just said, the. This Patlabor, the movie kind of makes the Labors more central to the narrative than they normally are. Like in the ova, it gives more stakes. Yeah. I mean, they're, you know, it's a MacGuffin of sorts. But like, yeah, the plot surrounds malfunctioning Labors. Yeah. And so it's. It is interesting how it does that and also finds a way to basically not have Labors in the entire like middle 45 minutes of the movie. [00:21:40] Speaker A: Oh yeah. It's a very much is. It is a. It is a thriller. Is a thriller with some noir elements that just so happens to have. I think the mo. The first action sequence we get is like stopping the second run amok labor that we see. And then there is a 45 minute gap. [00:22:00] Speaker B: Yeah. And then it's the end of the movie with a climax between two Labors which. Or a few Labors. [00:22:06] Speaker A: Spoiler alert. Every single one of these films ends its last 30 minutes with oh, that's right. Let's get some Labors in there. [00:22:12] Speaker B: Let's do Labor Action. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:22:14] Speaker A: And it's funny to think how even when it gets to the 2000s, that's still the premise, like the setup and foundation of it. But yeah, PatLabor1 is straightforward. It is pretty much like a lot of the philosophical elements are given to you, but it really is about. There is a project called Babylon where they're trying to basically because again, another thing too that the ova kind of touches upon, but it's not a huge foreground element. It's more of a background situation is the fact that, you know, the. The sea is rising. Sea levels are rising. [00:22:52] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:22:52] Speaker A: So Tokyo is building specific walls that are supposed to be basically border around Tokyo and Japan in general in places. [00:23:00] Speaker B: Tokyo Bay. Yeah. [00:23:01] Speaker A: To make sure that the water doesn't get so high that it drowns the city. It floods the city. [00:23:06] Speaker B: Right. [00:23:06] Speaker A: And basically hold that water until apparently the sea level supposed to go back down in like 10, 20 years. [00:23:12] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:23:14] Speaker A: And on top of that, while that's happening in the ova in the Palaver movie, that same company or like construction companies have been working on that wall. End up building a man made island just off of the coast of Tokyo Bay, which I believe they just call Babylon. [00:23:32] Speaker B: I think they call it the Ark. [00:23:33] Speaker A: They call it the Ark. [00:23:34] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's also where they're like building more Labors and things like that. And I think in the movie they even say that the plan is not just to keep the sea levels from damaging Tokyo, but they're actually going to fully wall off the bay and drain the bay so that more land is exposed. Because Tokyo is constantly expand and they don't have a whole lot of places to go. So they're trying to make more land basically. And that's part of what this man made island is. It's like, okay, we can move some industry over there and stuff like that. So yeah, it's man trying to Defeat nature. Classic blunder. [00:24:17] Speaker A: Yes. And Asuma, who's basically the secondary protagonist in the ova, who's basically a spoiled rich kid who works for whose father Build. Built. And is the owner of, like, the biggest heavy industries. [00:24:31] Speaker B: Yeah. Shinohara Heavy Industries. [00:24:33] Speaker A: Yes. So it's Asuma Shinohara, and he basically is tricked by his parents to join the cops to like, basically. Basically ground him. Yeah, basically, like, you need to be a normal person. And honestly, in the show, there's not like he is. [00:24:48] Speaker B: They don't really do a whole lot with that. [00:24:49] Speaker A: Yeah, they do a lot. They do like a little bit of will they. Won't they? With him and Noah, but it really doesn't matter. Match up with anything until the movie where Asuma becomes. For the middle part of that film, like the 45 minutes, E is the protagonist to a degree. [00:25:06] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, so when. When it becomes clear that the kind of motivating force in the film, the main conflict is this problematic OS that was installed or shipped out to Labors by Shinahara Industries. Asuma kind of takes it on as like a personal quest to do something about it because he feels, you know, his own personal baggage and resentment for his parents. And also, like, has kind of been. I don't know if radicalized is the right word, but kind of spurred against the labor industry by his work as a cop. And so, yeah, the first, or maybe like kind of the second act of the movie is basically Asuma conducting his own investigation. [00:25:53] Speaker A: Yeah. Because Goto, who is the commander of SV2 specifically Magumo, is also a commander, but she mainly, Goto is the one that they go to usually to discuss missions and patrols and whatnot. Commander Goto basically tells Asuma, well, if. If you think this is what it's going to go, we're not doing anything. We are basically grounded to an extent as they try to figure out this labor situation. So just go figure it out. [00:26:23] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:26:23] Speaker A: And the thing about Goto that is so much fun and we'll get to more about him because it's not the last time you see him, is the fact that, like Goto in the ova, which is probably the most interesting part of all the characters in the ova, is the fact that Goto is given the development that this man could probably build up the ladder if he wants. [00:26:42] Speaker B: Yeah, he's smart. [00:26:43] Speaker A: He has a lot of connections in different sectors. He is very. He can be conniving, but he's the good guy. So it's not anyone against Ulterior motive. And I mean, the two parter in the OVA is basically about how Goto as a younger man was basically a radical. [00:27:01] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:27:02] Speaker A: And had a best friend who ultimately they went two different paths. His best friend became a terrorist and he became a public servant. [00:27:09] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:27:10] Speaker A: And his best, I think one of the best parts. And then it's like, I can't believe you became a. A cop is like one of the things you could have done so much and yet you became a public servant. [00:27:19] Speaker B: Yeah. There's kind of an implication throughout the OVA and these movies that like two kind of major forces at work in Goto's psychology is like laziness and his radical past. [00:27:36] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:27:36] Speaker B: Because it's like he's frequently going against standard procedures for, you know, police units and sending the SV2 to do things that he knows are gonna get them or get him in trouble with the higher ups. He clearly doesn't trust a lot of the system. [00:27:54] Speaker A: He does not. [00:27:55] Speaker B: But he trusts it enough to use it as a tool for what he knows and believes to be right. And yeah, like you said, he's somebody who clearly probably has the mettle to move up in the world of law enforcement. But I get the impression that like, he knows enough about it to know that he doesn't want to be involved in that high up process. Because then he's like, oh, well, I'm complicit in the bureaucratic corruption and stuff. I'd rather stay down here where I can do stuff on the street. [00:28:27] Speaker A: Yeah. Because Goto at one point, I think, nearly pushes too many buttons with the director of the group. And then of course, he has to wholly stand down a bit. But yeah, the most fast. Again, the most fascinating part, looking back at these three films for the episode and thinking about the fact that like, I can understand someone watching these movies being like, I'm enjoying these movies, but I have to keep coming back to the fact that I. There's one permeating question, and that is of all the people to fix conspiracies, possible war, like war crimes that could lead to actual war happening, why the fuck are we going to the SV2 team? Constantly. And the thing that I think is the reason why people enjoy these films so much is because the answer to that is, is that the series constantly has people that are shifting throughout the system that entered like that, intervene with SV2 that are clearly like their goal is to just keep moving forward, to get promotions, to get more power, to have more control. And the thing about SV2 that's so fascinating is that pretty much everyone involved in SV2 is content with being an SV2. [00:29:39] Speaker B: They just want to be good at. [00:29:41] Speaker A: Being in the SV2. They're not power hungry in any way. None of the young. All the younger people that are basically the grunts of the team are not power hungry. I mean, Ota just wants to shoot guns. [00:29:51] Speaker B: Right. [00:29:52] Speaker A: It's there. There's a labor. [00:29:54] Speaker B: Noah just wants to keep her labor in good working order. [00:29:57] Speaker A: Noah just names one of her labors. Alphonse. [00:30:01] Speaker B: Yeah. And takes really good care of him. [00:30:03] Speaker A: Yeah. Asuma just wants to work on computers and labors and wants to do, like, the technical aspects of it and get. [00:30:10] Speaker B: Back at his parents. [00:30:11] Speaker A: And there's another character. Like, there's two more characters. There's a really tall, quiet, brawny man who's a part of the team who basically just wants to work with his friends. [00:30:20] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:30:20] Speaker A: And tend to a garden. [00:30:21] Speaker B: Yeah. The gardener. Yeah. [00:30:23] Speaker A: And then there's also a guy with glasses who's. I mean, who basically is the one who goes above and beyond in the team because ultimately in a later film, he gets promoted, but he basically is the guy with the wife. [00:30:38] Speaker B: Right. [00:30:38] Speaker A: That's his whole thing in the ova. Like, one of the big things that happened in the ova and I think in the film is basically. It's like it's in the film, he basically was, I haven't seen my wife in, like, six weeks. I'm so screwed. And then Otis says, well, it's your fault you got married. [00:30:52] Speaker B: Right. [00:30:53] Speaker A: Like, it's a team that is constantly seen from the outside is like, lazy, I think, lazy and silly and clearly, like, disorganized. They deserve to be grunts. [00:31:04] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:31:05] Speaker A: But then these films show the idea of. But once you. But when you give them something that is very, like, needs to be done. [00:31:12] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:31:13] Speaker A: That no one else really has the guts or really has the interest in helping. You better believe that SV2 is ready to jump in. [00:31:21] Speaker B: Yeah. They find some weird and scrappy way. [00:31:23] Speaker A: To beat it, which is why one's most interesting stuff is really when Asuma takes charge in his own investigation. Goto is like, you know, supporting when it comes to it, but also still having, you know, the. The comedic moments, they're just not as overwhelming as in the show. Also a lot of fish islands. [00:31:43] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:31:43] Speaker A: Even though it's animated. So, like, when I say fish islands, it's not a real fish island. [00:31:47] Speaker B: It is super wide angle. [00:31:48] Speaker A: It's like the. The animated version of what that would look like. The amount of just fisheye Esque shots and, like, animation moments. [00:31:56] Speaker B: Characters being really close to the. The supposed lens and their faces being super distorted. [00:32:03] Speaker A: I swear to God, I do not remember Ghost in the Shell having many of those shots, if any. [00:32:09] Speaker B: Yeah, right. [00:32:09] Speaker A: But they're phenomenal. Like, again, those shots when they work well, the best. I think one of the best shots in the movie has a fisheye lens, which is the babble on Asuma's face when Asuma is like, oh, let's see, this OS is really that corrupt. And then basically just like, nearly corrupts the entire heavy industries department. [00:32:27] Speaker B: Right, right. [00:32:28] Speaker A: But, I mean, the first film is pretty bare bones in terms of, like, when you find out that there is a bit of a conspiracy theory surrounding the OS and how the fact that, like, the first thing you see in the film is a man commits suicide with a smile on his face, and then nothing is done about it. And then, of course, the information is revealed that the man who killed himself with a smile on his face was the creator of the OS that is apparently fucking with laborers. [00:32:54] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:32:55] Speaker A: And so, of course, there is, like, some chicanery and some kind of ridiculous stuff going on. So, of course, SV2's gotta figure out what to do. And usually you would think in a film like this, that means more excuse for Patlabor action, but no, it's an. [00:33:11] Speaker B: Excuse for no pat laborator. [00:33:13] Speaker A: Yeah, it's an excuse for just letting our team work as a team in a way, to a degree. They will say one of the biggest flaws of the first two films specifically are the fact that, like, since a lot of the Patlabor team is still pretty goofy in their intense, no one's asking Oda for help until it's time to get to the finale. [00:33:33] Speaker B: We're going guns blazing. [00:33:34] Speaker A: So, like, a lot of. [00:33:35] Speaker B: He's the first one to get fucked up. [00:33:37] Speaker A: Yes. So the first film is a lot of Noah and Asuma with a bit of Goto and Magumo in there, as well as the Internal affairs where there are two cops that show up in the ova that, like, Goto is attached to. We're basically, like, very much so. These films are about as grounded as they can be in a world filled with Kaiju and Mecha. [00:33:59] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:33:59] Speaker A: Because it seems the film basically cuts away. Both the first two films cut away from SV2, and they're like, well, technically, SV2 wouldn't really know any of this stuff. [00:34:09] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:34:09] Speaker A: So let's follow the Internal affairs boys for a bit. And then we come back to SV2, and basically they find out the issue with the OS system. It has everything to do tied to all the Labors that are on Babel. [00:34:22] Speaker B: Right. [00:34:22] Speaker A: Or that are on the Ark. [00:34:24] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:34:24] Speaker A: But like they are building a Tower of Babel, basically. [00:34:28] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Tower that sends these signals that confuse the man. Yes. [00:34:33] Speaker A: And so of course, because the SV2 systems. Because the big. Honestly, the big twist of the first film is that Asuma does all of this investigation because he's worried that their Labors are gonna get infected. Infested with this OS system. [00:34:49] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:34:49] Speaker A: Only to find out by their head mechanic that Goto didn't like the os and neither did he Shige. So Shige and Goto just said, ah, they're fine. Don't add it. So their Labors were fine the entire time. [00:35:02] Speaker B: Right. [00:35:03] Speaker A: Yeah. So the twist is Goto basically let him just do all this work. [00:35:07] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:35:08] Speaker A: Just not even for their own sake. It's really just for all the other flavors sake. Leading to a finale that is fun, I think is well done. I think very much so. Has what you probably were looking for for the entire film, but you didn't get. But hey, it's still a fun time. [00:35:28] Speaker B: Yeah. It kind of amps it up at the end. [00:35:30] Speaker A: And then it gets to a point where like, well, shit, there's no real final boss because the guy who really set all this up is fucking dead. [00:35:38] Speaker B: So yeah. Yeah. The final boss ends up being this Prototype New Labor 0 Unit 0 or something. Which is just a kind of fancier, zoomier looking version of the something 98. Unit 98 is the one that they primarily use in the SV team that. [00:36:00] Speaker A: The Hawaiian Japanese member of the team or honorary member of the the team. Oh yeah, who comes back for one. Because you got to bring her back. I can't remember her name off the top of my head. [00:36:12] Speaker B: Kanika Clancy. [00:36:13] Speaker A: Yeah, Konika. [00:36:14] Speaker B: She's actually a. She's a CIA operative or a CIA trainee or something. [00:36:21] Speaker A: Yeah, she's a trainee from the States. [00:36:23] Speaker B: She's trying. Basically, the CIA has seen Japan's use of Labors in law enforcement and wants to set up their own labor unit. So they send Konika Clancy to Japan to basically work with the SV2 and take notes and bring back what she learned. So she ends up being this kind of contributing character in the ova and in the movie. And I think she comes back a lot in the TV show too. [00:36:49] Speaker A: The long form one. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Because there's some interesting aspects of her character being the outsider of the team. [00:36:58] Speaker B: She's also Kind of the stoic badass of the group too. She, like, actually knows what she's doing. [00:37:05] Speaker A: Yeah. And she's really is gives a little bit of that backstory. The fact that, like, these Labors are very new. [00:37:15] Speaker B: Yeah. Like, it is like, societally very new. [00:37:18] Speaker A: It almost feels like Labors didn't exist until the late 80s in this world. And then it's been like a decade where with these guys. [00:37:24] Speaker B: Yeah. We're still figuring out what their place is in society. [00:37:27] Speaker A: So, like, there's conversations in the ova about like putting laborers in the military, which they ultimately do at that point. Yeah. The US is trying to put laborers in their state. The very last OVA episode has to do with like Europe, like a European kind of. I think it's like, maybe German. [00:37:47] Speaker B: Oh, okay. [00:37:47] Speaker A: Like, it's like there's like a. There's a group that they're building. Like the European, like a European sector is building a private labor. [00:37:57] Speaker B: Right, right. [00:37:58] Speaker A: So like, Japan is pretty much the forefront of labor production. [00:38:03] Speaker B: Yeah. They're on the bleeding edge and the world is kind of trying to follow. [00:38:05] Speaker A: Them, which is why a lot of the incident, the inciting incident happens in the first film. Because Shinohara is trying to basically make an OS that every single labor in the world uses. [00:38:19] Speaker B: Standardize that. [00:38:20] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:38:20] Speaker B: But then this guy. [00:38:22] Speaker A: Yeah, they just had to hire just a wild fucking dude who puts Bible quotes. I believe in, like puts scripture. [00:38:30] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:38:30] Speaker A: In his code. Which. [00:38:34] Speaker B: Speaking of the, like the world trying to keep up with Japan on the whole labor thing in this, this franchise. I. It. I just tripped my memory that I guess there's an episode in the long form TV show where I think. Think it's Asuma is sent to New York to like, see what. How the progress of like the CIA labor unit is going. And it's basically just like a parody of like American gangster films. And he gets like roped into all this ridiculous American New York crime hijinks. [00:39:08] Speaker A: Ah, I love it. I love making. I mean, honestly, it's always fun to watch them watch other countries make fun of Americans. Yeah, it's always fun to be like, yeah, that's fair. But yeah, Pat, labor one ends. I mean, again, it is the most, I would say normal of the three. [00:39:26] Speaker B: Oh, absolutely. I would like. If you watched the ova and liked it, this is the most like, on that beat. [00:39:34] Speaker A: Yeah. And I would also argue is the weakest of the three, in my opinion. [00:39:39] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:39:39] Speaker A: Yeah, I would say. But not. [00:39:41] Speaker B: I would. I would toss it up between 1 and 3 okay, interesting. [00:39:47] Speaker A: Because. But if that makes it any indication of where Andy and I probably stand going into the next film, you know, there is a decent gap in between. In between that as well. I believe they start production on the long form series. [00:40:00] Speaker B: Yeah. 90 to 91 I think is one. [00:40:03] Speaker A: Of the long form series because the manga ends in 94. So by the time the Patlabor 2 comes out, you know, the manga is about to end. The long form series is about to come out. The live action series at some point is probably in development in any way, shape or form. And now we're in the 90s. Now we're in Gundam Wing territory of Mecca. So has it. No. No stopping what's going on. So going into Pad Labor 2, you're probably assuming that like, okay, there's some time. There's a time gap, you know, in. Maybe animation will be a little bit better. Maybe this will change. What? Not weirdly enough, the animation is still on point. I would argue that like it's not. The jump between 1 and 2 is not a huge jump. Animation wise though the detail is fucking insane. And two. [00:40:48] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean I love the detailing. The thing that really stands out to me is. Yeah. The fine details of like how movement is animated and things like two is. It's fucking gorgeous. [00:40:59] Speaker A: There's a shot where Magumo is in her car and opens like a glove box and there's a light in the glove box and it shines off of. It's like this is all fake. [00:41:08] Speaker B: Well, and then she opens the car door to get out and you see the street lights and car lights reflect in the inside window of the car door. [00:41:17] Speaker A: The background designs are immaculate. The character design now looks even more Ghost in the Shell than it did before. Because again, we're two years out from Ghost in the Shell. [00:41:28] Speaker B: Oshi's really starting to cut his teeth on. On what would become like his look because. [00:41:33] Speaker A: Yeah, that's another thing too. Is a lot of this ultimately from Patlabor to. A lot of these people will end up working for production ig. [00:41:40] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:41:40] Speaker A: Which ends up being Oshi going from the Pat labor team that he created with his friends to the. To the studio that will be mostly known as the Ghost in the Shell studio from this point forward because of what he worked out with that first film. And Patlabor 2 is. It. Is it just doubles down on the whole like we are not going to be a mindless mecha action film series. There is even less labor action in. [00:42:15] Speaker B: There is less labor action. There's less labor action Labors are essentially inconsequential to the movie. Like, you could take them out and have the exact same movie pretty much. It's also, in doubling down on being like, we're not your typical mech show. It also kind of strays even further from, like, being a Patlabor movie because most of the Patlabor characters that we know and love are barely in this movie. [00:42:44] Speaker A: Yeah. And again, it is interesting. Going into the series, Me personally seen Ghost in the Shell. I don't know if you haven't seen. [00:42:54] Speaker B: The second one, but I've seen the first one. [00:42:55] Speaker A: I haven't seen the second one. I do want to see the second one too. But, like. Like, we've both seen Ghosts in the Shell, so when we were going into these films, I think that, like, at least for me personally, there are moments where I was like, why is this film throwing me off so hard? Because two is very much from the get go, you're thinking it's gonna very much follow the same beats as One, and to some degrees, or at least it does. But this movie is 20 minutes longer. It goes from like an hour 40 to like, a two hour film. [00:43:24] Speaker B: Yeah, just about. [00:43:26] Speaker A: And so it's a longer film. It's darker. Color palette wise, it's very much like. Because the first film, I would argue, is very. It's very sunny, very city pop. [00:43:37] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:43:37] Speaker A: Very, very, like muted blues, but just enough of a style of oranges and. [00:43:43] Speaker B: Earthy, warm tans and browns. It takes place mostly during the day. [00:43:48] Speaker A: Yes. A lot of neon during the night, during. And then you get to this film. In this film, I just think of brown. I think of gray, dark blue, dark greens. [00:44:00] Speaker B: It looks color palette very similar to Ghost in the Shell, except that Ghost in the Shell has more lights in it. [00:44:06] Speaker A: Yes. Color palette like Ghost in the Shell. And also a philosophical mindset that is basically a pseudo prequel to how they handle Ghost in the Shell narrative. [00:44:20] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:44:20] Speaker A: Because the biggest moments In Pat Labor 2, the best moments in Pat Labor 2 are literally people talking philosophically, which is like the majority of Ghost in the Shell in the middle part of that film. [00:44:34] Speaker B: Yeah, well, very much. [00:44:36] Speaker A: What a surprise. The man that makes Bad labor two takes a lot of what he does in this film and kind of incorporates it to a future premise. [00:44:42] Speaker B: Tonally, it is vastly more serious and kind of grim than any of the Patlabor to come to before it. And really, I mean, we can't get too far into talking about, like, the actual subject matter of the film without talking about like where Japan was at politically and governmentally at that time. Because my understanding, and I'm not super well read on this. Basically when I watched this movie for the first time last year, I thought, like, I watched it and I was like, I'm not getting something. Like, there is something I don't know here. Yeah, there's a kind of like, if you watch like, Shin Godzilla and have no idea about, like, the. The tsunami situation, all that. Palabor 2 similarly, is heavily, I would argue, primarily a commentary on the state of Japanese surveillance and law enforcement at that time. Because basically, I'll keep it short because again, I'm not that educated on it, but it helped me unlock the film on a second watch. [00:45:49] Speaker A: This is gonna be interesting because I don't even know what you're about to say. [00:45:51] Speaker B: Okay. Okay, cool. So, you know, end Of World War II, the Allied Powers basically tell Japan, like, you don't get to have an army anymore because you can't be trusted with one. So the only forces you're allowed to amass are like, interior to your country. You can protect against an invasion, but you will not have forces on any foreign soil. You will not be sending troops outside of your borders. I think there was even, to my understanding, basically a clause of like, you can't have commanding officers issue orders to fire or not fire in a combat situation. Because they were trying to distinguish between law enforcement and military. [00:46:38] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:46:39] Speaker B: And, you know, a cop doesn't have necessarily a captain over him saying, like, fire now. And, you know, it's kind of like a in the moment, judgment call thing. So there were certain stipulations that the Allied powers, primarily the U.S. put on the Japanese government in the wake of World War II that basically said you can't have a military structure. You can have a self Defense Force. And that's it. That's how we get the jsdf, the Japan Self Defense Force, which served as Japan's police force, but also was like, kind of a lot beefier and more elaborate than most local police forces because it was also kind of standing in for their military. So you end up with a highly militarized police force that cut to decades later after World War II. Japan has been roped into all these international conflicts, mostly thanks to the US and are secretly sending troops to other countries but can't, like, give orders to them. So you get these unprepared law enforcement officers on the other side of the world in places like Cambodia, being involved in missions that they aren't prepared for and that they can't, you know, don't have proper support for. And you get. You get Japanese, effectively, civilians getting killed on foreign soil because they're being sent out on missions. Meanwhile, back at home in Japan, you've got a homeland that is pretty much controlled by a military state because you're using military scale on your law enforcement. [00:48:21] Speaker A: So just technology, like, technologically, culturally, the decades after World War II, it just. Japan exploded. Exploded in a way, in a boom that is, like, very much constantly seen in the 70s and 80s. [00:48:34] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:48:35] Speaker A: That is, like. It's hard not to. Where else are you gonna build from that culture? Like, as a. As a country. [00:48:41] Speaker B: Right, right. [00:48:42] Speaker A: It's. [00:48:42] Speaker B: Well, also, like, to some degree, understandably, you want to. You know, if you're not allowed to have an army, you want to build up whatever defense force you can within the confines of your imposed constitution that other countries placed on you. And so kind of going into the 90s, when we get to Pat Labor 2 OSHI, and I'm assuming a lot of other, you know, very educated and informed artists and storytellers in Japan are kind of looking at this weird surveillance state that they live in and seeing how Japan kind of has touted itself ever Since World War II as this very peaceful nation, this very, you know. [00:49:25] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:49:25] Speaker B: We're not involved in the wars. We don't have an army. [00:49:28] Speaker A: We're. [00:49:28] Speaker B: We're innocent. And it's like, well, no. You're secretly sending people across the world on these covert missions. You're getting Japanese civilians killed on foreign soil, and you're basically running, like, a police state or like a military. [00:49:42] Speaker A: You know, no one's stepping in that. Probably should step in on this. [00:49:46] Speaker B: Yeah. And so there's this kind of like. Like, false sense of peace in Japan while all these things, these international conflicts are brewing beneath the surface. And that's kind of the thing that informs everything about this movie. [00:50:03] Speaker A: Absolutely. [00:50:04] Speaker B: Because this movie is constantly just characters in dark alleyways and the back seats of cars talking about, oh, man, this war has been going on for decades, and you had no idea. And, like, you know, we have all these involvements in places all over the world, and you don't know about it. And the military and the police force are gonna bump heads. [00:50:24] Speaker A: I would argue that Pad Labor 2 is the best way to show a Cold War, to basically make a Cold War film in the post Cold War. [00:50:34] Speaker B: Yeah. In the 90s. [00:50:35] Speaker A: It is very much a film that is. Yeah. Like, it's. I'm. So. It's fascinating to hear all that as a Backdrop, but also makes me kind of really appreciate this film more. Do get that narratively. [00:50:47] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:50:47] Speaker A: You get that as the inciting incident as to why the antagonist is doing whether what they're doing. You get the fact of this idea of like, it gives you more of an idea as to why Goto as the character that we care about is the way that he is. [00:51:03] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:51:03] Speaker A: And also with Magumo and because again, another thing about this film, similar to the first film, how the first film doesn't really use its whole crew. Two has a time jump about three years. First film takes place in 1999. This film takes place in 2002. And the team has basically that we know. The original SV2 team that we know and love have kind of disbanded to an extent. [00:51:29] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:51:30] Speaker A: We're basically. Noah and Asuma are still in the police system, but they're working in tandem with Shinohara to improve on Pat labor technology. Ohta has basically become a superior in the SV sphere. Glass's man, who is really escaping my brain right now, has now become more in the private sector, going upwards. Gardening man is still doing a great job gardening and being a part of the SV team. And the main characters for this film are Goto and Magumo. [00:52:06] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:52:07] Speaker A: And specifically Magumo gets the most development out of the both of them because. Spoiler alert. In case you're this far in, you know, they were gonna tell you the antagonist is an ex lover of hers and also her old teacher, which makes things so much more complicated. It's very weird, but also very much gives a complexity as to why our team is involved. Because outside of that, they're not really aware of why the antagonist is fully doing this until they get more in depth and kind of in rooted in this political thriller. This film is a straight up political thriller that has honestly has elements of like what we talked about with Pukula's Paranoia trilogy. [00:52:54] Speaker B: Very much even. [00:52:54] Speaker A: Even little Frankenheimer there too, of just like the idea of like, I mean, again, you even said it yourself, like, there's a line in the movie where, I mean, to a degree, like, Goto is like, when is the war gonna start? And the guy they've been talking to this whole time is like, the war has already been happening. [00:53:11] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:53:11] Speaker A: Like everything that you have, like, the biggest thing that happens in this film, in my opinion, the biggest bombshell of this film, and it's like the best part and the reason why this is my favorite of the three, is there is a conversation about halfway through the film at an aquarium between Goto and our like main like almost Deep Throat esque character who's basically, basically tasking Goto and Magumo to take the resources and connections they have to figure out what is going to happen. [00:53:42] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:53:42] Speaker A: Why? Like how? Who is this terrorist organization that is ultimately trying to create a internal war on Japan's soil between the JSDF and police? Basically. [00:53:56] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:53:56] Speaker A: Like have the military fight the police to a degree. Which is fucking wild to say that out loud. But it works so well in the movie as they have this huge philosophical conversation. A lot of great lines are happening. But there's one line in particular that happens where basically their main connection goes. Is an unjust war any less like any, like any better than an unjust peace? [00:54:19] Speaker B: Yeah. Or is a just war any better or worse than an unjust peace? [00:54:23] Speaker A: Yes. There it is. And that line is just fucking phenomenal and perfectly captures where we are going to go in terms of like this fight and where Goto has to ultimately Goto, Megumo have to ultimately be like where do we fit as a team in all of this? [00:54:41] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:54:41] Speaker A: And ultimately leads to some big decisions that are made in universe that like unfortunately we don't really get more of afterwards. Like chronologically. So like this is kind of like of these three films, this is the farthest we go. Yeah. But this film has stakes in terms of like what kind of what war is trying to be put upon Japan. Who is controlling this? The Americans, the Russians in some way shape or form are involved. [00:55:13] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:55:13] Speaker A: And ultimately what you find out is that it's a terrorist, a Japanese terrorist organization that has connections to the States as well as Russia that is basically trying using the resources they used with those off site missions and their experience with that to basically build the perfect premise for a internal war that is entirely false, that is entirely a smokescreen that is only meant to happen because they believe, you know, they want people to suffer for the thing. For the crimes that were committed off the books. [00:55:56] Speaker B: Right. Yeah. [00:55:56] Speaker A: And ultimately leads to like just watching again. I won't. Well, we've already spoiled that part. Getting to that point is just so fascinating because you get to a point where you're starting to realize what their tactics are. And the tactics are so ingenious and insidious and it's like, guy, we gotta stop these fucks. [00:56:15] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:56:15] Speaker A: Because again you have to. As a sequel to one you really are taking. There are some elements in one they're into where like the really inciting incident is kind of like what gets the team involved is again another operating system that is kind of going haywire. [00:56:30] Speaker B: Right. [00:56:30] Speaker A: With certain things. And so there's almost like an air of like, is this going to be another Pat labor one situation? [00:56:35] Speaker B: Right. [00:56:35] Speaker A: It isn't. [00:56:36] Speaker B: No. There's. There is more that's a lot deeper than Labors. [00:56:39] Speaker A: Yes. There's a lot. There's a bigger. It's not just one guy. It's a genuine organization, a shadow organization that is doing this. [00:56:47] Speaker B: And it's. Their aims are multinational. They're trying to goad multiple countries into wars or alliances that otherwise wouldn't happen. So it feels much larger than the scope of the first film. And yet this moment to moment storytelling feels much smaller. [00:57:10] Speaker A: Yes. Which is interesting because basically all the bigger moments are almost like Goto and Maguma having to keep face for the longest time. [00:57:18] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:57:19] Speaker A: And getting pulled into scenarios where they're basically have. Asking by the police, by the police administration to basically puff their chests. [00:57:29] Speaker B: Right. [00:57:30] Speaker A: And to show a strength against the JSDF in a way which is fucking wild. And you have two characters. You have one character who literally from the ova has just been like, I'm sick of your bullshit. Regardless of what the bullshit is. And this is a. This is a film where basically he has been smelling shit from the very beginning. And it only gets stronger and stronger as the film goes on. And Goto ultimately just becomes someone who goes from like, well, I now know what's going on to almost being worried. Because when he realizes what the solution is gonna have to be, there's draxis changes that have to be made. Because at a certain point that question of, is a just war worse than an unjust peace? You have the answer of what? If the administrations are aware that this just war maybe is more of a smokescreen than it actually is, but they're still willing to do it because they are giving. They're basically being given the opportunity on a silver platter. [00:58:29] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:58:30] Speaker A: And they're like, this could actually, this is what the public will be okay with is if the public has the full information and leads to, you know, the beginning of Panelabor 2 almost really kind of engrosses you initially by, you know, starting with a cold open that is completely like, you have no idea what the fuck is going on. Where it's like one of those off site missions that are happening outside of Japan. And it ends on like this fascinating shot of like basically a dead labor against like an old. Just like monuments, like a. [00:59:06] Speaker B: Just like a piece of old culture, like ancient civilization. [00:59:10] Speaker A: Ancient tech versus new tech and basically being this kind of. This just kind of this idea of, like, you know, the farther we're getting into evolution and just, like, growing technologically, where do we draw the line? [00:59:23] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:59:24] Speaker A: Which is a fascinating thing to be talking about in 92, no less now, in 2025. [00:59:30] Speaker B: Right. [00:59:30] Speaker A: Still is actually. [00:59:31] Speaker B: Bring back Pat. [00:59:32] Speaker A: Yeah, bring back. This is the perfect time to do Pat. Honestly, it'd be fucking wild if they did. Yeah. But, yeah, Patlabor 2 is going from, like, the first film being more of, like, a drama, investigative drama, into a political investigative thriller that is more interested in talking about the characters and how they're dealing with an administration going against a terrorist group where. Guess what? Why is everything so gray in two? Well, because the stakes, the lines, Everything's blurred, everything's gray. And ultimately, there is the question of our team. Unlike the first film, the first film has an easy answer as to who is the bad guy and how do you stop this? [01:00:15] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:00:16] Speaker A: Patlabor2 basically asks that, but the answer is so much more complicated and leads to a finale that, again, is very akin to how the first film ends, which is basically. All right, team, we know our assignments. Let's get those labors in action. Let's give the people what they asked for. And in better animation. And also, it's hilarious because the fight in the second film is arguably, like, smaller. It's a smaller fight, but almost has more of stakes to it because of just the emotional stakes tied to Magumo and the antagonist. It ultimately ends in, like, a spot that, you know, really just, like, gosh, if they. If they went any farther with this. Yeah, I would love to see where that would go. And that's why. That's. [01:01:05] Speaker B: This. [01:01:05] Speaker A: That's why two is my personal favorite of the three. [01:01:08] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. I would argue, interestingly enough, while I. [01:01:12] Speaker A: It's the. It's the closest to nearly a four out of five. Like, it's really pushing into that. [01:01:18] Speaker B: I'll go four on it just because it's so. This is such a bold, like, third, like, second film, third entry in this continuity, like, finale film, where it's basically, like. In some ways, it's sad that a lot of the familiar Pat Laber characters take a major backseat, but also. [01:01:42] Speaker A: Yeah, we will. Yeah. Noah and Asuma, I believe, show up until the finale happens. They show up a total of three to four times. [01:01:49] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's very brief, just kind of perfunctory things. They don't have character arcs. They don't accomplish a whole Lot. Except in the climax. [01:01:59] Speaker A: They're just great roommates. [01:02:01] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:02:01] Speaker A: They're just constantly. There's never a scene where they're not together and it's never established that they're like, together. [01:02:07] Speaker B: But it's like, come on, guys. The film is basically, you know, Goto and Nagumo doing all the President's Men, kind of, you know, unraveling this giant, you know, clusterfuck that's going on in the world. [01:02:21] Speaker A: Yeah. And realizing even the people behind them aren't exactly good people. Like, what the fuck do we do? [01:02:29] Speaker B: But the thing I think I just really love about this movie is how you. Okay, so you take the concept of this property that you have created and brought into, you know, huge popularity, at least in Japan, and you kind of like strip it down to its roots. Like, what are we making if not a show that comments on, you know, the state of our law enforcement, the peacekeeping efforts of our country and folds it right into like just what's going on in their country at the time. And you get this really fascinating, highly critical, kind of scary, kind of, you know, enlightening depiction of, you know, the kind of fragility and falsity of, you know, state imposed peace and things like that. And it's just a movie that has like endless things to say about its setting. Yeah. And so, you know, there are, There are things I don't love about the movie. I don't love the. I don't really love the personal sentimental side of the Nagumo Tsuge thing. [01:03:43] Speaker A: There's not, it's not fully developed. [01:03:46] Speaker B: Yeah. And it doesn't get the resolution. Feels kind of strangely ham fisted and sentimental. Whereas the rest of the film is very like uber serious and played very reserved. [01:03:56] Speaker A: Yeah. Which I mean, could be a fact that like, again, since you've been talking, it is a bold choice to make. [01:04:03] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:04:03] Speaker A: In a series like this. [01:04:04] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's, it's. Yeah, it's. It's a flawed movie, but I think it's kind of visionary in what it's trying to do with a franchise film. [01:04:15] Speaker A: Oh, I, Yeah. I would probably say like the wildest thing about this trilogy is that even though we did a lot of homework in terms of like watching the ova, looking at like, how what kind of multimedia facets this series has, I would argue that you could watch all three of these films without watching the other two and have some entertainment value just on a sole foundational level. To an extent. I think three is the one that has the most of a hurdle to get around. [01:04:45] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. [01:04:46] Speaker A: But I think with this one, I could see us showing our friends, like one of this one. And even though you don't have the history of the team to get that time jump between one and two, there's just. There is just a. The philosophical, political core to this movie. [01:05:01] Speaker B: It feels like it stands alone because. [01:05:03] Speaker A: It kind of really just kind of does. [01:05:05] Speaker B: Yeah, the other movies, they'll go a little bit into, like, you know, the bureaucracy of law enforcement, but it's not nearly as. As complicated or as no. Over overt as this movie is. [01:05:18] Speaker A: No, it is very much the first one gives you. To an extent. It feels like the first one is trying to find the balance between what headgear wants to give you and what headgear. Like, what the fans want from it. Well, as this just feels like an Oshi and headgear going full tilt into, like, this is what we want to do. This is what we want to give people. And, you know, if they don't like it, well, guess what. This is going to be the last thing we all work on together as a team, ultimately, in the theatrical sense, because PatLabor 2 is the last time Oshi works with Pat labor for, I think, ever. Because from this point forward, he does Ghost in the Shell. One, I think, does take a decent break in between Ghost in the shell 1 and 2, because 2 is like 2003. And. [01:06:09] Speaker B: Wait, palabir 3. [01:06:11] Speaker A: Ghost in the Shell. [01:06:12] Speaker B: Oh, Ghost in the Shell too. [01:06:13] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:06:13] Speaker B: Okay. [01:06:13] Speaker A: Yeah. Because like, Oshi, basically, once Oshi does Ghost in the Shell, it's almost as if Pat labor, with the amount of time and effort he put in there with his team, it almost becomes like it's swept under the rug. Because the man made one of the most iconic anime films, animated films ever, especially in the 90s. [01:06:30] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:06:31] Speaker A: The film that inspired the Matrix. [01:06:33] Speaker B: Right. [01:06:34] Speaker A: Like, this is basically what this film. This film will live in. This film will live years and years and years just on the fact that, like, the amount of technological, you know, like the tech sci fi, action genre in live action in modern day can all get brought back to, like, in the mid-90s when Oshi and his team and IG. [01:06:56] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:06:57] Speaker A: Made Ghost in the Shell. And it's a bummer because, like, Pat Labor 2 pretty much has a lot of those same energy to it that, like, you would just want. You would like to bring people in from the Ghost in the Shell. But, like, it's. It's just different enough. But I also would argue, like, one of the things that makes Patlabor so fascinating. And why it, like, even, I think, seems like a black sheep in the Mecha kind of space is at a certain point, Mecha get to a degree where. And this is something where it's like, I love mech designs. I love mechs, I love mech action. But I think it's really cool that they really built the mech around the idea that regardless of how cool this fucking thing is, there's a person inside it. Yeah, Gundam does that too. Gundam never forgets that there's a person inside that Gundam. But in two, there is a moment where they have to all, like. They all lose their digital vision because, like, you know, they. They kind of like their heads get shot or something happens. Like they're like their pat. Their labor. [01:08:00] Speaker B: Cameras on there. [01:08:00] Speaker A: The cameras get shot. [01:08:02] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:08:02] Speaker A: And then there's this little scene. It's so small, but it's just a scene where both Patlabors. You have Noah and Ota having to, like, actually show their faces. [01:08:10] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:08:11] Speaker A: And it's like, that is a fascinating kind of. That's this fascinating design where you have a designer, a mech designer who has been in the Gundam space for years and decides to build a mech where the person is like, at the chest of the. Of the mechanic, front and center the entire time. [01:08:32] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:08:33] Speaker A: Like. Like a baby kangaroo inside of its mom. [01:08:35] Speaker B: Yeah. There are scenes all throughout, like, the original series where you. I mean, I personally kind of like, forget that the pilots are that close, like that exposed. Until there's a scene where it's like. Oh, yeah, they're poking their heads. [01:08:51] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:08:51] Speaker B: Out of the chest. But I love just like a windshield over their heads. [01:08:55] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:08:55] Speaker B: And it opens up and they stick their heads out. But it's crazy. [01:08:58] Speaker A: I love it because it has the design. Because, like, you would be the question of. Well, that just seems like it doesn't make any sense because it's like, why would you put the person there? It's like. Because in all honesty, Patlabor at its best exists because it constantly is reminding you, remember, the mech is just a shell. It's just to the most important thing. [01:09:15] Speaker B: Which is the people. [01:09:17] Speaker A: That vehicle. Yeah. It's just. Yeah, it's a car. [01:09:19] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:09:20] Speaker A: It's a car that does really cool things. It is incredibly well designed. The Patlabor suits are fucking radio. [01:09:25] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:09:26] Speaker A: But, like, it's just. It's a show that, like the ova and the movies or the collective of headgear have, like, constantly remind the audience all the time that, like, it's about the people. It's about the team, like the team growing. It's about the fact that these are regular people that are like, this is not a. No one's a new type. [01:09:46] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:09:47] Speaker A: There's no rebel. There's no rebel force behind them. They are not fighting a gigantic evil enemy in the process. They are literally fighting capitalism. They are fighting like the corruption in the private and public sector. And like they are fighting government bureaucracy. They are fighting real world things. And the thing that gives them strength is not the labor. Right. That is just a tool that helps them when the time is done. Like the time is right. And that's fascinating because like, that's not something that I think you really think of constantly with Mecca. Because Mecca is just about like, you know, there's always a person inside or you try to be, but it's like they're always hidden because it makes more sense to have like a big shell of armor in between. You know. [01:10:32] Speaker B: Robot action still winds up taking center stage at a point. And like. Yeah. Even most of the best mecha is like that. Well, at the end of the day that's, that's the genre and that's like what's fun about it in. [01:10:45] Speaker A: How do you. And honestly. And not in a cynical way, but how do you sell toys? [01:10:49] Speaker B: Right. Exactly, exactly. [01:10:50] Speaker A: It's easier to sell. [01:10:51] Speaker B: You get to keep making your show. You sell toys. Sell toys. You make cool robots. Yeah. [01:10:56] Speaker A: And pat labor makes cool robots. But like the cool robots are not the forefront. [01:11:02] Speaker B: They're so. Not so far from the forefront. [01:11:05] Speaker A: They honestly are the seasoning to the course, which is. The course is just like the human struggle. [01:11:11] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:11:12] Speaker A: In a world that is constantly evolving and changing technologically. [01:11:16] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:11:16] Speaker A: And is very much like a bunch of people literally following a team who is content in their, in their space, getting the rug constantly pulled from under them and having to get involved because there are greedy, corrupt bureaucrats and policemen and terrorists who just want to take advantage of the growing times. [01:11:38] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think, you know, I think, I mean that is, that is kind of what I meant at the start of the episode when I said like patlabor is like a real robots real robot show in that like this. The whole kind of concept behind these, especially the movies, is like strip. How much can we strip the robot away from the story and still call it a mech show and focus more on. Yeah. The human element, the reflection of society. Because that's kind of what all real robot is really about is, you know, reflecting some real life conflicts or Injustices or struggles and, you know, telling a story that really speaks to, you know, humans, people and how they interact and greed and perseverance. [01:12:27] Speaker A: It jogged my memory too. But, like, it goes back to, like, into the. One of the only scenes that Noah and Asuma have. [01:12:33] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:12:34] Speaker A: Is the scene where, like, Asuma is talking to Noah about the fact that, like, you know, how do you feel about the fact that, like, you know, Alphonse is obsolete. [01:12:42] Speaker B: Right. [01:12:42] Speaker A: How do you feel about the fact that, like, we are three years in and the labors that they're using are Autumn are just better in every way. [01:12:50] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:12:50] Speaker A: And no, like. And you feel like if it was something like a classic mecha anime, you would talk. They would constantly be updating or being like, you know, no, you know, Alphonse will always have the heart. [01:13:02] Speaker B: Yeah. Or none of them would hop in Alphonse in a pinch and defeat the brand new mech, which is what happens in the first film. [01:13:10] Speaker A: But Noah, like, ultimately goes like, this is. This is the matter of life. [01:13:14] Speaker B: Like, Alphonse is just technology. [01:13:16] Speaker A: Alphonse gets to rest. He did his job, and we did our job. And, like, this is how the world works. And it's like, okay, like, damn, I didn't expect that, like, 15 minutes in. Little did I know that was gonna be the last time you see Noah and asuma for, like, 30 minutes. [01:13:33] Speaker B: But, like, there's. It is very little sentimentality or, like, showmanship around the robots. [01:13:38] Speaker A: There's. There is a bit. Yeah, there's a bit of a melancholy air to everything where it's like. And then, of course, that gets, like, you know, it balances well with, like, the comedy coming back once the gang keeps getting back together. Like, of course there's like, you know, Ota is still Ota Glasses guy at one point. The big thing about the ova is that his wife constantly won't let him leave the house. As soon as he comes back, he's always at the SV2 base. And then she tries to say that she's pregnant to keep him to stay. [01:14:07] Speaker B: Right. [01:14:08] Speaker A: The team just pulls him like, you're gonna stay there longer. There's still some comedy that's at the. Towards the end of Pat Labor 2, which I think gives the film the. The necessary levity to go into that finale feeling like, you know, it's not like they're like. Because again, there is a version of this film where it almost feels like Headgear is ashamed of the goofiness of the original ova. And that's not the Case with two. Like, two has moments where it's like, hey, listen, the goofiness that you remember from early days, it's still here. It's just, you know, the team that's around it, they're moving on. They're the people that are staying. They're staying, but they're now the old guard. They're becoming the old guard, or they're doing their own thing. And like, you know, the best. It almost has the energy too, of like. Well, to be honest, the best people in law enforcement aren't constantly trying to use their weapons and tools. [01:15:01] Speaker B: Right. [01:15:01] Speaker A: It's like, you know, they just kind of want to grow and move on. And if they don't have to use them as much, they don't use them as much. [01:15:06] Speaker B: Right. [01:15:07] Speaker A: And it's, like, fascinating to see that in two. And it just. It makes it understandable when we go into three, that when you hear most people talk about three, there is an air of disappointment. And sometimes. And it's the Internet, so you get this sometimes an air of rage. Because the thing about Patlabor is that if you're a fan of patlabor in the 90s, one, good for you. I'm glad, because you got some good shit in the 90s, especially the long form series. But after 95. Yeah, maybe if the Live action. I don't know what the. When the Live Action show ran at that point. But like, in terms of the animation side of things, there's a drought. There's a huge drought for at least seven years after the film. After two comes out. [01:15:58] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:15:58] Speaker A: That basically is like. [01:16:00] Speaker B: Well, most of Headgear gets busy and starts with other projects. [01:16:04] Speaker A: Yeah, they. They basically end up at a certain point when the 2000s hit, all of headgear disband, in a sense, to go work on their projects. And so it's like, if you're a Patlabor fan, you're like, well, now we're. We're in a. We're in a weird spot. Like, Headgear doesn't exist anymore. Who the fuck. Like, if we want anything Patlabor related, who the fuck is gonna do it and what the fuck is it gonna be about? Because, like, there's probably that error of, like, would I want a sequel that takes place after two that may or may not have the original team behind it? The original. The original writer, have Oshi as a director. Like, would I really be satisfied with it? [01:16:41] Speaker B: Right. [01:16:41] Speaker A: And the response you get, the result you get with that is the third film is a interqual. It's It's. It's the third film in this trilogy, but chronologically it takes place in the year 2000. [01:16:56] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:16:56] Speaker A: It takes place a year after the events of PatLabor 1. It has little to nothing to do with SV2 until the very end. This is. And I'm. I mean, again, it sounds. This is probably the oddest film of the three of these. And it sounds ridiculous, but this is really what the film is. The film follows two police detectives that we've never seen before as they deal with a Labor involved case that just so happens to occasionally might have SV2 get interlocked from time to time. [01:17:30] Speaker B: Yeah. They basically like consult with members of SV2. [01:17:34] Speaker A: Because what I. Because if. If I know this. If I've kind of seen this corre. If. And that could be wrong too. This is basically taking a wrong. A long running side story in the manga and giving it more weight and more of a spotlight and making it its own. [01:17:50] Speaker B: Yeah. My understanding is this movie was originally meant to be like a one off Ova. [01:17:57] Speaker A: Makes sense. [01:17:58] Speaker B: Which would make sense. I didn't know that it's an arc in the manga, but that would make sense that like, okay, this was an arc in the manga that we could pull from. We could make a little side story about it. But it turned into a movie and that's. I mean, effectively what this ends up being is a side story. It kind of has nothing to do with any of the other Patlabor content. And. Yeah. What would you say of the recognizable characters, Goto gets the most screen time and he has, I think, two scenes. [01:18:26] Speaker A: That's my boy. Yeah. Goto gets the most. [01:18:29] Speaker B: He has like one conversational scene and then he shows up again right toward the end. [01:18:33] Speaker A: Yes. And Goto's great. I would even argue too, like, if you're not even like, I. When that happened, I didn't even think it was Goto initially. [01:18:42] Speaker B: Okay. [01:18:42] Speaker A: Like, it was initially I was like, that looks exactly like Goto. [01:18:46] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:18:47] Speaker A: That is. Go to. [01:18:48] Speaker B: They don't. [01:18:48] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:18:48] Speaker B: They don't like introduce. [01:18:49] Speaker A: No, no, no. [01:18:50] Speaker B: He's just there. [01:18:51] Speaker A: Which is fascinating. [01:18:52] Speaker B: Talking to him. [01:18:53] Speaker A: Honest to God, I would have probably not even thought about it as being Goto because again, three is not interested in being like, there he is. [01:19:02] Speaker B: Right. [01:19:03] Speaker A: There she is. There's a Labor. There's this. It is very much like we are telling the story. It takes place in the Patlabor universe. [01:19:12] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:19:12] Speaker A: Maybe you'll see a Labor. [01:19:14] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:19:14] Speaker A: Maybe not. We'll see. And it's like, okay, so like when it comes to, like, when he shows up, literally my roommate, who was like, who got pulled into two. [01:19:22] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:19:23] Speaker A: They watched two with me. They were like, oh, what are you watching? And then they just sat down because it was like midway through two and they're like, what the fuck is this? Yeah, this is bad labor. It was like, well, it's not really pat labor because it's not how the ova is, but this is pat labor too. They. They walked in while I was watching this one and with three, they were like, oh, shit, isn't that the guy from SV2? And I really went. I squinted. I was like, is this the. This is the connection? Really? The old detective is like one of. [01:19:56] Speaker B: I know a guy. [01:19:57] Speaker A: Yeah, one of Goto's connections, which makes perfect sense. [01:19:59] Speaker B: It's kind of cool to be seeing, like, Goto's many connections deep in the state, like from the other side. So like now we're just seeing. We're following a story about one of Goto's connections. [01:20:14] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:20:14] Speaker B: You know, and then, yeah, of course Goto's gonna show up because that guy and Goto talk all the time. [01:20:19] Speaker A: And it's. It's just fascinating because the full title, by the way, is W13 and it's XIII. [01:20:27] Speaker B: Yes. [01:20:28] Speaker A: So W X I I I or. Yeah, Colon, Pat the Movie 3. [01:20:33] Speaker B: Right. So we've got three inconsistently named movies in this trilogy. Pat the Movie, Path the movie and WX or W13. Pat the movie 3. [01:20:47] Speaker A: Yeah. And I gotta say, going into this, knowing what it was probably gonna not have anything to do with SV2, I. I was locked in. I had a fun time with this one. I honestly, like, was shocked at, like. Because again, this is a film that is following two detectives that like. It was funny too, because when I was telling my roommate about this, they were like, oh, is this a movie about the Eternal affairs guys? [01:21:16] Speaker B: And I'm like, it could be. [01:21:18] Speaker A: What did the Internal affairs guys that have been like, Goto's go to guys in the first two, they get like a little side plot in two when it comes to like, they're trying to find out who bought the blitz. [01:21:27] Speaker B: Yeah, Matsui. Yeah, Matsui. So I'm like, he's a detective. Yeah. [01:21:32] Speaker A: Maybe they could be following those two. No, entirely original characters, at least in the movie Space one. Like, it's basically a young guy and an older man who are. Who are basically a curmudgeon as his older partner and detective friend who basically find a destroyed labor on the side of the. On the side of the bay and are being told that, like, something has destroyed. Like, there's something that's destroyed this thing. And it clearly has, like, indention marks and destruction. And it's like. There's a part where it's like, it could be a Pat labor, but it was in the sea. And canonically, we really haven't seen a patent laborer that could, you know, be in the water, like, float in the water or, like, swim. They're not really built to do that unless you're, like, you're just gonna build, like, I don't know, a submarine with a Labor head on it. So, like, it is honestly two detectives trying to figure out what would have destroyed such a thing. [01:22:31] Speaker B: Right. [01:22:31] Speaker A: And then they get pulled in to a plot and a conspiracy that I, at certain point, looked and I went, are we calling back to episode three? Are we getting an episode that. Again, if you are a fan of Patlabor, I. I don't know how. Unless you didn't. Unless you read the manga. And they were like, I know exactly what the story is, but if you've only seen the ova in the movies so far, and you go into three, and you're like, wait a minute. Are they making a fucking monster movie? That is, like, a callback to, like, thematically to the episode that I saw, like, 12, 13 years ago. [01:23:10] Speaker B: Not quite an adaptation of the 450 million year trap, I think, is the name of that episode. But it's damn similar. Like, it's. [01:23:20] Speaker A: You know, the plot twist in W13 is that it's not a Labor that's causing these things. It's literally a fucking monster. [01:23:28] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:23:29] Speaker A: Not only is it a monster plot. [01:23:31] Speaker B: Twist in, like, the first act. [01:23:32] Speaker A: Yes. Well, because it will. Yeah. It's what it's at that point. [01:23:37] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:23:37] Speaker A: But that's, like, really the only twist of the film is the fact that, like, it's not a Labor. It's not an operating system. It is literally in the world, post Pat Labor 1. The movie. It is literally like, just about a monster that was created to ultimately may or may not be tied to, like, American, like, American studies and, like, the military. Yeah. [01:24:03] Speaker B: And it was partially motivated by, like, trying to find treatments for cancer and, you know, as it goes, turned into a horrible mad science experiment. [01:24:14] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:24:15] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:24:15] Speaker A: And ultimately, as all cancer treatments do, ultimately becomes, like, I think, a really good story about two detectives who. I mean, two people who are just trying to figure out why a giant fish monster exists and why would someone create such a thing in a world filled with Labors like, it's like. And it's, it's fascinating how much debt, like how much kind of like just how much like seasoning you get on both of their lives as like characters in terms of like. [01:24:49] Speaker B: Sure. [01:24:49] Speaker A: The younger cop who in the dub. And we haven't really talked about. We pretty much watched the dub for all three of these films. [01:24:56] Speaker B: Yeah. When I. When I hadn't, this is the only one I had not seen prior to this episode. But I watched 1 and 2 and the ova in their original language. And then when I was rewatching 1 and 2 for this, I watched them dubbed. So we were kind of on the same page in that experience. [01:25:17] Speaker A: And I watched three dubbed as well in the palabra. One and two, if you probably dubs. Yeah. You get one and two now. They're probably the most recent dub, which is. Which is from 2006. So if, you know, if you're a critical role fan and you hear a few voices from that show, you definitely. Yeah, a lot of recognizable voices. Was not expecting the main voice of Sonic the Hedgehog to be goto in one and two and the 2006 dub, but that's where we are. But in I think Palaver 3, I believe it's the original dub. [01:25:49] Speaker B: Yeah, I think there was only one. [01:25:50] Speaker A: Yeah. Because three is unsurprisingly the least popular of the three. [01:25:54] Speaker B: Not a lot of demand for follow up releases of it. [01:25:56] Speaker A: The dub does a phenomenal job of having a really strong cast of like you would not really nobodies, but people. Because like the main cop, like the youngest cop. Oh yeah, that's Kakashi from Naruto. That's like the sensei. That's the guy who is basically still doing that job today. Like that man is still doing that dub today. The older cop is also a voice I've heard before. The cast is really, I think strong in the sense of like really capturing the essence of the characters in a really like really localizing the language in a way that I think really works well with the animation. Works well with what it's trying to do philosophically as well as the fact that like when the SV2 team shows up, at least in that dub, you get the original ova cast, I think. [01:26:44] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:26:44] Speaker A: Which is really cool to hear those voices again. But just the performances are really well done. The animation's good. The story behind like, you know, you get enough of each cop to really like dig in to like really see how it affects them in terms of like what they do in Their free time, what their vices are, what, like, you know, what interests them to go day to day, especially as cops. [01:27:11] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:27:11] Speaker A: Cops will. Again, the most interesting part about three, I think on a base level is watching a film that has, like, where it's like, okay, usually in a film like this, you have cops with mechs. What if these cops were just normal guys? These are beat detectives. [01:27:28] Speaker B: Right. [01:27:28] Speaker A: That are literally fighting against a extraordinary scenario. [01:27:32] Speaker B: One of them walks with a cane and has a limp. [01:27:34] Speaker A: Yes. And cannot do chases. [01:27:36] Speaker B: He tries his absolute best a few, but he's just not equipped for them. [01:27:41] Speaker A: And it's great. It adds great for the tension because it's like. It's not like he becomes force gump and able to run fast. Literally. He's an old man that has a crutch and literally can only go so far. [01:27:52] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:27:53] Speaker A: But the. The team is just really fun to watch them really solve this pretty straightforward, you know, case of, like, the conspiracy surrounding it. What led to the creation of the monster. [01:28:04] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:28:05] Speaker A: And ultimately having some interesting conversations, just like, in an emotional sense. And also, like, again, it can't. It's nowhere near as deep as 2 in its conversations of philosophy or emotion, but I really think it does, actually. I'd argue it probably handles emotion a little bit better than two does. Like, I'm a little bit more invested. [01:28:24] Speaker B: Yeah. It's. [01:28:25] Speaker A: It's in the two Cops. [01:28:26] Speaker B: Admirable attempt to, like, make. To really give you two very human characters at the center of your story. Because that is the thing with. We've praised Patlabor already in this episode, just generally for focusing on the human element. But it's kind of more in a broad social sense. Like, we're looking at this team of scrappy people against the odds and things. And this is a little bit more like, let's actually get to know this individual character and explore their psyche. And I applaud that. And interestingly enough, fun little fact that makes a lot of sense. This film is directed by Fumihiko Takayama, who directed all six episodes of our favorite Gundam series, which is War on the Pocket, and also is probably the most successful, like, human story in the Gundam universe. [01:29:21] Speaker A: A Gundam that benefits one of the. [01:29:22] Speaker B: Best mech stories of all time. [01:29:24] Speaker A: Gundam media. That benefits from, like, less Gundam action. [01:29:29] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. So it's kind of. [01:29:31] Speaker A: Even though the Gundam action. That show rips hard. [01:29:33] Speaker B: Oh, absolutely. [01:29:35] Speaker A: Yeah. It is very much like I. The commitment to just like, following these two cops. And then occasionally, like the first time you see Noah and Asuma is literally there doing their own investigation. And then SV2 gets called in because of like the same thing. And then they get kicked out. They're like, oh, SV2 takes it from here. And they're like, God damn, SV2. Where the fuck are they taking the servos? And it's just fun to like see these two cops that are like, you know, in a. I think in a standard sense you wouldn't get a lot of their home life or their off duty life. But I really love just like, I love how the curmudgeon has this energy of just like being, you know, I'm too old for this. [01:30:14] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:30:14] Speaker A: There's nothing that I really have in my life anymore. Like he, he like, I think it's implied that he pushed away his wife. Like he's divorced, maybe has a kid, but like he has this immaculate, beautiful like mahogany room of just vinyl from wall to wall and just perfectly describes that this is a man in a world where people are in robots and technology is getting better and better, like more improved as time goes on. Literally just prefers to sit in a nice comfy chair and listen to a vinyl record. [01:30:49] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:30:49] Speaker A: He's a man out of time, but it's almost in a way that you can respect it. [01:30:53] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:30:54] Speaker A: Well, as the other cop is very much just like a man who is not overly obsessed with tech where it's like, you know, it's almost like he has like a. Almost a visual kind of look. Kind of like Asuma, but older, more experienced in his field and like, but he's more, he's more tactile. The first time we meet him, he's a baseball pitcher for like, for like a police team or maybe just like a personal kind of recreational thing. And honestly like is his whole thing is just like, you know, being a normal guy doing normal things and like kind of slowly getting infatuated with a woman who he doesn't think is initially involved but clearly is. [01:31:33] Speaker B: Right. Right. [01:31:34] Speaker A: And it's interesting to hear kind of like his conversations with her kind of build up his ideas on things and how he is. Yeah. The youngest and probably the most. He's the most optimistic of the two, but he's not naive. [01:31:48] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:31:48] Speaker A: And it's fun to hear the conversations where it's like these two people are clearly been detect like partners for a little bit, but not for a long time because like they still are. Like really they're ribbing each other in a way that feels a little bit too personal or like they're trying to like push each other's buttons a little too much. [01:32:06] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:32:07] Speaker A: So it's very interesting to have like this dynamic in a world where we've like, you know, because it's also hilariously in terms of the comical aspect of this. The goofiness of this series, like starting from early days to start from early days being like a full blown screwball fest a lot of the times to this being the most. I would say arguably the most consistently. [01:32:29] Speaker B: Serious character to character. Much levity in this one. It's pretty bleak too. [01:32:35] Speaker A: It's probably the silliest character in this film is a foreign director who is shooting at a stadium. [01:32:42] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:32:42] Speaker A: That you can barely understand what he's saying. [01:32:44] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:32:45] Speaker A: He has a translator with him and he's in two seats. Yeah. Like, it really is a. The most grounded of probably these three films in terms of its premise, excluding the monster of it. [01:32:55] Speaker B: Well, yeah, it's. It's tone certainly. [01:32:57] Speaker A: Yeah. And also it's like stakes are pretty much the. The highest stakes are the emotional ones. It's not like. It's not like the other films where it's like, if we don't succeed in this, there will be a walk. Yeah. Everything's fucked. It really is. Just like if we don't stop this, this is a problem. Like someone's gonna get hurt. [01:33:17] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:33:18] Speaker A: Like this is gonna be real big issue personally with them. And maybe people like it is leads to a finale that I think is the most. It's honestly, I had the most fun weirdly with this finale. [01:33:31] Speaker B: Oh. [01:33:31] Speaker A: Just because I really liked the fact that like when SV2 does come in, it's almost like you're seeing them through the eyes of the detectives. [01:33:39] Speaker B: Right. [01:33:40] Speaker A: And since we've only been introduced to Goto from that point on and then like no one is knowing Asuma for a little bit when they show up and they're actually in action. I think it's the most competent we've. [01:33:51] Speaker B: Seen them as a duo. [01:33:53] Speaker A: Yeah. And like just the. The animation surrounding like the. The nightsticks and like the fighting in general and being able. Like even though we haven't met these characters in this film fully, they still know these characters well enough that like you see like the, you know, the stubbornness of Ota in the combat. Noah being resilient in the fight and ultimately adding some really kind of wild shit that just isn't as wild as the previous film where it's like there's an aspect to the fish monster that is very Godzilla esque. Even more so than the episode that is very much A Godzilla knockoff. Yeah, a Godzilla Omega homage in the original ova. It literally pulls some. I made a joke in the film where I'm like, I swear to God, if it pulls this bit from, like, this specific Godzilla film, I'm gonna lose it. And it did. It was like, Jesus Christ. If you couldn't tell that these people, like, the. The people creating this are Kaiju fans. [01:34:52] Speaker B: What is the reference? [01:34:54] Speaker A: The reference is. Is the fact that there are cells of a human being spliced into a monster. Which, if you're a Godzilla fan out there, Evan, if you're listening to this, that is a big point in Godzilla vs Biollante, because there are human cells put into the plant monster. That is. And not only is it human cells in the plant monster, it is a family member of the scientist putting their family, like, DNA, which is the same. It is like. And there is energy in this film where it's like, yeah, the stakes are low, but there is, like, moments where it's, like, uncomfortable in terms of, like, you know, the love interest, quote unquote. The woman who's actually the scientist, like, helps with this kind of situation. There's an entire scene where she is just sitting in a room with her TV on, no other light on. Is the most uncomfortable scene in the entire series. Yeah, it is so uncomfortable. And it's incredibly well done. And you can tell, like, they keep the TV just out of focus enough, but you know exactly what they're doing. And it's like, oh, yeah. And then you think it wouldn't get any more uncomfortable until they go back to her apartment later and there's an aspect of her room that isn't shown in that scene. But when you see it, God, it felt like some Satoshi Kon shit. Just like the way it is introduced. Like, yeah. And then you. I assume you're. I'm talking. I am talking about the mural in her fucking room. It's like the most uncomfortable shit where it's like, this is wild that this is in the same universe as Pat Labors, but I also love that. Like it. It very much. I think the reason why. And again, I don't know if this film is called Pat Labor 3 in Japan. Okay, it might be. But, like, I think at least in the States, for American pet labor fans, having this film be called Pat Labor 3 to a degree and going to see this and being like, I understand being annoyed and pissed off that this is like. I was told this is the third film. Why the fuck are all the characters that I Kind of wanted to see in the background. [01:37:04] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:37:05] Speaker A: Or just in the third act. And it's like, well, that's understandable, especially at that time. But I think looking back at it now with these three films as a whole, I really enjoy how all three of these films are able to have a film that kind of is, like, on a baseline, entertaining you with the things that you liked from the ova and really kind of, like, up, like, upscaled it and really improved upon it narratively while also animation wise, budget wise. And then you get the. Clearly, the labor of love of the three. At least with it. Reverse with the Headgear team. And then you have the film that is clearly, like, someone who is probably a fan and is, you know, a colleague. [01:37:47] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:37:47] Speaker A: Probably of the people. Of some of the people. A part of Headgear, making almost an homage to them by, like, taking a narrative that isn't even in the ova. [01:37:57] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:37:58] Speaker A: And just, like, giving it its time to shine as its own story. [01:38:02] Speaker B: Right. [01:38:02] Speaker A: Like, to be honest, if this was called. Honest to God, I think if this was called W13. A Patlabor story. [01:38:08] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:38:09] Speaker A: You get less people pissed. [01:38:10] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:38:11] Speaker A: It's like calling Rogue One Star Wars Zero. Or, like, you know, like, 3.3.75. Like, it's like, no. Like. [01:38:19] Speaker B: Yeah, it looks like the. This movie is called in Japanese is just W13 mobile police. Pat Labor. [01:38:29] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:38:29] Speaker B: I mean, it's like, subtitle is Pat Labor. There's no three. There's no, like, no. This is the next movie. It's just kind of another. [01:38:36] Speaker A: But, yeah. [01:38:37] Speaker B: Pat labor related story. [01:38:38] Speaker A: And it makes sense because. But it makes sense in the States where it's like, well, what the. There's been Pat labor for shit. And, like, for years. And then we're getting this, and this is, like, weird. Like, what do we call this? [01:38:49] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:38:49] Speaker A: I don't know. Pat Labor 3. [01:38:51] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:38:52] Speaker A: It's like. [01:38:53] Speaker B: Right. [01:38:53] Speaker A: I mean, this is also the era. I mean, again, it could be worse. This is also the era where there were animation studios in the States making American compilation films. They were basically, like, cutting together anime films or shorts that had nothing to do with one another except for, like, you know, they're in the same universe, but, like, they almost made it seem like it was narratively like, one story. Anyone out there is understand. I'm talking about the Digimon movie. Okay. [01:39:22] Speaker B: Okay. [01:39:22] Speaker A: That was a big film for me growing up. I love that movie. I still have a soft spot for that movie. But that movie literally is, like, two. One or two years before this movie comes out. And it's literally, I believe, Saban or like Fox taking three separate shorts that were put in, that were put in theaters with the middle one being a fucking banger and taking them and basically like being like recutting them into a story, recutting them into one quote unquote cohesive story. And I actually. And I'm putting this on the pod now because I literally didn't think about this until today. I would love to fucking watch the originals of all three of those because I don't think I've actually seen the original. Yeah, because like the. The middle film in that. In that film, like the. It's called Our War Game and that is directed by the guy who would end up doing like Summer wars and like later, like animation, I think. Boy and his Beasts. [01:40:22] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [01:40:25] Speaker A: Like, that was one of his first directing properties. But back to pat labor, W13 is, I think, a very fun. I think a really good film by itself. But then when you bring it into the whole of Pat labor as a universe and as a franchise, that's where I would say the mileage varies. [01:40:44] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:40:44] Speaker A: It's like, for me, I don't have a huge tie to Pat Labor. I've enjoyed everything I've watched. [01:40:50] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. [01:40:51] Speaker A: But I'm at the point now, not. [01:40:52] Speaker B: A super heavy investment emotionally in the franchise. [01:40:56] Speaker A: Yeah. Like, do I have an interest at some point? I think we both talked about this off Mike, but do I. Do we have an interest in watching like the long form show? Yeah, to a degree. Yeah. But like, if you're gonna ask me, like, would I watch the long form show over, like, I don't know, Gundam insert here. I'm already at the tv. Or like. [01:41:13] Speaker B: Yeah. Or like, is it. [01:41:15] Speaker A: Do we form across. [01:41:16] Speaker B: I probably start watching for like, do we need. Absolutely need more, you know, content that goes into the SV2 crew? It's like, no. No. It'd be fun to see them. But like, it's. I'm not like, oh, man, this is rife for. [01:41:32] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:41:32] Speaker B: You know, more storytelling. [01:41:34] Speaker A: At the same time, it's at this weird thing where like, if we ended the pod like this episode today and we had. We saw news that they were making a reboot. [01:41:43] Speaker B: Yeah. I would absolutely be jacked. [01:41:44] Speaker A: Yeah. Because like, there is like, they're having these conversations about technology and how it affects the world around us. This in the 90s. [01:41:52] Speaker B: Yeah. It would be cool to see what. [01:41:54] Speaker A: Is that comment during Netscape Godaddy era. [01:41:57] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:41:58] Speaker A: And now we're in the 2020s AI and Jesus Christ. Yeah. It is something reality. Yeah. And it would depend on who's behind it. But considering the. The team that was a part of Headgear that is still kind of constantly doing stuff, is doing some really interesting stuff still, and is really creative and have just one hell of a track record, I think it would be really interesting to see if they did more pally. Because there's always been like rumors of like, it's coming back. I think there was like a reboot, like proof of concept for like the late 2000s, early 2010s of like someone being like basically pat labor and HD would be kind of rad. [01:42:35] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:42:36] Speaker A: But like, at the same time, what would you do with it? I mean, again, in this day and age too, I could even see it being like a limited series, like keeping the ova sides, like just like we're. [01:42:48] Speaker B: Slightly behind the beat. Logan. [01:42:50] Speaker A: Oh, really? [01:42:51] Speaker B: I guess there is a new anime project titled Patlabor Ezy planned for 2026. [01:42:58] Speaker A: Holy shit. [01:42:59] Speaker B: They showed off like a short pilot film a couple years ago. [01:43:03] Speaker A: Oh, I think I might have seen clips of that one, so I didn't know that was attached to that. Okay, sure. [01:43:07] Speaker B: It's directed by Izubuchi, the iconic character designer who worked on this and Gundam and everything. [01:43:15] Speaker A: You hear that, folks? I talked. [01:43:17] Speaker B: You just manifested it on air live in the studio. [01:43:21] Speaker A: Has nothing to do with the fact that I just didn't see that news. [01:43:26] Speaker B: It's always funny when we get to the. Towards the end of an episode and I start just googling things that Logan's talking about and then we find out information as we're talking. [01:43:37] Speaker A: God, I would just love Steven Yen to be Silver the Hedgehog. [01:43:41] Speaker B: Oh, fuck. [01:43:43] Speaker A: Damn it. [01:43:43] Speaker B: Oh, it's on this. And this news was on Bing. So it's not real. [01:43:49] Speaker A: No, I mean, it's. It's an era where it feels like, you know, even Gundam at its lowest points is still trucking along. [01:43:55] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:43:55] Speaker A: And making some cool ideas. I mean, hell, this year, one of the. I mean, again, one of the reasons why we did this was not only because, you know, just, you know, we wanted to kind of do something Gundam esque, but also keeping the odd kind of vibe also. Yeah. This is the year of like a huge Gundam show coming out that might be like a genuinely decent game changer just to the vibe of Mecca in the modern age. And so what better way to like, kind of talk about that while also talking about like the stuff that kind of felt revolutionary in the 80s and 90s and also felt like. Like you said, a robot fans robot show. Like, it's a real man. Like a real robot robot. [01:44:34] Speaker B: Right. [01:44:34] Speaker A: Like just a good time. And this is a good time. This is. I think, in all honesty, it was a fun venture. Yeah. I think one. I think one in. Honestly, one in 13. One and one in 13. One and W13 are like three and a half out of five for me. Then I think two is a four. Like, I think it's a solid, consistent quality wise. I'd even argue the weakest part of what we watch for this is probably great, is the Early Days. I liked Early Days a lot. But, like, I think Early Days is. [01:45:04] Speaker B: I think I liked Early Days more than the first movie just because. Because it felt like the first movie was like, oh, let's just make an episode of the ova, but bloat it out to feature length. And I was kind of like, I'm not huge when shows do that. And a lot of shows do that. [01:45:19] Speaker A: They can. Yes. [01:45:20] Speaker B: Cowboy Bebop, the movie. [01:45:22] Speaker A: Oh, that's right. I remember your biggest intentions. [01:45:25] Speaker B: It's just, you know. But, yeah, I mean, these are all solid times. I think I did get a little bit bored. And I'll attribute some of this to just kind of like, too much pat labor in too little time because I kind of cracked. Crammed these. But W13 did kind of. I probably checked out in certain points of that movie, which I am kind of intrigued to rewatch it at some point just because of the. The more emotional angles and the kind of, like, perverse weirdness of it that didn't totally. I, like, clocked them, but they didn't really click with me narratively. [01:46:03] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. I mean, again, it is understandably so. I think for me, the one that I think was that I was the least engaged with was the first film. [01:46:11] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:46:12] Speaker A: Mainly because it was like, I. He's like, yeah, I get this. And then I would just be like, I don't need action right now. But, like, it feels like we're building up to it. How much longer do we get to that? And then we got to it. I was like, okay, that's fine. [01:46:25] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:46:25] Speaker A: And then even during the action, I was like, all right, we're getting there. Like it very much. If anything, the three of these. I think one does have a little bit of the bias, numbers, energy, but makes up for it in places, mainly because the animation fucking rules the score. I think, for all three of these films is really interesting in unique ways. [01:46:44] Speaker B: Kenji Kawhi, who's a pretty prolific, especially in the 90s and 2000s. I think he did Gundam Double O. Oh, yes. Composed a score for that. And actually I was just reading a little bit about that new Patlabor project, and it seems to be a bit of a headgear reunion because Izabuchi is directing, and then Kazunori Ito, who wrote most of Patlabor, is writing the screenplay. [01:47:12] Speaker A: I'm not gonna freak out. [01:47:13] Speaker B: And Masami Yuki, one of the core headgear members, is doing the character design, and even Akami Takada is doing costume design. And Kenji Kawaii is returning to score. So it's kind of like they got everybody. I mean, except for Oshi, but, you know. Oh, she's just his own shit. [01:47:31] Speaker A: They put. I think they put Oshi in a cabinet and they open and they go, do you want to do another Ghost in the Shell thing? And he probably goes, yes or no. And they go, okay, will you produce it? It's like, I don't know. We'll come back to you. [01:47:42] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:47:43] Speaker A: Because. Yeah. I mean, it's hilarious how Ghost in the Shell as a like a multimedia property is like, I would say younger to it to an extent. I think it's all. It's still. I think it's also a manga. [01:47:55] Speaker B: Right. [01:47:56] Speaker A: But like, from the film onward, there is more Ghost in the Shell content in that time frame than we've had pat labor. So it's funny how they, like. Oshi is in a different spot than he was back then. I do want to really watch Ghost in the Shell too, though. Like, that's. [01:48:12] Speaker B: Yeah, I do too. [01:48:13] Speaker A: Because I bet that's a film that like, definitely was not loved at the time when it first came out and then probably now is aged a lot better. [01:48:20] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:48:20] Speaker A: Even though they're CG, I saw the CG in that movie. It's 2003. There's only so much you can do. [01:48:24] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:48:25] Speaker A: Commitment. [01:48:26] Speaker B: Well, and I mean, Oshi's got another. He's got another kind of long form media property that he created, which is tied in with like Jinro and the Wolf Brigade. He wrote Jinro the Red Spectacles, I think, which I think he directed. And it's like. That's like a kind of like Patlabor. It's like there's manga, there's radio plays, there's movies, there's TV shows, there's all sorts of shit all tied into the same world. Stray Dogs is the live action sequel to Ginro. [01:49:00] Speaker A: Crazy that there's that. [01:49:02] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:49:02] Speaker A: And also Fun fact, because there's something I do remember kind of doing faint research for. Apparently Oshii is known for the first ova ever. He directed the first ever ova. [01:49:13] Speaker B: What is that? [01:49:14] Speaker A: It's called Dallos Dallas. It's like Dallas, but the last. It's not civil last A, it's an O. So D, A, L, I, O S. Okay. [01:49:21] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:49:21] Speaker A: So it's like the first time, I think they. They considered that an ova, like. And that's apparently one of Oshi's original directing. [01:49:30] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:49:31] Speaker A: But yeah. [01:49:32] Speaker B: Also considered the first animated direct to video production release period. [01:49:37] Speaker A: Fuck. Yes. [01:49:38] Speaker B: The first animated direct to video. [01:49:40] Speaker A: Wow. I mean, Andy's told me this off mic, but he's now gonna watch it. Yeah. You've had more of an Oshi itch after watching these last few. [01:49:47] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:49:49] Speaker A: And I would be like, yeah, I'd do some Oshi in the future for the pod. But yeah, this is the Bad Libra trilogy. It's a good time. I mean, it's hard to find. I think it's not on any streaming services, so don't. [01:50:00] Speaker B: Yeah, the first two Blu Rays. [01:50:03] Speaker A: Yes. [01:50:03] Speaker B: But they're probably pretty expensive anime Blu. [01:50:06] Speaker A: Rays usually, hilariously enough. I think the last time I checked Amazon, just out of Curiosity, I think W13 is like the cheapest thing. But it's on DVD. [01:50:14] Speaker B: Yeah, it's only got DVD. [01:50:16] Speaker A: But yeah, if you. I would recommend it especially if you're a fan of animation and especially mechs and just like, you know, even if it's something like you haven't watched much Gundam but you like, you like something like Pacific Rim, I would say, like you'll give something like Pat Leber or. [01:50:28] Speaker B: If you're into like cop procedurals or noir mysteries like that. These will scratch that itch too. [01:50:36] Speaker A: And they certainly will. [01:50:37] Speaker B: Like the robots at that point are just a nice little bonus. [01:50:39] Speaker A: Or if you, if you really just have that monkey brain energy and you just like to see a really big revolver and shotgun. [01:50:46] Speaker B: Right. A 37 millimeter revolver. [01:50:49] Speaker A: Yeah. How. Oh boy, you're in for a treat. Because every time that giant revolver came out of their leg, I was like, ah, yeah, easy peasy. I love that. [01:50:59] Speaker B: These. Yeah. We didn't talk a whole lot. We didn't nerd out a whole lot about the mechs in this because that's really not what these movies are about. No, but like a 20 foot tall robot whipping out a revolver, a nightstick, a field knife, it's just a great sight to behold. [01:51:19] Speaker A: Like the shot, like the pistol the pistol almost feels like it makes sense where it's at. Because that's like the Robocop spot. [01:51:26] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:51:26] Speaker A: But like, when. Again. [01:51:28] Speaker B: And it comes out of the thigh too. [01:51:29] Speaker A: Just like Robocop, but in W13, where they just fucking, like, pull the nightstick out of their little spot in their arm. I was like, we're fucking. [01:51:36] Speaker B: And then they jam it into. [01:51:37] Speaker A: Yeah, that's like, again, that's like the meme where someone's lounging and they get upright. Like, every time that nightstick got pulled out, I was like, that's so. Again, just the top of their game of everyone involved at headgear. And, like, you can see that in the mech animation for sure. In the mech design. The pat labor is like this phenomenal design. Yeah. The reason why we didn't talk fully about it is because it's at another hour to this fucking episode. Just talking about the beautiful, like, little, you know, gears and kind of like Izabuchi. But it's like, it's the perfect, like, toned back mech design, but in the most practical, cool way. [01:52:14] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [01:52:15] Speaker A: Like, believe. Like, it honestly has the energy of like, fuck, this could be real. [01:52:19] Speaker B: Yeah. You could really build this without belaboring itself. Haha. Pun not intended. Without belaboring itself. With the light armored core level of like, what if mechs were real? What would they look like? It really does kind of try and do, like, bipedal mech as believable as possible. [01:52:39] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [01:52:40] Speaker B: It feels just like a machine, a tool. [01:52:44] Speaker A: Cars are faster than laborers, and I fucking love them. [01:52:46] Speaker B: Yeah. They can only just kind of walk around. [01:52:48] Speaker A: They have to put it on basically a flatbed transport. They have to transport it. Gosh. The part in Bad Labor 2 where they're like, when Goto shows up at the front line, but he doesn't want to pull anyone in their labor, so he just has them on the truck, face down. [01:53:06] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. [01:53:06] Speaker A: And they're like, why don't you take them up? And it's like, no, they're broke. And it's like, well, can you at least, like, angle the truck so they look up? [01:53:14] Speaker B: Right. [01:53:14] Speaker A: Well, you see, if we do that, they'll fall off. Like, Goto is such a little stinker and I love him in the show. But yes, Patlabor was a phenomenal way to end out March. And thankfully, you know, we are excited because not only is Episode, our next episode is episode 100. [01:53:35] Speaker B: It's our 100th trilogy episode. [01:53:37] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:53:37] Speaker B: We have not our 100th trilogy, but our hundredth trilogy episode. [01:53:41] Speaker A: Yes. But episode 100, we are actually. This is going to be an absolute best. It's going to be a blast. Because even though this is. We're not trying to have an episode that is tying into like, you know, the last. Like, there's. There's nothing in this episode that's going to be like, oh, my gosh, we're tied into like Bill and Ted. We're not going back. [01:53:59] Speaker B: Yeah, we're not. It's not like, yeah, odd trilogy is nostalgia fest. [01:54:02] Speaker A: Maybe we'll try to figure out if we could do something when we get to that 100th trilogy. [01:54:06] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:54:06] Speaker A: But, yeah, until then, we decided it almost kind of overlapped in like three beautiful ways as a triangle. You know, we had a guest star who was like, itching to come back on after last year. A guest star that we've had wonderful. So much fun, wild episodes with about Kooky Shit. We have a recent release that is absolutely batshit on its own that we will probably talk about in a quickie or something in the future. [01:54:34] Speaker B: Is not technically part of the trilogy, but is the reason for the trilogy. [01:54:38] Speaker A: But yeah, the director of set film led us to be like, well, shit, we have to do a rise. Because the rise of this director has truly two. Two of the three films that, like, we have quoted talked about just love in so many different ways. And that is for our hundredth episode, our first episode in April, we are doing the Rise of Jared Hess. [01:55:06] Speaker B: Yep. [01:55:07] Speaker A: We are doing. In honor of his latest film, the Minecraft movie. We are going to be doing 2004's Napoleon Dynamite, his directorial debut. 2006 is not show Libre. [01:55:20] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:55:20] Speaker A: His follow up. And then of course, the finale of his first three 2009 Gentlemen Broncos, a film that is going to be very interesting to hear what Andy and our guest think about it because they have not seen it, but I have. [01:55:35] Speaker B: Yeah. Which. Yeah, that's. Yeah. Gentlemen Broncos will be interesting since I didn't. I think I had heard of it, but I didn't even really know it. Knew it existed as a Jared Hess movie until Logan suggested this trilogy. Napoleon Dynamite is integral to who I am as a person. It's one of my favorite comedies of all time. [01:55:56] Speaker A: I think it's one of our. All three of our favorite comedies. [01:55:59] Speaker B: Nacho Libre is kind of a. It's well known, but it's kind of an underrated. [01:56:04] Speaker A: It's a soft spot for me. [01:56:06] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think Adam too, because there was a huge portion of his life where Nacho Libre quotes abounded. Yeah. [01:56:14] Speaker A: Yeah. So, yeah, we couldn't do this trilogy without the man who did the Hobbit with us, who did Bionicles with us and did recently, the most recent, I believe, the. The Circus Apes trilogy with us. [01:56:27] Speaker B: Right. [01:56:28] Speaker A: So we had to bring in our beloved friend Adam LeClaire to just absolutely nerd out and just do probably dumb, goofy bits while discussing Nacho Libre. Napoleon Dynamite. Gentlemen Broncos. Just talking about, you know, a man who almost, at a certain point in the early 2000s, recreated the idea of, like, what a successful comedy could be and what a successful indie could look like. [01:56:55] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [01:56:57] Speaker A: So, like, yeah, I'm really excited, especially after Pat Laver, again, love doing those three films, but we're going into something completely different, sillier, and. [01:57:06] Speaker B: And you know what? I'm really not excited for the Minecraft movie. [01:57:11] Speaker A: No. [01:57:12] Speaker B: But I'm excited now to have a reason to, like, a reason for the season. [01:57:17] Speaker A: Well, now we can tell people. [01:57:18] Speaker B: I can talk about. Interesting. [01:57:20] Speaker A: Why is Jack Black Steve from Minecraftful? Because he was Nacho Libre in 2006, 20 years prior. Nearly 20 years. [01:57:28] Speaker B: 20 years in the making. [01:57:31] Speaker A: So, yeah, tune in on April 12th when we talk about the rise of Jared Hess with our good friend Adam Leclaire. But as always, I'm Logan Somash. [01:57:39] Speaker B: And I'm Andy Carr. [01:57:41] Speaker A: Thank you so much for listening. Bye.