Patlabor

Here is what happens: the movie starts with 10 mins of nice action scenes; the movie ends with 30 mins of very nice fighting scenes; in between, there are 60 mins of deadly boring static uninterrupted dialogues that will make you wonder what the hell the director wanted to demonstrate with this! I usually appreciate static scenes, but this is way too much! My suggestion: see the start, then skip forward, then see the end. Or get something else.

If you want a convoluted storyline and a continuous bashing of christianity over your head until you convert under the skin of a technically excellent animation, give it a go. This is the last time I give this director any interest from my part. NOT RECOMMENDED. And if you really you dig religious-themed mechas, check out Ideon by Tomino, at least it less pretentious and FAR less over-your-head than the usual standard of this director (Ghost in The Shell I'm looking at you too).

I started watching this not expecting too much. I was very pleased when the story turned out to be very tense and the characters quite believable. It was at all time a very entertaining movie, the score consisting of various types of acoustical underlay blended in harmonically with the visual art. Even though the animations look a little aged, they still did not disappoint me. I liked the high degree of details that was put into almost everything. I was surprised several times of the awesomeness, for instance when the rescue-team reaches the arc that lays in the dark. The atmosphere of that particular scene reminded me strongly of "Alien" which is also a very good movie I might add). There were some humorous parts as well that nicely rounded the mood of an otherwise sinister animemovie which I have to consider one of the best ones I've seen. I recommend it to everyone who in the slightest likes anime 9/10

i am a huge fan of mecha, but this particular movie was, well, boring mostly. the story is a good one, but it lacks the action and character to back it up. most of the action is at the end of the movie, along with a little in the beginning. the animation, however, is very well-drawn and the subtitled voice acting is some of the best next to gasaraki (subtitled rules, regardless). anyway, even though mamoru oshii directed this, it fell short of being something that is impacting, though others say different. its your call.

A simple plot that even then wasn't fully developed. The main antagonist is nothing but a name - neither physically present nor any hint of any motive or rationale. There's one minor twist in the plot but it's revealed too early on to register as anything particularly special; and isn't really believable in the context either. The characters are similarly simple and undeveloped. All you really get is a bit of goofiness and an overdone grump. There were family elements, differences in opinion, unique relationships, etc, that could've been exploited to good effect but were left empty. So what drives the movie? An odd mix of: a) Typical anime action. Nothing new - just robots and robot suits bashing on each other. b) Art-house style trying-to-be-philosophical long pauses and random quotes. Might be intriguing if you like both of the latter. But don't watch it for either the story or the human element.

I have a small collection of anime which is growing exponentially now, thanks in part to my renewed interest in the genre after viewing this film. What separates this from many anime is its unique use of the Mecha or "Labors" in its plot, instead of just the same robot battle fair that we've all seen. The movie does not center around action but around the actual story and the characters as they work together (and sometimes against each other) to solve the big mystery in time to stop a terrible threat to Tokyo and possibly the entire world. Great film. I am going to buy the second one this week; I hear it is even better.

I was fortunate enough to come across this video early in my exploration of Japanese animation. It was also the first video where I began to take notice of the greatly different pacing that the Japanese have in terms of plot & character developement. This is a story about a scientist that commits suicide after creating a virus that will eventually cause giant robots known as Labors to malfunction and lay waste about them. (Labors are manned, humanoid machines used in heavy lifting, construction and peacekeeping (domestic & military) tasks.) The action is split between the policemen who struggle to contain the destruction as the first infected Labors begin to malfunction and a pair of detectives who painstakingly retrace the dead doctors last steps before his suicide. If you're looking for something to cut your anime teeth on that's not too outlandish.. I highly recommend this video!