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Flyer for "The Next Generation - Patlabor -" film series, Shochiku, April 2014. Scanned from my personal collection.

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One of the key selling points highlighted in promotional material for the 1988 "Patlabor Early Days" OVA was it's relatively cheap retail price of ¥4,800. Most OVAs in the late 1980s cost more than double that, especially for releases in a video tape format. Possibly due to some nervousness in not being able to recoup costs of the OVA, a commercial was included in between the eye-catches on the first six episodes of the series. The advertisement is for AXIA blank audio cassettes, in particular their PS II X model. AXIA was a brand owned and marketed by Fujifilm, and apparently was an acronym for "Active eXciting Innovator All for you".

Interestingly the commercial itself is a fully animated one featuring Noa and her Ingram. Oddly this 35 second clip bares little resemblance to the realistic world of Patlabor. Instead we are treated to something that looks more fantasy/sci-fi than anything else. There are no official staff credits for the commercial, however Ryutaro Nakamura (director of "Serial Experiments Lain" and "Kino's Journey") is rumoured to have been the director. He was the episode director for episodes 2 and 4 of the "Early Days" OVA. If true, it's odd that that the commercial looks the way it does. I've also read that the animation is close to the style of Hisashi Abe, who did key animation on the same "Early Days" episodes Ryutaro Nakamura was episode director of. Parts of the animation were edited into the music video for "Miraiha Lovers" by Kasahara Hiroko, which was included in the "Patlabor Music Clips" compilation video. The music for the commercial was later included on the "Patlabor CD Box Deluxe" soundtrack box set. For some reason, possibly due to rights or licensing issues, the commercial only appeared on the initial video and laserdisc releases of the series and the 1992 laserdisc box set. All of the latter Japanese home video releases do not include the commercial, nor do any of the English language releases.