Japanese Police Are Using Robo Cops Pulled Straight From Patlabor

The Patlabor franchise has come to life with a full mecha patrol unit erected by the Japanese police. While mecha fans in the United States might recognize the likes of Mobile Suit Gundam and more thanks to how prevalent each of their shows are, but the Patlabor franchise has just as many successful entries of its own. Originally making its debut as an original manga series from Headgear with Shogakukan’s Weekly Shonen Sunday in the late 1980s, the franchise has since sparked a long anime run, sequels, movies, and much more. Now it includes full recreations of its central mecha units too. 

The series sees Patlabors, which are labor patrol units meant to tackle labor crimes, take on all sorts of foes, and the Ibaraki Prefectural Police in Japan have actually helped to craft a full life-sized AV-98 Ingram from the series. Showcasing the mecha on their official social media page, the police shared the following message, “‘Ibaraki Prefectural Police x Mobile Police Patlabor’ In order to protect the safety and security of the citizens of the prefecture, we carry out various police activities such as crime prevention and traffic safety, using strong enforcement skills like Ingram.”

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What Is Patlabor? 

With special messages also highlighting the needs of road safety, it’s certainly a fun attraction for fans of the original manga and anime. Patlabor has released many different anime shows, films, video games and more over the course of the decades since its release, but unfortunately not much of it is available for streaming in the United States. The film and TV series are available with limited Blu-ray and DVD releases, but it’s not exactly widely available if you wanted to catch up and check it out immediately. 

The Patlabor franchise teases what to expect as such, “In the future, advanced robotics has created heavy robots (‘labors’) for use in a variety of functions: construction, fire-fighting, military, and more. However, though the robots are only machines, their operators are also only human—and humans sometimes turn to crime. Since a heavy labor unit can be a dangerous weapon, the police of the future are set to fight fire with fire, using advanced patrol labor units, ‘patlabors.’ This is the story of the Second Special Vehicles Division, a motley crew of patlabor policemen and women doing their best to fight crime and live a normal life.”