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Synopses for the Original OVA Series (AKA Early Days)
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A GWEI Product. ©2003 - 2026 GWEI. Patlabor the Mobile Police (AKA Early Days) ©1988 - 1989 Headgear/Emotion/TFC. All other logos/trademarks are copyright of their respective owners/companies. Used for review and illustration purposes only.
It's day
one of the formation of the the second division of the
Special Vehicles Unit 2 (SV2). Unfortunately the team
seems to be a bunch of misfits. Noa, a girl that loves
labors a little too much; Asuma, a cadet who doesn't
want to be there; Ota, a gun maniac; Shinshi, a hen
picked husband; and Hiromi, a gentle giant of a man.
Leading this squad is Captain Gotoh, a man who seems
rather laidback, but is quite a strategist and an
excellent cop. Unfortunately their new Patrol Labors
(or Patlabors) are stuck in traffic, and they are
forced to do some weeding around the hangers. Soon
they are dispatched to apprehend an armed terrorist
Labor, but first they'll need to retrieve their
Patlabors en route to the crime scene from the middle
of a traffic jam. After a rather disastrous pick up,
they head off to trap the Labor in Ueno park, but both
Ota and Noa's Labors are attacked, losing a head and
an arm off their Labors respectively. Asuma tells Noa
to turn her rage back on the criminal. The criminal
has no chance of escaping Noa's anger now.
The mayor
of New York is coming to Tokyo to inspect the Babylon
Project - a long term land fill project to reclaim
Tokyo Bay. All of the Tokyo Police force are assigned
to protect the mayor including the SV2. To help them,
the New York Police force has sent Kanuka Clancy, an
American-Japanese woman who immediately causes
suspicion amongst the SV2, and much interest amongst
most of the male squad members. The SV2's mission is
mainly for show, but they soon find themselves in the
middle of a terrorist plot. Asuma discovers a fake
Police Mobile Command Centre filled with missiles.
It's up to Asuma to diffuse it with Kanuka giving him
instructions over the the police radio, but he has
only 10 minutes to do so, and no previous experience.
A series
of incidents occur in Tokyo Bay including a damaged
undersea cable, and a car being pulled off a pier.
Could this be the work of an actual sea monster?
Detective Matsui of the Metropolitan Tokyo Police
Department asks Captain Gotoh for help. Shige and
Saksaki help pilot a remote control Labor, to search
for what caused the incidents. The Labor is destroyed,
and Shige is convinced that the monster exists. The
SV2 are given orders to kill the monster, however they
discover something even more bizarre.
Division 2
are called upon to help with a hostage situation at a
video shop, but Ota's temper gets the better of him,
and he blows away half of the shop as well as stopping
the criminals. Gotoh decides that his team need
retraining and sends them back to the academy. They
arrive but strangely there are no cadets there. The
team decides to take a bath, but the water soon fills
what looks like blood. They later discover that it is
in fact paint from a paint bullet, which bizarrely
scares the instructor. Later that night, Ota is
haunted by a ghostly girl who only says "Don't Shoot",
and the others see a Labor with a skeleton pilot that
seems to be roaming the grounds. The next day, Noa and
Asuma ditch their training to go to the local shop.
There Asuma meets the shop owner, an old man he knew
when he was a cadet training at the academy. The old
man tells him that an accident occurred several months
ago. A young woman who was one of the spectators at a
mock battle was hit and killed with a paint bullet
from a Labor gun. Is the academy really haunted by her
spirit? Note that the criminal in the video shop is
named "Kazunori". Kazunori Ito wrote the screenplays
for the series. Amusingly Captain Gotoh compares the
antics of his underlings to characters in two old
robot anime; "
The Second
Unit are on vacation. Most of the team have a place to
go except Gotoh, who just seems to want to hang around
the office with Shinobu, and Asuma who decides to go
to his father's factory. He meets Jitsuyama, the
manager of the factory, and family friend. He
discovers that Shinohara Heavy Industries are building
a prototype military Labor. Asuma is quite disgusted
by this. Jitsuyama suggests that he should see his
father more often, but Asuma says that he had already
seen him today, and they already fought. He decides to
visit Shinshi and later Kanuaka, but gets the feeling
he's not wanted. He only option left is Noa, he calls
only to discover that she lives in Hokkaido, and he'll
have to catch the train to get there. Meanwhile in
Tokyo, a police road block stops a truck. One of the
policemen become suspicious when they see a Labor
under the truck's tarp. He asks to see the Labors's
permit, but the truck runs the road block. The police
give chase, but the Labor in the back of the truck
fires upon them destroying all the police cars
following. It is a Japanese military Labor.
Division 2
have made a very temporary headquarters at the
Shanghai restaurant. It is the second day of the
siege, but the rebels have not made any demands yet.
Kanuka disguised as a delivery person from the
Shanghai restaurant, asks the mechanics for help.
Sakaki tells Kanuka that the police academy has a
Patrol Labor prototype they could use. One of the
mechanics says he overheard one of the rebels say that
have a nuclear weapon. Kanuka returns to the
restaurant and tells Gotoh the news. Meanwhile Shinobu
has a video conference with the police chiefs. They
tell her that the US military will be coming to end
the coup before it becomes a civil war, and she should
step down. She tells that she won't give into their
bluff, and refuses to carry out their orders. The
chiefs suspect Gotoh as he knew about the siege and he
was friends with Kiyoteru Kai in college. The police
have a warrant out for his arrest. Disgusted by their
actions, Shinobu forcibly leaves the conference after
an officer attempts to take her into custody.
A truck at
a petrol station is stolen, but when the attendant
tells a passing police man, the driver of the truck
doesn't want the police chase after it. The police
suspect something fishy is going on and arrest him. He
is in fact a sympathiser for the terrorist group the
Beach House. He stole the truck which was carrying a
Labor from the Tokyo Labor show. Unfortunately the
manufacturer, Schaft Enterprises Europe, is keeping
tight lipped about what exactly is in the truck. The
SV2 attempt to capture the truck in front of a tunnel.
The truck escapes with the help of the terrorist
sympathiser in the Labor, who breaks trough the
trailer after not being able to get into contact with
his friend in the truck. Later, the man who stole the
truck drives off the highway only to discover that he
is helping a terrorist sympathiser. The theft of the
truck from the petrol station was just a opportunistic
crime to get a ride home. He's just a seasonal worker,
he doesn't want to be involved in this. But the
terrorist persuades the man to help him. Unfortunately
for them Schaft will do anything to stop the truck and
it's contents. This episode was created to promote the
then forthcoming "Patlabor the movie" in 1989. This
OVA was originally released 25 June 1989.