For those who are still confused at what happened: Somebody hacked into the Japanese air defense network after rogue Japanese aircraft attacked Tokyo, sending a flight of fake F-16Js (callsign Wyvern) from Misawa in northern Japan. Obviously everybody's on edge and they have no idea what's going on so they treat it like a real threat. Central Air Defense dispatches two flights of F-15s-Wizard 03 and Priest 21-to intercept. Wizard arrives at "Wyvern's" position first but they have no idea where Wyvern is. The hackers then spoof Wizard's transponders to 7700 (emergency) to make it seem like they've been shot down, but they're actually still flying. Wizard's comms have been jammed so they can't communicate anything back to command, and now air defense radars think that Wizard is Wyvern. With Wizard unreachable, Central Air Defense tasks Priest 21 to intercept "Wyvern," now heading towards Tokyo. Priest 21 closes with "Wyvern" but Wizard breaks through the jamming and announces that they're still alive. Wyvern never existed and the JASDF almost had a case of blue on blue. TLDR: Wyvern never existed except as a fake blip on radar.

Anime was released in 1991 but it was set in near future (2010s I guess?) so all the equipment in the show are futuristic version of current equipment. The show features armored robots..

The 'Wyvern' Flight are Mitsubishi F-2 'Viper Zero' from 1993 (corrected), when the film was made. The film is definitely Anime For Grownups, much recommended. The 'Wizard' and 'Priest' flights are imagined F-15EJ Kai, upgraded with stealth trailing edges & F-15 SMTD systems basically. The JASDF uses English for their A2A, in case of combined ops with USAF and USN. CIF are JASDF IFF. Comms are very JASDF correct ! F-2's tend to carry IR AAM only (Fox-2). The high-level Jamming is a major plot point in the rest of the film, btw. With thanks for the review, much appreciated.

I'm a little fuzzy on it because it's been quite a few years, but the general gist of the story is a disgruntled former SDF member used a series of terrorist attacks and hacks to manipulate the military and the government into thinking there was going to be a coup. He was able to do that because of his intimate personal experience with the systems and politics involved. He wanted the civilian population to experience the reality of Japan's military first hand, it ties into a lot of Japan's political situation and the frustration their service members had at the time it was released.

Patlabor movies: Deep political and philosophical discussion. Patlabor TV series: Light-hearted slapstick comedy about a Tokyo mechanized police unit. Think Brooklyn Nine-Nine but with police mecha.

To explain a bit about the context of the aircraft shown in the movie: Both the "F-16J" and the F-15s with canards shown were 1990s Japan's idea of what stealth fighters would look like because at the time the movie was being developed (1989-1991) the ATF competition was still undercover and nobody in the writing team had seen the YF-22. The reason that Wyvern was EXPECTED to be undetectable by Wizard is because, well, they were stealth planes. Similarly, it was expected that Wyvern would be just as blind. The military ATC in this entire scene was actually tracking Wyvern's identifying transmitters, not their actual radar contact. That's where the "Wyvern" name came from to begin with; it was a flight of the JASDF 8th squadron. That's also why they kept trying to contact Wyvern. These weren't bandits but the JASDF's own planes flying unauthorized, and the JASDF didn't want to engage right away BECAUSE they could still track Wyvern through their own transmissions, meaning the pilots didn't take steps to silence their planes and the whole thing could have been just an honest mistake or some sort of stupid malfunction. The whole situation flipped when Wizard was thought to have been shot down and all contact lost. What actually happened was that false data was fed to the BADGE system causing the system to manifest a ghost Wyvern flight to lure Wizard to fly on top of a high altitude blimp fitted with jamming equipment. Wizard then got jammed and lost contact, and the hacked BADGE system switched Wizard's identifiers for Wyvern's. The "Wyvern" that ATC was tracking after that point was actually Wizard. That's why Priest was able to track "Wyvern" after that point, because by then the physically real Wizard flight was the one they were tracking. EDIT: Almost forgot. Within the context of this movie, it was already established earlier on that the F-16J was VERY stealthy, probably more so than the F-15s. An attack was perpetrated against a major bridge in Tokyo by a JASDF F-16J that flew completely undetected and was only identified through a short video footage of the event.

"I say again" I get tired of other movies or shows using "repeat" not realizing how wrong that is. This movie gets it right.

Speaking of the lost in translation thing. I'm a crewchief on UH60 Blackhawks. I watched an anime called Rescue Wings, about a Japanese Coast Guard UH60 crew There was a scene of the startup sequence they do for running up the aircraft, I found absolutely correct. They even say the whole checklist in English. But the subtitles had translated everything completely wrong lol. Things like "gust lock" would be subtitled "gas lock." Which should be out on startup, but they translated the "out" to "on." Just a case of the subtitle team being unfamiliar with technical terms. Something that 99.9999 percent of the audience would not have caught. But being that I have conducted hundreds of run ups and listened to the checklist thousands of times, It immediately threw a flag when what I was reading didn't correlate with what was actually being said.

The Comm is an idiosyncrasy of requiring them to speak in English for intercepts while most pilots of the era this was made only really knew aviation English. When interviewed about the sequence, they said they basically sat down with a JSDF ground controller for the comm procedure for an intercept and had them do the initial recording. Having to do an intercept in what amounts to a foreign language is awkward.

SIF stands for Selective Identification Feature and old term. SIF is basically a selective identification feature added to older IFF systems. Newer IFF systems have a SIF feature built in. The SIF system allows for the identification of individual aircraft rather than just whether it is Friend or Foe.

The 7700 squak codes that popped up when they were supposedly shot down was an impressive detail…

In case people don't know Patlabor is a somewhat realistic slice-of-life, police procedural mecha anime about a police mech division called SV2, mechs are called "Labors" here and they're widely used for construction. The division is basically a dumping ground for the Tokyo police (like Major Crimes Unit in The Wire), they have colourful characters from razor sharp people that the top brass aren't exactly fond of like Goto, the guy in the orange vest in the aquarium, to boneheads like Ohta. The comedy comes from how dysfunctional they are and the fact that they're always broke because fixing Labors with a full maintenance squad isn't cheap. Patlabor 2 is a hard turn from the usual comedic tone and takes a darker and more nationalistic spiel but it's the best of the series IMO, Oshii is just a great director. Every entry in the series is worth watching, give it a try

As I recall, it's not that Wyvern was jamming so heavily that Wizard couldn't see them, it was actually that Wyvern didn't exist at all, and Wizard didn't get shot down, just merged with Wyvern's "shadow" at the SOC when they got close enough. The whole thing was a cyber attack and once Wizard 03 merged with Wyvern, it gave Wyvern a physical presence. I have no idea if this is possible or not, but I believe that is what was going on in this scene.

Oh nice, Patlabor 2 is my favourite Japanese animated film of all time! Such gorgeous cinematography, mature storyline, and detailed animation. Great to see your take on this scene!

Those F15s are called the F-15J Kai Eagle Plus, and are based off the F-15 STOL/MTD with a F22 style Stealth package

These F15s looked like F15S/MTD. They're the only model/prototype with those canards and you can also spot the rectangular 2D nozzle. Why Japan would have them in this, I have no clue. They look cool and that's the only reason needed for anime.

It's neat that the tension in this scene works whether you assume that everything's as it seems, or whether you (correctly) suspect that Priest is about to shoot down Wizard, relabelled as Wyvern.

I think the most accurate thing was that nothing happened. You can do whatever you want, have 500 squadrons all having at it with supernuke missiles and they just had a slightly non standard intercept.

Wow I haven't seen this anime is many years! It's cool that you are taking a look at this!

Patlabor 2 is a legendary movie. My lifetime's favorite.

Those whom have not watched the Patlabor 2, the film is a brilliant spy thriller set in the Patlabor franchise. While seeing the rest of the franchise is nice. Patlabor is self contained enough that one can watch the film without knowing about the rest of the franchise.

Back when anime was really good and the creators used to do research into actual information from what they were using. The hacking part is viable because almost no system is a closed system. Even when "closed" systems exist there are a plethora of ways to exploit that. You can see that from the real world with some nuclear facilities that got hacked.

The comms are pretty realistic and to Japanese standards. It would make sense for the plot with super hackers. It’s is doable, in theory, IRL, but we’ve yet to seen this pulled off.

If no one has pointed it out, (I'm sure they have but :) ) it is "pat" "labor" or "Patrol Labor" "Labors" are the large mechanical suits used in the movies and series whereas the "Patrol" portion is due to the story following a group of Police Labors or "patrols" Patlabor 2 the movie came out in 1993 btw so "91" isn't that long ago for them :)

Lemme provide some comments about this scene. So before the scene where Mover reviewed, there are allegations that a rogue F-16 (F-2) was the perpretrator of the bridge bombing occured in the opening of the movie, so when the three-ship formation of F-16s (Callsign Wyvern) shown on JASDF radar station, they thought there would be another attack and scramble bunch of F-15s (Callsign Wizard and Priest) to intercept them. Wyvern however, were fake, none actually flew in the air as the hacker able to manipulate JASDF's radar stations. Wizard unable to receive further comms and unaware that they're gone from the radar station due to an aircraft disguised as commercial blimp effectively jams them. And I believe, Priest locked Wizard because it flew nearly the same flight profile as Wyvern, leading Priest into thinking it was the hostile and this might be possible due to early F-15J doesn't have IFF module installed. Another possible scenario was that Priest able to lock Wyvern after provided by JASDF's hacked radar station data-link (F-15J has indigenous data link that works as a basic bidirectional link with the Japanese ground-controlled intercept network).

The story is pretty typical of Mamori Oshii. The animation is still a big standout for something made in 1993.

Oh man, I remember asking Mover to check this out way back when he did his first 'mover ruins'... so cool to see him do it! Thanks Mover!

there are 2 other jet fighter related anime with some good scenes i'd recommend checking out Sentou Yousei Yukikaze (localized as: Battle Fairy Yukikaze) and Area 88 Yukikaze takes place in the future with wacky super-maneuverable aircraft and aliens, but still manages to keep quite a bit of realism Area 88 is much more grounded and has older jet aircraft

The voice actors of the pilot and the woman radar operator are played by Japanese Air Force personnel.

very happy to actually got to be introduced into the SPECTRE series thanks to this video hahaha C.W. LEMOINE, you make GREAT books, i love it!

The big point of this scene is that the central SOC clears to fire without response from the Defence Chief, which is something they need to do in JP or something. 4:40 Which is kind of non sensical and the point the villain in the show is trying to prove.

There's also a couple scenes with F-4EJs in an anime called GATE: The JSDF Fought There (as well as a helicopter scene with some Apocalypse Now references worth checking out) if you're interested, which includes a flight of F-4Js merging with and engaging a *Dragon*. Not terribly realistic and they're fairly short scenes, but you might enjoy the lot of them.

I actually highly recommend these movies, Patlabor 1 and 2. The basic story of 1 is that Labors are the name of giant mecha, giant robots that are piloted mainly for construction, utilities, and such. There are military robots, but the series actually focuses on the "Patlabor Mobile Police Force". The division of Tokyo police that pilot police labors to deal with labor related crimes. If someone steals a car, police need a car to chase them. If someone steels a forty foot tall robot, police need a big robot to apprehend them. The first movie is about someone messing with the most popular of Labor operating systems, causing them to go Rogue, at seemingly random times, once it's been installed. It's actually a really good police investigation story... with giant robots instead of cop cars. The second movie, Patlabor 2, is actually an amazing film. A rogue faction is trying to initiate a civil war in Japan through things like that fake fighter attack. As the whole country begins to turn on itself, politically, the Patlabor police force, are trying to stay independent, not take sides, and not let it spiral out of control. They begin an investigation into this shadow terrorist group. It's a very good story about interpersonal relationships, the fragility of peace and government, and acting on personal conviction. It is also just a hauntingly beautiful movie. It's also a very melancholy, and introspective film. Not at all what you expect from a giant police robots cartoon. I would really recommend checking them out, especially Patlabor 2. I say this not because it's got cool scenes with the military, but because it's just a damned compelling story line, that has left me, and a few of my friends a little shaken, the first time we saw it.

lol loved it when Mover looked away and the guys said. "are you even listening to me?"

PATLABOR IN THE TITLE?!? LIKE!

The callsigns Wizard, Wyvern, Trebor, and Priest are all from an early computer game called Wizardry. (Trebor is creator Robert Woodhead’s name backwards. He went on to found an anime import/adaptation company called AnimEigo in the 80s, so there’s a symmetry to this scene.)

I believe the F-15s showcased here were a Research Variant of the F-15B called the F-15STOL/MTD which was given Canards to increase maneuverability as well as assist it on shorter takeoffs.

Well, sure they jammed it after hacking it, but the really important question here is: Was it Raspberry? And yes, the Japanese are a very top-down oriented country. I completely buy that a fighter pilot would be begging for orders if any tiny thing changed in a tactical situation. And the controllers would then also be calling their bosses for new orders, and so on up the chain of stupidity until it eventually hits someone with sufficient stars on his collar to actually make a decision about what to have for lunch.

I guess this is more realistic than a lot of ruined live action movies here. Remember one of the best comms he got is from a children 3d talking planes animation?

We've done it. Mover has entered the anime realm

The Top Gun of anime is Macross Plus, but the opening sequence of Macross Zero with the Tomcats was fun.

Patlabor 2 is one of the handful of anime I would recommend anybody, even though the franchise is about giant robots policing unauthorized usage of giant robots, and AI going rogue and taking control of giant robots. This second film might as well have been live action with how it worked out, one of The Greats. For simply flying there's the 1980's Area 88 anime (not the remake) if you want something reminiscent of Iron Eagle (forget realism), it's got a serious piece of story around the main character and the world around him that seals the deal for me.

Director Mamoru Oshii's works are masterpieces, but I was only one of the members of the Patlabor Project. That is why there are many old fans who are dissatisfied with the fact that the film version has been stripped of the comical aspects of the manga and TV series, and the philosophical and anti-government sentiments of Director Oshii have been extremely emphasized.

Oh, so it's not a Westland Wyvern, the Royal Navy's turboprop strike fighter from the 1950s.

I was hoping you would react to this some day !

Awesome! I remember watching Patlabor 2 as a child back in the early 90s intrigued by this particular scene, the rest of the money features giant Mechs the police uses to engage in a civil war while the JSDF uses killer Helicopters that would put Air wolf to shame. You should do Macross or Robotech next.

When I heard the QE2 carrier was using Windows XP in 2018-ish, this sequence (only without checkfire being called) sprang to mind.

Love that you watched this. Hi from Okinawa.

One request, definitely look at the first episode for 戦闘妖精雪風 (Sentou Yousei Yukikaze). Especially their dogfight scenes lol Very Ace Combat-ish but apparently had consultants from the Japan Air Self-Defense Force and also had actual sounds of the F-15Js in the show

Would not have expected this reaction vid!

Suggestion: Watch Macross Plus. Not only for the dogfights that include airplane maneuvers (mixed with giant robot ones), but also for the type of pilot characters. How they go about the fight and the competition. It's pretty awesome. It is not "The Top Gun of anime", and that is not a diss. 😁

Would love to see a review of Area 88. It’s full of old planes and intrigue.

Got surprised to see Mover reacting to Patlabor 2 F-15 Scene

what flight simulator /trainer equipment do you use for DCS/at home setup? I have been looking to see if you already made a video about the topic. Couldn’t find one apart from Helo trainer

If you watch the whole show, the plot is kind of similar to 9-11 event, the terrorist just attack one iconic building, the whole country got into chaos mode and start blaming everybody, including US bases in Japan, even their police department and it's private counterpart like Patlabors,

Oshii Mamoru, who shot this movie, is a big Wizardry fan. Trebo, Priest, Wyvern, etc. are adopted from Wizardry. There is also an episode in the Patlabor TV series that pays homage to the game's exploration of underground labyrinths.

こうしてリアルなパイロットの意見を聞けるのは貴重よね‥

Look for the video "The Illusion of Peace in Mamoru Oshii's Patlabor 2" by Under the Scope. It explains the cultural and political context of the movie and the time it was originally released in.

Another anime that may be worth this segment is Macross Zero. It has great dogfights between fighters based off of the F-14 and F-18.

Eeeeeey proud to say I was part of the widely requesting crowd. What struck me was using English on comms but someone told me it’s universal for aviation comms so yay for that

Hey, C.W. Did you fly the legacy Hornet and what Block F-16 did you fly? Navy or AF first? Did you fly ANG? Thanks for the as always entertaining vids. ☺

Yeah the F15 Active/ STOVL was a prototype F15 to see the value of thrust vectoring and canards. The soviets had them in the flankers and we wanted to see what it would do. Results the the high angle of attack would make it killer at close range but BRV was still king so. The F15 active or STOVL was never produced. I think NASA still operates them. Growling sidwinder has a great video on the F15 stovl in DCS

Hey Mover I noticed that you first became of fighter pilot in the national guard if it is ok with me asking what do you believe was on you application that helped you get picked for the job over all the others who applied. Thanks!

I am so happy to see you do this.

You guys shoulda had him do the bridge bombing scene and where Arakawa tries to convince them the "F-16J" from the video is really an American F-16 with stealth components from the start of the film.

The animation looks pretty great!

Although in the real world it's an unrealistic scenario, the entire story of Patlabor 2 (and 1 really) is that their entirely integrated digital systems are completely 100% compromised. By the antagonist, Yukihito Tsuge

If you want to see some really good air to air combat animation, look up Yukikaze. It is slightly futuristic (think next 20 years, so Gen 6 fighters). Also the opening sequence of Macross Zero, with and F14 going up against MiGs is amazing.

Man, 80s and 90s feature length anime looked so good.

I remember watching this as a kid and having no idea what's going on.

I never thought a fighter pilot would have to see anime, but here we are. Interesting analysis!

Awesome! Was an awesome anime when it came out way back when. Still is to this day.

I think their was made while the F-15 High Angle of attack was being tested, canards were a bit over hyped in anime because they are more visible than thrust vectoring.

The F-15s in the Patlabor 2 was inspired, from F-15S/MTD

I’d love to hear your opinion on the "modernized" F-15 airframe. The canards remind me of the "Super F-15" experimental frame. The rudders were given a more extreme slant than the F-22. The horizontal stabilizers were slanted down almost as much. I’m no aerospace engineer, ain’t any kind of engineer. I don’t know if it’s feasible but it looks cool, haha.

This movie was on my old harddrive i loved it. Love 80s 90s japan animation. Masters of the craft

1:58 They are talking about the time of the intercept. The "next" apparently refers to the next hour, as the flight would be intercepted at 22:05. The original script also used a loneword from English, so it is what was used in the translation I guess.

The F-15s with canard are an experimental variant that flew. F-15S/MTD (ACTIVE)

Note the date "2002.02.22 22:01:30" That's probably local JSDF time (not "UTC" as it should be). And.. the few seconds of airport panic scene / plane redirect at 4:30 has been cut.

このシーンについて日本のファンは高く評価しています。一方で、あなたが仰ったとおり、航空自衛隊の管制官と軍事評論家は、いくつかの点で間違いがあると認めています。とはいえ、この「幻の爆撃」は専門家、軍人、アニメファンに愛好家が多く、今でも話題に上がる名シーンであることは事実です。 素晴らしいレビューをありがとうございました😊

Thanks for doing this =)

The most surprising thing is that even though it is a fictional near-future anime, the film was released in theaters in 1993.

The gist I got was it was realistic ENOUGH to be entertaining and makes easy to suspend disbelief.

The whole point of PATLABOR is Digital System Warfare. Whats happens when mainframe networks can be hacked.

Fun fact: Those F-15’s were based on an NASA/USAF F-15’s that had Canards and a vector capable engines. Also the movie is set in 2002.

just came apon this,love this anime,all time fav,glad to know those details 😀

Hoping for a Macross: Plus MRM a.k.a. what the movie Stealth ripped off their material from.

The F15 that is depicted in this anime movie is the experimental f15 stol/MTD

I found that part really weird, but I think the idea is they thought they were hostile and then at the last moment they said it was a comm glitch and showed up as friendly? I guess?

If you love realism... the Invasion scene from the anime movie 'Royal Air Force - Wings of Honneamise' is a must see!

What’s the Korean movie that Pat mentioned in the beginning, something about a MiG-29?

oh heck yeah! By the way, do any of yall know which version (or whatever it's called) this clip came from with these specific captions?

Patlabor 2 is about a veteran's inner turmoil and injustice wrought upon him. Sometimes a veteran is unable to cope to living a normal civil life again and end up bring the war home with them.

Thank you for calling it a cartoon. You really stuck it to those nerds LMFAO

This guy has to review Area 88 and Yukikaze, absolute top tier shows for fighter jet action

This is exactly what we have been waiting for. (probably)

Love listening to this KZfaqr talk. He’s a bit cynical. Critical. Suppose that most pilots or former professional pilots are whittling down errors. So they don’t buy the farm. Still for ground-based human. It’s a huge laundry list to filter out.

6:32 "'91, that's a long time ago" - This movie made in 1993 was set in the far off future of 2002, and is an expansion on a 1988/89 TV series set in 1999 - each episode ended with a card, "Today this is science fiction, but in 1999, who knows?"

5:50 "people just stare at fish" Oshii will never recover

Here at 1:38 looks the the F-15 STOL/MTD is being depicted in these scenes, and again at 4:56, the jets bank to the right, revealing the modified engines, the black rear sections.