Mobile Police Patlabor

While many real robot mecha series focus on war, Mobile Police Patlabor turned that concept on its head by featuring crime-fighting police robots. In the then-near future, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department's Special Vehicles Section 2 uses its Ingram patrol labors to combat construction labors used for crime. Patlabor first appeared in 1988 as a manga and OVA series created by Headgear, a team including manga writer Masami Yuki, director Mamoru Oshii (Ghost in the Shell), character designer Akemi Takada (Kimagure Orange Road), mechanical designer Yutaka Izubuchi (RahXephon) and writer Kazunori Ito (.hack). Following the end of the original OVA series, Oshii directed the 1989 theatrical film, and the TV series began airing the same year. Two additional movies and another OVA series were produced in subsequent years, with the most recent entries being the 2002 movie WXIII and the Mini Pato shorts. The franchise is divided into two continuities, with the original OVA series and the movies being one, and the TV series and the second OVA another. All animated entries in the Patlabor franchise have been released in the U.S. over the years from different companies, including Manga Entertainment, Central Park Media, Geneon Entertainment and Bandai Visual USA. Most of their releases are out of print, but in 2013 Maiden Japan re-licensed the entire franchise. In 2014, Oshii directed a new live action TV series and movie titled The Next Generation -Patlabor-. The live action series is not available in North America. In 2016, a short entitled Patlabor Reboot was released. A new animated project, Patlabor EZY, was announced in 2017.

Patlabor, characters, images and related items are copyrights of Headgear, Emotion, Bandai Visual TFC and Shogakukan ©1988 to . ©2011 to by Maiden Japan.