Talk:Patlabor/GA1

GA review

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Nominator: Sashimi-b (talk · contribs) 04:21, 5 January 2026 (UTC)

Reviewer: SnowFire (talk · contribs) 03:44, 28 May 2026 (UTC)

Hi! Nice meeting you. Didn't realize this was your first GA, so this might be a little more intense than your average GA review, but it's all good!

I'll go point-by-point later, but a few general things to note in advance that might be good to investigate first on your side...

• The lead section seems a bit short. It's the most important thing to workshop in the entire article - many readers ONLY read the lead section. You want a succinct yet comprehensive summary of the full article. Make sure to avoid WP:PEACOCK too - don't include every "critic X said he liked it" and be careful referring to the show as "popular" unqualified, in general.
• A general hard rule of sourcing at the GA level is "at least one citation per paragraph". This isn't needed for things like media lists, where you can have something like "Here is a list of XYZ": and follow it with the relevant media properties. But I'm seeing some cases of paragraphs without a citation that don't seem to fall under this exception (e.g. in Licensing and elsewhere). Might be good to fix before a fuller review.
• Is there any info on production or behind-the-scenes creation that apply to the series as a whole? The answer might be "no" here, but it's worth a look.
• At the GA level, people start nitpicking the citations some. Specifically, is MechaBay really usable? From their old About Page, it sounds like they started via importing Gundam Fandom wiki articles. Maybe it's reliable, but worth a double-check of it and if any other other citations are "just a website."
• Are there more sources on the full series to include in "Reception and legacy"? I suspect that reviews of one specific movie or the like could be argued to really belong on the movie itself's page. SnowFire (talk) 03:44, 28 May 2026 (UTC)

Hi! Thanks for your comments! This is a good starting point to see what I might have missed, I'll do my best to address them over the next couple days before getting down to proper GA tacks. Sashimi-b (talk) 16:00, 1 June 2026 (UTC)

• @Sashimi-b: Thanks for expanding the Production section. Have you gotten a chance to possibly expand the sourcing for the Licensing section? As mentioned before, it's usually a hard-ish rule to have a reference per paragraph there, barring known exceptions like lists of works or plot summaries. (Thanks for the other switches, like replacing MechaBay.) SnowFire (talk) 06:51, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

  @SnowFire Sorry about the delay—had a busier week than intended. Lead, licensing, and reception sections should all be revised! Sashimi-b (talk) 00:13, 12 June 2026 (UTC)

@Sashimi-b: Sorry about the delay. Okay, time for the deep dive. Usual disclaimer goes here that these are suggestions, not demands, and you should feel free to push back if you disagree.

• In the lead: I was going to say that the j-pop.com source seemed weak, given that the site seems long dead... but... if the writer is the same person as this guy, then maybe it's legit? Just something to consider.
• Nitpick: Gundam and Ideon get italics due to MOS:Title.
• Plot: Ruh's Stray Dog of Anime is a great source. It's published, it's in English, it includes analysis and behind the scenes info. I wonder if it should be cited even more. (There's also a 2013 second edition available on the Wikipedia Library... do you have access? Happy to share the PDF with you if not.) That said, strictly speaking, it doesn't cover the third film, just the first two Oshii worked on. So the Ruh ref should probably be moved a bit earlier, and a new source added for the third film (or re-use an existing source on it). It'd also be good to include page numbers in the citation, i.e. pages= ... if you keep the first edition, I'll have to defer to you, but it can be as simple as including the full page range ... it's 77-124 in the second edition, but even more specific page ranges are also possible. Stuff like the onsen trip that helped develop the idea for Patlabor might be good to throw in a reference to it as well - it's fine to have multiple refs for the same material.
• Phrasing nit: Although some of its episodes reference the TV series, the final episode and movie are a direct sequel to Patlabor 2. This sets up a contrast, but I'm not sure what it is; this seems totally reasonable to reference multiple media. Maybe just an "and" connector, and remove "Although"?
• EZY: Strictly speaking, the Japan Times article doesn't talk about Towa or Kippei or an ensemble cast (aside from implicitly referring to "the team"). I'm sure it's true but maybe toss in another ref to cover that aspect?
• Production section: So, a guideline is MOS:REPEATLINK about not constantly linking the same thing over and over, but it is okay to re-link an article sometimes. In particular, links in the lede or an Infobox don't "count" and it's fine to link them again in the body. The members of Headgear are very relevant to Production, so I'd say to link 'em again.
• Yūki’s manga serialization, which began in Weekly Shōnen Sunday just a few weeks after the first OVA episode was released, was originally meant to serve as promotional material for the OVA - First, Weekly Shōnen Sunday is also italicized per above, as a title. (EDIT: I just went and fixed this myself.) Second, I don't quite see this? At least in the second edition of Ruh's Stray Dog, it says "While it was decided to produce both a Patlabor manga and an anime..." as if Headgear just wanted to do both. But maybe I missed something, or the First Edition says something different.

Stopping here for now... will continue the second half in a bit. SnowFire (talk) 06:57, 14 June 2026 (UTC) Continuing on in "Media"...

Thanks for these! In order:

• I ended up replacing the j-pop.com source with one of the translated criticism articles about Patlabor's relation to science fiction in general, which has similar statements about the Labors' use for industrial/construction purposes.
• Italics added
• I got a copy of the 2nd edition; moved that citation back and added a new one for WXIII. Page range also added (the full one for now).
• Next Generation plot: Changed it as suggested — the original phrasing was due to the fact that the TV series & movies are in two separate continuities, but I think you're right that it's not a super meaningful distinction. (Too bad that Ruh's book was published before the live-action series — I'd have been curious to see what he wrote about it.)
• Added a citation for Towa and Kippei here
• Production: relinked the Headgear members. With regard to Yūki's manga, that's coming from the earlier citation in the paragraph that's an interview with Yūki. In it he says: “My initial intention was for the manga to serve as a tie-in—or perhaps more accurately, a promotional vehicle—to coincide with the OVA release” (the Ryusuke Hikawa article mentions the same, but I don't want to overcite it in the production section). Since most of the article comes from that interview, I moved the interview citation to the end of the paragraph and got rid of the Ruh citation for clarity.

Sashimi-b (talk) 19:56, 16 June 2026 (UTC)

• Patlabor: The Early Days: It's acceptable to skip a citation for the one-sentence summaries where there is an immediate "main article", but it looks like there isn't such a main article here, so let's throw in a source. (Ruh's Stray Dog should work fine.)
• Minipato: Same issue, let's throw in a citation.
• Reboot: a modernised version of Patlabor - the article elsewhere uses American english, e.g. criticized with a z. Best to be consistent and use modernized here.
• Together they worked on the anime series Patlabor and the two episode OVA Twilight Q. Well, this IS the Patlabor article, so it's a little odd to see it introduced here again. Maybe drop "anime series"?
• In 2018, the Japan Anniversary Association recognized August 10 as "Patlabor Day". This is up to you, but per earlier comments, while sourced, it would be nice if there was some more evidence that the Japan Anniversary Association actually matters. It's a fun factoid, but some organizations just hand out awards like this like candy.
• For what's not currently in the article: I don't see "Sunrise" anywhere, but according to our articles, they're who made the OVAs and television series. Should their involvement be mentioned?
• Madhouse is currently a category - what was Madhouse's involvement with Patlabor? If they were involved, should it be mentioned in prose somewhere?

Overall, nice work! The citations I verified checked out. Didn't check the offline books, but I'm sure it's fine. SnowFire (talk) 00:03, 15 June 2026 (UTC)

@SnowFire Second half of the revisions. (Also, because I realized I didn't link them here, the two sets of edits for part 1 and part 2: and .)

• Added the Ruh book as a citation for Early Days and Minipato
• Fixed up the language in Reboot
• Changed up a bit of the Headgear section. Looking at it again, it feels a bit redundant with the Production section, but for now I only edited the language and hopefully made it read smoother.
• It is a nice factoid, and I certainly like seeing all the Patlabor posts every August 10th — but digging into it a bit, I can't tell that the Japan Anniversary Association means more than that. Oh well. Cut it from the "Reception and legacy" section.
• Production-wise: Madhouse made WXIII, which is why they're linked as a category. Under the "Production" section I've added their involvement (and Sunrise's for the TV/New Files).

Sashimi-b (talk) 20:13, 16 June 2026 (UTC)

• @Sashimi-b: Great work! Think we're almost there. Last set of feedback.
• Going through the WP:GA? criteria formally... 1, well written, looks good. 2a, 2c, 2d all good on citations; gonna skip 2b for a moment. 3, broad in coverage, also looks fine now that the production section was expanded. 4, neutral, and 5, stable, are met. 6, illustrated, mostly looks fine... the one non-free image is appropriately tagged. The only thing I'll say is that my understanding is that pictures of robot models, like File:Patlabor Movelot Ingram AV-98 Plus.jpg and File:The Next Generation Patlabor - 3.jpg, have attracted some controversy in the past. The argument is that the robot designs can be copyrighted, and if the robot is the main part of the picture, then de minimis doesn't apply. That said, I think this is probably fine; just something to be aware of.
• 2b is the one remaining potential issue. The phrasing is a little harsher than I recall with "reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph." Taken literally, that means that we'd have to argue that the little snippets are "plot summaries", which is usually true (e.g. the Patlabor 1 & 2 movies). That said, the "Novelization of the live action movie Shuto Kessen, which is also a sequel to the Tokyo War novels." and the "Other" section might require cites too. If we want to be really strict, the video games that don't have links might also require a citation... although I think we can IAR it as self-citing, but a nice-to-have if you can add it. Again, my own preference is that this is fine as-is, so tell me if you want to IAR it, but it'll probably be easier if we can add just a few citations.
• Finally, I made a few tiny changes. Note that there are entire scripts that reformat citations to Month-Day-Year or Day-Month-Year; this article is tagged as MDY, but some of the dates are DMY. This really doesn't matter at all at the GA level, but mentioning it if you want to track down a date-formatting script for fun.
• A few other nitpicks: was the 1988 OVA originally six episodes, then they got funding to do a seventh episode? The article uses both "six episode" and "seven episode". List of Patlabor episodes indicates seven is correct... if there was a late expansion (given the delay on the 7th episode's release), maybe just say so outright.
• How many light novel series are there exactly? The lede says 2 but there are three subsections to "Novels"... do one of these sets not "count"?
• The 1993 film plot summary says "been reassigned to other duties since the events of WXIII." Can we rephrase this? Given that WXIII: Patlabor the Movie 3 is a later movie, this is a bit confusing... does this mean since the events of the first movie, or was the term WXIII used in both?
• The Anime Encyclopedia is cited two times, but I think it's the same version (3rd edition) being cited. The two citations can likely be combined if it's just the Headgear entry linked on Google Books.

All of these are quite minor! SnowFire (talk) 04:06, 17 June 2026 (UTC)

@SnowFire thanks for these!

• Good to know that about the images — I'll be aware of it if anything comes up on that front.
• Added citations for the novel & video game sections that should hopefully clear up 2b there. The movies and TV series should be okay as plot summaries, I think.
• Added a note about the additional seventh episode for the 1988 OVA in the "Production" section.
• Lede says 3 light novel series now, don't know why that was wrong
• Technically, WXIII is set chronologically between Patlabor 1 and Patlabor 2, but it's a fair point that the phrasing is confusing. Fixed it up to hopefully be clearer.
• The two citations are actually to two different chapters—its section on "Headgear" and on "Patlabor" (although the "Patlabor" one was missing the chapter heading, which I added). Since only the "Headgear" one is available on Google Books (with the URL attached), I think it's easier for the two citations to stay separate?

Sashimi-b (talk) 18:33, 17 June 2026 (UTC)