Patlabor WXIII: The Movie (Standard Edition)

The psychological problems that a mother of a recently deceased daughter and husband endures propels her to use some of child's cancer cells in order to "revive" her daughter into the form of a monster capable of regenerating its body parts. One of the lead detectives investigating the monster's rampage has trouble believing this paradox at first, but soon realizes that her isolation has pushed her to the brink of insanity towards the end of the movie. This, in turn, leads to the cataclysmic ending in which we see some startling revelations as well as the final confrontation between the monster and the police who're trying to stop it.

Throughout its entirety, the movie is extremely realistic. I was pleased to see that the characters actually resemble Japanese people with a darker skin tone rather than a bleach white color. The fact that the movie most completely revolves around the investigation makes it a little boring, however this only adds to its climax and can fully be appreciated and recognized as a mature anime. In sum, this edition to the Patlabor saga ultimately has to be the finest of them all. The caliber of its animation and the way in which the director was able to keep the storyline realistic while using a bit of fiction with the monster really helped to deveop a top-notch plot. For those looking for a great anime minus the forced humor via sexual puns and overly exaggerated emotions, then by all means check this out.

What PATLABOR fans may be surprised by with the third PATLABOR
movie, "WXIII" (for "Wasted-13") is that the Patlabor team plays
only a supporting role in this film, which instead focuses on
two police detectives, the old hand Kutsumi and his young
partner Hata. The two are drawn into an investigation of
a number of gruesome killings along the Tokyo waterfront,
while Hata becomes increasingly involved with a mysterious
bio-researcher. Soon the two detectives find out that the
killer is not human at all ...

That's about as much as I can say without giving everything
away, and I would rather not do that because this movie really
needs some help to maintain some suspense.

I have to say first that PATLABOR: WXIII is a well-produced film,
implemented in the style I call "cinanime" or "ciname" -- what
looks like a live-action movie rendered in good quality
animation. The production values demonstrate fine craftsmanship
and the production crew was working hard to
give the customers what they paid for.

The script is written in a conscientious fashion to provide
convincing characterizations and many plot twists. However,
despite all the credible work here, PATLABOR WXIII is not a
memorable movie, unlike its predecessor, the excellent and
underrated PATLABOR II.

One of the problems with PATLABOR WXIII is that the basic
plot concept is familiar -- it's essentially the old
IT CAME FROM OUT OF THE DEEPS scenario, though it does
introduce an interesting variation on the mad scientist
stereotype. Another problem is that PATLABOR WXIII
is slowly paced. While I don't think this movie would
have worked as a high-gear action flic, it goes slightly
off the centerline in the other direction and tends to drag.
It tries to be a cerebral movie and the story concept really
can't support it. A third problem, a big one, is that by
reducing most of the PATLABOR squad to bit parts, the script
has to reconnect with the viewers from scratch, and Kutsumi and
Hata are just not that interesting.

I have to emphasize that this is a watchable movie.
Its production quality is good, and at no point,
unlike many other anime movies, does it insult the viewer's
intelligence. It's just that lacks impact.
When it's over, viewers will get up as if nothing in particular
happened. If you haven't seen PATLABOR II, pick it up and
don't bother with PATLABOR: WXIII. Even PATLABOR I,
though something of a mixed bag, is a much better bet than
PATLABOR: WXIII.

One little bit in PATLABOR: WXIII that did make an impression
on me is that they have an American character in the movie
-- a big, loud, and foul-mouthed music video producer -- who
was actually voiced by what sounds like an American.

I always watch anime in Japanese with subtitles, and when
they have an English-speaking character anime producers
usually try to fake it and use an English-speaking
Japanese person as the voice actor. It's never convincing
to a native English speaker of any sort.

So this was a nice touch, and it also provided some of the
few traces of humor in this otherwise dark film. The
American couldn't speak Japanese, so he had a Japanese
woman as a translator. He'd say something loaded with
EXPLETIVES DELETED and she'd pause for a moment, then
translate it into very polite and formal Japanese. I'd
howl.