This is a pretty rare one – a book dedicated to just the layout boards from Mamoru Oshii’s highly acclaimed animated film Patlabor II The Movie. The book (published in 1994) has been out of print for a long time and only used copies are found on Amazon Japan.

This book is probably targeted at more dedicated fans and people studying layout in animation – the semantics used in the captions accompanying each board are pretty esoteric and technical in nature. (below) Some locations in Tokyo used as references in the film – those slum-like structures on stilts are probably not around anymore I think – Tokyoites correct me if I’m wrong.

I bought this book because I’m so in love with Patlabor ( both the feature films and the TV series ). Even if you aren’t particularly familiar with how layout works in Japanese animation – those boards still look pretty cool.

“Methods – Layouts from Patlabor The Movie 2 押井守「パトレイバー2」演出ノート” art book details :

Dimensions – 0.2 x 22 x 1.4 cm
Soft cover, 178 pages
Mostly in B&W with select colored pages, in Japanese

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There is also a similar book for Mamoru Oshii’s Ghost In The Shell : Innocence film. You can read the book review here.

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