Patlabor: Mobile Police - Movie 1 VHS

Tokyo, 1999. The city is in the middle of the massive Babylon Project — a vast land reclamation effort requiring thousands of Labor robots to function around the clock. When a series of Labors begin going berserk across the city for no apparent reason, the Special Vehicles Unit is dispatched to investigate. Officer Noa Izumi and her partner Asuma Shinohara dig into the mystery and find themselves following a trail that leads to a dead man — a brilliant programmer who jumped from the Babylon Project's central tower — and to a virus called BABEL, hidden inside the operating system of every new Labor model currently deployed across Tokyo. With a massive typhoon approaching and eight thousand infected Labors ready to activate simultaneously, the investigation becomes a race against a city-wide catastrophe engineered by a man who wanted the world to remember a name.

Patlabor: The Movie is the 1989 theatrical film directed by Mamoru Oshii — his first major theatrical feature before Ghost in the Shell, Patlabor 2, and Jin-Roh — produced by Production I.G and written by Kazunori Ito, the writer of Ghost in the Shell. Based on the Headgear collective's Patlabor franchise, the film operates as a quiet, procedural police thriller rather than a conventional mecha action film — spending most of its runtime on investigation, atmosphere, and the texture of near-future Tokyo before its tense climax. The score by Kenji Kawai predates his celebrated Ghost in the Shell work and establishes the same haunting sensibility. Character designs are by Akemi Takada; mecha designs by Yutaka Izubuchi. 

Notable Staff & Voice Talent

Director: Mamoru Oshii (Ghost in the Shell, Patlabor 2, Jin-Roh, Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer)
Screenplay: Kazunori Ito (Ghost in the Shell, Megazone 23)
Original Franchise: Headgear (Masami Yuuki, Mamoru Oshii, Kazunori Ito, Akemi Takada, Yutaka Izubuchi)
Mecha Design: Yutaka Izubuchi (RahXephon director, Birdy the Mighty supervisor)
Character Design: Akemi Takada (Urusei Yatsura, Kimagure Orange Road)
Studio: Production I.G / Studio Deen
Music: Kenji Kawai (Ghost in the Shell, Jin-Roh, Vampire Princess Miyu TV, Captain Tylor OVA, Hyper Police)

Japanese Cast:
- Miina Tominaga as Noa Izumi (Tenchi Movie 2: Daughter of Darkness, DNA²)
- Toshio Furukawa as Asuma Shinohara (Urusei Yatsura 2, DBZ, Sailor Moon, Metropolis)
- Yoshiko Sakakibara as Shinobu Nagumo (Sol Bianca: The Legacy, Black Magic M-66, Princess Nine, Shinesman)
- Ryūnosuke Ōbayashi as Kiichi Gotoh
- Issei Futamata as Shige (Urusei Yatsura 2, Oh My Goddess! OVA, Green Legend Ran)
- Shigeru Chiba as Mikiyasu Shinshi (Gate Keepers, Urusei Yatsura 2, Metropolis)

English Dub Cast (Manga Entertainment, 1995):
- Lisa Enochs as Noa Izumi
- William Dufris as Asuma Shinohara
- Blair Fairman as Kiichi Gotoh
- Rachel Hirschfeld as Shinobu Nagumo

Edition Details

Japanese Title: 機動警察パトレイバー the Movie (Kidō Keisatsu Patorebā: The Movie)
Runtime: ~100 Minutes
Director: Mamoru Oshii
Original Release Date (Japan): July 15, 1989
Publisher: US Manga CORPS
Rating: Unrated
Genre: Sci-Fi, Police Thriller, Mecha
Themes: Labor Robot Virus, Near-Future Tokyo, Babylon Project, Mamoru Oshii Pre-Ghost in the Shell, Procedural Investigation

Media assumed VG+ unless otherwise noted.