Main Patlabor Page

In the end of the 20th century, a new industrial revolution brought forth unprecedented advances in robotic technology. The invention of labor - a humanoid type - multi purpose vehicle made a huge changes in people’s life style.

Unfortunately, it also produced a new type of crime using labor (labor crime). To counter this problem, the Tokyo Metro Police Department formed a special patrol labor team, the Special Vehicle Section II. And that’s how Patlabor was born.

~ taken from the TV series OP and Ohta’s narrative speech in Minipato

Mobile Police Patlabor’s concept originally came from Masami Yuuki in the early 1980’s. The story went into some evolution before it eventually became Mobile Police Patlabor. For more detailed information on the early concepts of Patlabor, you can visit M Whitley’s site at the LINKS section.

The successful of Patlabor wasn’t the work of a single person, but came from a creative team called HEADGEAR. These people are:

> Masami Yuuki (original concept)

> Mamoru Oshii (director)

> Kazunori Itoh (screenplay)

>Yutaka Izubuchi (mechanical design)

> Akemi Takada (character design)

> Kenji Kawai (music)

For more information regarding these people, you can also M Whitley’s site at the LINKS section.

In the beginning, Patlabor was released as an OVA (Original Video Animation) before it finally developed into manga (created by Masami Yuuki) and a movie, then followed by the TV series, New OVA, and two other movies plus one special video called Minipato (which consist of 3 short narrative episodes told by Captain Gotoh, Shiba Shigeo, and Captain Nagumo).

IMPORTANT! MOBILE POLICE PATLABOR STORY IS DIVIDED INTO TWO SEPARATED UNIVERSE

Basically there are two Patlabor Universe, the Original Universe (which consist of first OVA, all three movies, and Minipato) and the Alternate Universe (consist of TV series and New OVA). You can read the difference at the bottom of CHARACTER PROFILES page.

Anyway, the latest movie of Patlabor is called WXIII: Patlabor The Movie, which doesn’t really tell the story of SV2 but more of a side story based on the manga about two detectives’ investigation regarding mysterious homicides. SV2 did not appear fully until the climax of the story, and rather acted as cameos.

MOBILE POLICE PATLABOR

Mobile Police Patlabor: Game Edition CD cover

If you wonder what else besides I mentioned above, there were 2 games released based on Patlabor. The first one was for SNES, which has a semi-RPG style where you can control one of the Ingrams and battle crimes across Tokyo.

The second game was released in year 2000 by Bandai/Emotion on Playstation® called Mobile Police Patlabor: Game Edition (SLPS 02239), which was an action-based game where you control the new member of SV2 and pilot Unit-3 to battle crimes. I think it has a story regarding a computer virus. I’m not sure though, since I don’t read Japanese.

Common Terms used in the story

For those who new to the series, here’s a few terms usually mentioned in the story:

Babylon Project

The solution for land shortage problem in Tokyo. The project an extraordinary construction project to protect the bay from rising sea levels caused by the greenhouse effect. The project will seal off the entire bay area, build giant sluices, and over the course of 50 years, reclaimed that land, solving the Metro area’s land problems in one blow. But there’s a lot of opposition saying that it’s a reckless plan that ignores the impact on ocean currents and the bay’s ecosystem. However the construction project really took off, and because of it the number of construction labors in the capital was increased rapidly, which also caused labor crimes to rose, and became the main reason patrol labor was born.

(Taken directly from Shinshi’s explanation in the first OVA)

House of The Sea/ Sea House/ Beach House

One of the first extremist opposing the Babylon Project that was to make a call of arms and began to carry out acts of terrorism in the capital. These people were the most extreme extremist and were the thorn in the Public Security Department’s side.

(Taken directly from Shinshi’s explanation in the first OVA)

And here’s a few famous labor manufacturers that were involved in the story:

Shinohara Heavy Industries

Probably the largest company that produces various type of labors, from construction to police and military labor (which was used by the Japan Self-Defense Force). The founder of the company was Asuma’s father along with his old friend Mr. Jitsuyama.

Schaft Enterprise

Another world wide labor manufacturer and probably the rival of Shinohara Heavy Industries. However Schaft was suspected to do “illegal” things in order to lead the labor market, mainly military types. Several labor crimes on the streets were believed to be Schaft’s work, testing it’s new prototype military labor. The most obvious example was the black labor incident. Schaft Enterprise also have branches in overseas (such as Europe and Hong Kong).

Actually there are more labor manufacturers mentioned in the story, they are: Toyohata Auto, Buchiyama Heavy Industries, Hishikawajima Heavy Industries, and several others not mentioned.