My Anime Heroines Part III Late 90’s Early 2000’s

This will be the penultimate part of my series about anime heroines. It has been interesting (for me, at least – I hope I haven’t bored you) to remember the sort of female characters that made an impact on me and also the development that has happened in anime over the years. Part 1 covered some of the classics from the early 90’s like Mysterious Cities of Gold while part 2 covered releases from the mid-90’s when the Sci-Fi channel began broadcasting anime.

In the late 90’s I regularly watched anime on the Sci-Fi channel when it was broadcast every Thursday evening. I caught a lot of classics but my nascent taste in anime was growing in certain directions, mostly military themed stories, but this post details when Production I.G. and Mamoru Oshii caught my heart.

Noa Izumi Patlabor 1 and 2 Spoilers (Production I.G.)

Voiced by Toni Barry, she reminded me of Leona from Dominion Tank Police. Noa is the focus of a lot of the Patlabor franchise but not the Production I.G.’s films where I encountered her. Production I.G.’s movie adaptations of the Patlabor television show and Yūki Masami’s 1988 manga broadens out the focus of the narrative giving the cast more to do and whilst the romance between the prim and proper Shinobu and the laconic Goto was diverting and the mix of politics and mystery of Mamoru Oshii’s stories was interesting, I was really cheering for Noa.

The ending for the final movie has a punch the air moment. After an epic battle in a storm battered tower involving copious amounts of mecha carnage where the oh so fragile humans are under threat of being squashed, Noa has the final say downing a mecha with a shotgun.

Although the films were (co-)written and directed by Mamoru Oshii, the character designs are by women: Akemi Takada and Yūki Masami.