Patlabor

english version sleeve subtitled version sleeve

Official Blurb:

"The year is 1999, and Tokyo's Mobile Police have a new weapon in the war on crime - advanced robots called Labors are used to combat the criminals who would use the new technology for illegal means. The suicide of a mysterious man on the massive Babylon Project construction site sets off a cascade of events that may signal the destruction of Tokyo. What is the connection between the suicide, the new Mobile Police AV-XO Zero Labor, and a beserk prototype tank? When Patlabor cops Noa Izumi and Azuma Shinohara investigate an unexplained wave of rogue Labors rampaging across the city, they uncover a sinister revenge plot to infect Tokyo's eight thousand Labor population with the deady BABEL virus. With the future of the city hanging in the balance and a typhoon poised to trigger the devastation, Noah, Azuma and their team-mates must destroy the source of the virus - the giant Babylon Project tower in Tokyo Bay - in a die hard battle to the finish." 

Director:         Mamoru Oshii
Screenplay:       Kazunori Itoh
Character design: Akemi Takada
Mecha design:     Yutaka Izubuchi
Animation:        Studio Deen
Copyright:        Headgear/Emotion/TFC

Language Format:  English Language/Japanese Language, English subtitles
Running time:     99 mins
Certificate:      PG/PG
Label:            Manga Video
Catalogue no:     MANV 1080/MANV 1091
Price:            £13.99/£13.99
Release Date:     5th/19th June 1995
   The English version is also available in a box
   set with Patlabor 2 for £19.99 (MANV 1102).

Reviews:

In the year 1999, mobile 'Labor' robots are extensively used for construction projects in the Tokyo metropolitan region. This poses potential problems of law enforcement, so the police are given their own patrol robots, or Patlabors. However, the story mainly concerns the introduction of new software for an improved Labor operating system, software which turns out to contain a disastrous BABEL virus. A team including young policewoman Noa Izumi has to track down the source of the virus or neutralise it before it is triggered in most of the Labors in Tokyo. The subtitled movie, clearly scripted by computer buffs, is the most convincing and authentic-sounding computer-virus story I've yet encountered in any medium. This movie really deserves a hard-SF label. Yet it is to a surprising degree a story of human interest, and even has an interlude in which some of the characters go fishing and philosophise. And there's plenty action for action fans too. Altogether one of the most satisfying and intelligent SF movies around - animated or otherwise. [Geoff Cowie]

Guns! (Lots of them!). Renegade robots running amok! Put-upon heroes! Conspiracies! Cliché upon cliché!

Not that Patlabor is done badly, indeed, it is done very well and is a pleasure to look at, it's just that is all been done before so it's only worth watching if you're new to the scene or you like this genre and want to see a good example. [Marlon Seton]