Patlabor, Mobile Police

Publisher
Viz
Country of origin
Japan
Year
1998

Mobile Police Patlabor: Volume 2 "Basic Training"

By Joseph (Joe) Wood
7th Apr 05

This review will contain spoilers for the past volume of Patlabor

The second volume of Mobile Police Patlabor is subtitled “Basic Training” (or at least the large format manga is).

Taking place a few weeks after the newly formed Special Vehicles Division Two’s Section Two took on TFV-97 EX Crabman Hi-Leg, with the new specifically designed for police work AV-98 Ingrams. The members of Section two seem to be settling in to their new life, well almost. Noa keeps worrying about every little scratch her Patlabor receives, the exact opposite of Ota, who has managed to wreck his so many times the engineers have run out of the original parts and Shinshi is having a difficult time trying to keep Ota in check. The crew also have to deal with a brand new model Labor, the Brocken, closer in design to the Ingram than your average Labor. Schaft Enterprise believe that the best way to test there new military Labor is to have it fight the Ingram in a real battle situation…not once but at least three times, each time it having learned from the last. Add to this a new member to Section 2, Takeo Kumagami, the only other female member of Section two other than Noa. It’s Takeo’s job to get our ragamuffin bunch of misfits into shape before the third Brocken shows up. She and Ota hit it off right away…erm…well kind of.

While the comedy is still there, there’s more mecha action in the second volume of Patlabor compared to volume one. This is again all done in clear and crisp artwork, which also gives a sense that the action is really heated. Once again the volume is split into two halves entitled “Schaft!” and “Active Factor” this helps to break down the manga for reading as you can stop at the half way point and continue at a later time. It also informs you of a passage of time, as by the end of “Schaft!” Section Two are dealing with the aftermath of the first Brocken attack, and at the start of “Active Factor” they are already battling the second Brocken. Also the large format manga again contains mechanical files (although only the Brocken is featured) and the same short biography of Masami Yuki from volume one.

The manga is based loosely on the Patlabor TV series that aired in Japan in 1989, but is more Masami Yuki’s turn of events (in a similar way the Evangelion manga is Yoshiyuki Sadamoto’s version). Masami Yuki is responsible for the “Waste Product XIII” story that the third Patlabor movie is based on.

The second volume of the Patlabor manga is a must have for fans of any version of Patlabor, those who like great mecha action, comedy and great storytelling should also check out the manga.

-- Joseph (Joe) Wood 7th Apr 05