I want to start on Patlabor. I saw online that I should go OVA

>>15386381
There are two separate continuities, Early Days OVA > Movies, and then TV > New Files OVA.

You can start with either really, but Early Days is suggested as a good, short way to see if you like the series.

The movies are a little more serious than the rest, 2 in particular being heavily political and slightly lacking in robots, which leads to some disagreements. Both are great in their own right though.

The third movie WXII is barely even Patlabor and should be ignored.

>>15386381
There's 2 continuities, TV and Movie. Just read the wikipedia page.

> one of the movies really bad?
The 2nd movie pushes most of the main cast from the 1st movie to a side role and the 3rd movie completely puts them in the background. That's the main issue folks have with them. It's like making a godzilla film but godzilla only appears in the background while humans are talking about stuff. Which is basically all Godzilla films so Godzilla films all suck too.

>>15386439
Not him, but I've heard that Early Days barely has any action. Does the TV series have more? I don't mean every episode, but just a good amount of robot action. Everyone here keeps saying how good Patlabor is, but I'm not sure if it sounds satisfying enough.

>>15386467
Keep in mind it's a comedy at heart, so the focus is really in the characters and their circumstances more than anything.

Early Days has some good mecha moments, but it's so short you might as well judge for yourself.

>>15386467
Patlabor isn't really a franchise you should go in expecting mecha action.