About the Mangaka
Yuki Masami is one of the founding fathers of a group called Headgear, who were created by several creators from the anime and manga world. The ideal was to maintain rights, while increasing the promotion of their work. They had several hge hits, including the Patlabor series.
About the Manga
This is another series i had no idea about until i found the volumes recently. I loved the anime, but had no idea there was a manga version as well.
I love this series, Yuki’s art is perfect for telling this story, and is almost a carbon copy of the anime, which is awesome. The thing i noticed about the art is that it’s both clean and clear. Lately manga is overly graphic, as in to many things going on in a panel, which makes it hard to follow at times. This one dosen’t have that. Rather the art is nicely spaced and easy to read an follow.
Yuki’s story is also excellent, the flow is spot on, neither to fast or two slow. Though there are some personality differences from the anime, as well as changes to the way characters are introduced.
This isn’t an issue for me to be honest, since the way Yuki handles the changes is great. While doing the changes he kept the core personality of the characters the same. Ota has me in fits of laughter to be honest, i love his personality.
Sadly, as i only have two volumes it’s hard to judge just how the flow and story would have progressed, it’s also one of those that has never been scanlated, so there’s no way to finish the series.
This was licensed by Viz, and the first volume was released way back in 1998, which is before they stopped flipping their manga. Oddly, much like Lodoss, i don’t mind this being flipped it has a good feel to it to be honest.
Format wise it larger than normal manga, being oversized. The covers are nice and glossy, sadly the paper isn’t the best quality, but it’s still a bit better than what’s being used these days.
Unfortunatly, Viz abandoned Patlabor after volume two, though according to them it’s just on ‘hiatus’ and will be continued at some point. However after ten years i think it’s safe to assume it’s dead. That and the subsequent twenty volumes are no longer listed on their website.
The only ray of hope is that it may be turned into the new VizBig line, which would be good, and something worth hoping for. If like me you love Patlabor, drop Viz a line, let them know you want the series back.
Needless to say this goes on my Essential Read List, this series is just to damned good not to go on it, despite it being incomplete.
Where to Buy
Despite officially being allowed to go OOP!, it is still readily available on the net, and for a not so bad price as well.
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UK can get it from the Book Depository
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Canadians can likewise buy it from Amazon
August 12, 2008 @ 12:43.
I’d been wanting to pick this up for a while but I was holding back because I didn’t want to be disappointed that there wasn’t any more. Guess I’l just suck it up and get it anyway.
Oh and I did a quick search and it looks like there is a group scanlating and right now they are on volume 3. But they’re probably moving at a snail’s pace.