News and Updates Archive 2009

Please note that some external links may no longer be valid. For the latest Patlabor news and updates to the this site, please follow this link.


29 December 2009 - Kotobukiya D-Style SD Ingram Release Date + Cospatio SV2 Maintenance Crew Cosplay Overalls and Cospa Reissues
Kotobukiya will be releasing a SD version of the AV-98 Ingram in May 2010. I previously mentioned this model back on 9 October this year when it was unveiled at  the 49th All Japan Plamodel Hobby Show. The height of the model will be 105mm. The price of this kit is yet to be determined and it hasn't shown up at any of the online hobby shops for pre-order yet.

Japanese cosplay and anime merchandise speciality company Cospa along with their dedicated cosplay offshoot, Cospatio will be releasing a set of SV2 Maintenance Crew Overalls in February 2010. The overalls come in Japanese sizes of small, medium, large and extra large and will cost a whopping ¥12,600. Both companies will also reissue a ton of Patlabor merchandise in January 2010 including Patrol Officer Pins (¥2,000), Assistant Inspector (Captain) Pins (¥2,000), Movie Version SV2 Patch (¥1,575), TV Version SV2 Patch (¥1,575), SV2 Coffee Mug (¥840), Shinohara Heavy Industries logo T-shirt in grey and black (¥3,045), Shinohara Heavy Industries logo jacket (¥5,985) and a SV2 logo Windcheater (¥5,985). Unfortunately all of Cospa's products are generally unavailable outside of Japan. The T-shirts and other items can be found at most English language Japan based Hobby Shops. The cosplay stuff is rather harder to acquire and although all of the above can be bought on Amazon.co.jp, they're only available to ship within Japan (unlike the greater majority of items on the site). You'll probably need to use a deputy agent in Japan to get any of the Patlabor cosplay stuff.


9 November 2009 - Shogakukan To Re-release "My First Big" Patlabor Manga and Site Updates
On 6 November, Shogakukan re-released the 10 part B6 sized "My First Big" edition of the Patlabor manga. An incomplete release (less than half of the manga was published), it originally came out in conjunction with the release of "WXIII Patlabor the movie 3" in 2002. It is unknown if the manga will be given a complete release in this format this time. This version the manga seems to be limited to sales at convenience stores.

I managed to find a great wealth of information, so I updated the Garage Kits section. I have greatly expanded it to include nearly 30 more kits, plus it's much more accurate now (though there's still a lot of gaps, especially past 1992).


5 November 2009 - Yamato to Release 1/24 Scale Unit 2 Figure and Patlabor on DVD in English Status
Yet another 1/24 Ingram from Yamato is to be released; this time the Unit 2 from the first movie. To be released in March 2009, the figure pretty much has the same features as the previously released announced Alphonse and CLAT figures. The Unit 2 model will also feature an Ota pilot figure and a 90mm riot gun. It will cost a whopping ¥29,400 and is already up for pre-order at most shops. You can see a prototype of the model here.

I have only just realised that Madman Entertainment deleted both their special edition and single disc versions of "WXIII Patlabor the movie 3" in both Australia and New Zealand. This means "Minipato" is no longer in print in English anywhere in the world. Only the three movies are still in print in English (all available from Bandai Visual in Blu-ray and DVD formats). If you are looking for the TV or either OVA series or "Minipato", the Right Stuf still has limited copies in stock.


28 October 2009 - Methods Patlabor 2 Artbook to Be Re-Released and the End of the Line for Geocities
Surprisingly a very limited number of the "Methods - Layouts of Patlabor 2 the movie" will be re-released by Kadokawa Shoten. The book contains production notes on the film by Mamoru Oshii, as well as animation layouts for various scenes in the movie and was originally published in December 2004. Once 300 orders are received, the book will be re-printed. The book can be pre-ordered here (you'll need to use a deputy agent in Japan to get the book) and it will cost ¥2,752.

Disappointingly, Yahoo! has decided to close down the free website hosting service Geocites as of 27 October 2009. While hardly anyone uses the service now, a great deal of older material from the 1990's was still available here. Naturally this includes old anime websites such as Patlabor ones. On the links page of this website, I have deleted nine links, all of which are Geocities sites. The include Chinese Patlabor fan Kaite Lee's two websites (one general Patlabor site and one to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the anime, showcasing her collection) and Shape's SVII, an excellent and very comprehensive Chinese language site. Also gone is the very first English language Patlabor site. Only Japanese Geocites sites seem to be functioning and have escaped the wrath of Yahoo! While some may not care, I think we have lost a great deal of information from the web. Though some of it has been archived away at the Web Archive project, some will be lost forever. There is some info on those old Patlabor sites that is well worth keeping. I'll see if I can incorporate it into this site.


22 October 2009 - Patlabor Items at Japan Akihabara Market 2009
A couple of unusual items have been shown at trade show called Japan Akihabara Market. A company called RDS Design has created a life sized Ingram shield made out of carbon fibre-reinforced plastic (CFRP), the same stuff the fictional Labors are made out of! A smaller scale Ingram head was also on display. It seems both items where promotional tools for their iPhone case range, which includes a Patlabor case. I'm unsure when the cases will go on sale. See here for photos for all three items. Also in the same trade show were Looxis Japan who showcased a 3D crystal block of an Ingram (see here for large picture). Apparently the company said they can sell these for ¥7,900, but I'm unsure if they're going to be commercially available on a mass scale.


9 October 2009 - New SD Ingram Model Kit from Kotobukiya
Announced at the 49th All Japan Plamodel Hobby Show today, Kotobukiya will be releasing a rather detailed SD Ingram kit in (the northern hemisphere's) Spring 2010. See here for pictures of a prototype of the kit.


8 October 2009 - New T-Shirts and Figures
Cospa will be releasing two new Patlabor T-Shirts in November. One is a Schaft Security Systems (complete with Engrish) T-Shirt that comes in a burgundy colour and an AV-98 Ingram Specs T-Shirt which comes in white and "California Orange" colours (is that a real colour?). As per usual the shirts come in small, medium, large and extra large and cost ¥3,045 each. Cospa also re-issued a number of Patlabor tops and T-Shirts in September and October. Most of these can be found at large online Japanese hobby shops, or can be bought at Amazon.co.jp via a deputy agent (Amazon won't ship them outside Japan unfortunately).

On to model news, small model kit company Pit-Road will be announcing a 1/24 scale Type 98 Command Car model kit at the 49th All Japan Plamodel Hobby Show which runs from 8 October to 11 October 2009. Wave are going to release a 1/48 scale AV-98 Ingram Alphonse figure in their W.H.A.M.! - Wave High Advanced Model range, based upon the one that appeared in "WXIII Patlabor the movie 3". It is due for release in January 2010 and will cost ¥14,490. Also in related news, Wave have delayed their 1/48 scale ARL-99B Helldiver Movie Version (W.H.A.M.! - Wave High Advanced Model) to late October 2009.


13 August 2009 - Site Updates
I've got around to adding some more sections, all in the Miscellaneous area; Clothing and Commercial Cosplay Items, Patlabor Related Shonen Sunday 50th Anniversary Merchandise, Other Items, and Bootleg Items. Surprisingly it has taken a long time to compile and research this stuff, and I'm a bit disappointed I wasn't able to get more work done on this site while I was on holidays. I have many areas on the site I want to update and I just ran out of time. With this I'll probably take a hiatus on adding more sections for a while. I want to work on some other projects over the next few months.


7 August 2009 - Bandai Visual/Emotion to Release Patlabor Movies on DVD With Original Theatrical Audio
Bandai Visual/Emotion will be re-releasing all three Patlabor movies again on DVD at the super low price of ¥1,995 on 27 October 2009 as part of the "Emotion the Best" line of DVDs. However the first two films aren't re-issues of previously released discs. They contain the original Dolby NR Surround theatrical tracks from 1989 and 1993 and the 1998 5.1 Dolby Digital Remix, of which the entire audio was rerecorded for "Patlabor the movie" and sound effects and music for both were altered, which sometimes changed the mood of the original film. This is pretty significant as this is the first time the original audio has been made available on DVD in Japan, though the original Japanese tracks have been available through Manga Entertainment's old DVD releases of the movies in the US, UK and Australia. Unfortunately the first two films (catalogue numbers BCBA-3700 and BCBA-3701 respectively) do not come with English subtitles or the English dub. However "WXIII Patlabor the movie 3" (catalogue number BCBA-3702) comes with English subtitles and seems to be the same as previous releases.


28 July 2009 - 1/24 CLAT Ingram To Be Released in December + Site Updates
For some unknown reason, Yamato will be releasing a 1/24 scale CLAT version (officially called AV-98 Ingram USA Unit 1) of their massive Ingram which was originally released in April 2009. Like that original release, this one is pretty expensive and will set you back a hefty ¥29,400. As per the original specs, this model will have opening cockpit hatch, Noa Izumi pilot figure, built-in winch and wire hook, extendable right manipulator, battery operated patrol lights, pop-up bullet proof glass pilot shield, working leg pistons and real fabric covering the inner body. Also it includes a revolver cannon with moving hammer, trigger and cylinder and a stun stick. The figures comes out in December 2009. The only thing I can say is "why?". Is it just me or are Patlabor figures just becoming weirder and companies are just picking the more obscure Labors to make figures of? Just because Yamato could make the figure rather cheaply by changing the colour scheme, doesn't mean they should have. We'll see if this figure ends up in the bargain bins of hobby shops.

Finally I have added a couple new sections to the website. Firstly Garage Kits and Accessories for Garage Kits. I've had great difficulty trying to compile these lists, and I know I haven't completed them yet. There just isn't much info freely available on garage kits anywhere (besides the little I've found in a couple of artbooks, a movie programme, a little info from some Japanese model websites and a couple of magazines). I find this a little surprising. I thought someone somewhere in Japan would have created some sort of online database for garage kits, but I can't find anything of the sort despite a fair bit of searching. I think I might have to hunt down some old Japanese hobby magazines and the old Hobby Japan Patlabor 3D Mooks to attempt to complete the lists. If you have any thoughts or can help me out, please feel free to email me. Over the coming weeks, I'm going to try to complete some more sections of the site (no guarantees though!).


15 July 2009 - Yamato to Release CLAT Version of Ingram
Well, it's not actually official, but a couple of sources are claiming that Yamato will release a CLAT version of their 1/24 scale Ingram. Images of it appeared briefly in Yamato's webpage, but were later removed. You can see three images here, but I'm unable to see the larger images in my browser. This is a version of the Ingram which appears in the TV episode "Long Live CLAT". Time will only tell if this rumour has legs. The tip is that it might be announced at the Tokyo Toy Show which begins tomorrow.


20 June 2009 - Limited Edition Signed Patlabor 2 Artwork Print
Trimarket well be issuing a very limited 50 piece framed print with artwork from "Patlabor 2 the movie". Each piece will be personally signed by Akemi Takada and Yutaka Izubuchi. The print will set you back ¥31,500.


11 June 2009 - Final Prefect Establishment Data Artbook from Ichijinsha
The final in the series of Patlabor artbooks from publisher Ichijinsha will be released on 19 July 2009. "WXIII Patlabor the movie 3 Perfect Establishment Data Vol. 5" (ISBN 4-75-801146-X) will contain material from the movie as well as "Minipato". I think this is the first time production material will be published from the "Minipato" theatrical shorts. The book is 144 pages long and costs ¥3,360. Yoshinori Sayama will be providing new cover artwork for the book.


16 May 2009 - New, Forthcoming and Reissued Figures
The Patlabor figures just keep on coming. First we finally have a release date for Wave's 1/48 scale ARL-99B Helldiver Movie Version (W.H.A.M.! - Wave High Advanced Model). It will be released in September 2009 and will include opening airbrakes, opening visor and parachute equipment. It'll set you back a hefty ¥15,540.

In the Yamato camp, not only will they be re-issuing their massive 1/24 scale AV-98 Ingram in June 2009 (this time limited to 800 pieces, but will still cost ¥29,400), but have announced a companion piece; a 1/24 scale Type 98 Command Car, based on the one that appeared in the first movie. The Command Car will come with four figures including Asuma and Kanuka. From what I understand it will be released in mid 2009.


29 April 2009 - Central Park Media Files For Bankruptcy
Central Park Media (CPM), who released the Patlabor TV series as well as both OVA series in the US under their US Manga Corps imprint, filed for bankruptcy on Monday with a US$1.2 million debt. This brings to an end the second oldest anime company in the US. The company began in 1990 and released many popular (and infamous) titles into the US market such as "Revolutionary Girl Utena", "Armoured Trooper Votoms", "Blackjack", "Slayers", "Record of Lodoss War", "La Blue Girl", "Urotsukidoji: Legend of the Overfiend" and "M.D. Geist", which became their "spokesmecha" and corporate ID for US Manga Corps. In May 2006, the majority of the staff were made redundant and company released very few titles since that time (June 2007 being the last time they released anything). It's a real shame that it has come to this as this company was one of may favourites and I have many of their releases, on VHS, Laserdisc and DVD. Even though it was a poor seller (and unfairly ignored by the anime buying public in the US), CPM continued to release all of the Patlabor TV and OVA series on DVD. For that, I thank them.


9 April 2009 - Limited Shonen Sunday 50th Anniversary Silver Medallion Box
Matsumoto Kisho will be releasing a box of 12 silver 50mm 46 gram medallions of various Shonen Sunday manga including a Patlabor one. The other medallions in the set are from the manga "Touch", "Makoto-chan", "Detective Conan (Case Closed)", "Pa-man", "Urusei Yatsura", "MAJOR", "Hayate the Combat Butler", "Gu-Gu Ganmo", "Kenichi the Mightiest Disciple", "Cyborg 009" and "Zettai Karen Children". The medallions were previously issued by the company back in October 2008. The box set will be released in an extremely limited run of 50 and will set you back an astronomical ¥174,300. You'll have to get your order in by 14 April if you want the box.


4 April 2009 - Shonen Sunday 50th Anniversary II Stamps to be Issued by Japan Post
On 22 May 2009, Japan Post will issue 40 stamps for Shonen Sunday's 50th Anniversary on two separate miniature sheets (aka Souvenir Sheets). Patlabor will feature on two stamps with an image of Noa on Alphonse's shoulder on the first and the Ingram on the second (same artwork as the second and third 1988 Japanese graphic novel). Other manga featured on the same sheet as Patlabor include "Gu-Gu Ganmo", "Ushio and Tora", "Ghost Sweeper Mikami", "Detective Conan (Case Closed)", "MAJOR", "Flame of Recca", "ARMS", "Kekkaishi" and "Hayate the Combat Butler". According to Japan Post's website, it seems that both miniature sheets will come in two sets with a hardcover holder and 52 page booklet cost detailing the history of each manga for ¥5,000 each set. The sets will be limited to 50,000 copies.


8 March 2009 - AVS-98 Economy and AVS-98 Mark II Figures to be Released in May, News and Updates Archive
The Brave Gohkin AVS-98 Economy and AVS-98 Mark II figures from CM's Corporation will be released in May 2009, and are available to pre-order from most shops now. They cost ¥10,290 each and will be approximately 160mm tall. It looks as if both will have stun stick accessories and a pilot figure.

Also the news section has become rather large (for a show that has been dormant since 2002, there sure is a lot of news about it every month), so I have archived the older news and updates here. I'm also in the process of cleaning up the site.


4 March 2009 - Updates on Japanese Patlabor UMD Releases
Some new info on the Patlabor movie UMD releases from Bandai Visual in Japan. "Patlabor the movie" (BCUA-0112) and "Patlabor 2 the movie" (BCUA-0113) will both be released on 24 April 2009. "WXIII Patlabor the movie 3" (BCUA-0114) will be released on 26 June 2009. All movies will retail for ¥1,995 each. No word yet if any will contain English dubs or subtitles. I'm still scratching my head as to why they're releasing the movies on this format now...


3 March 2009 - Bandai Visual to Release Patlabor Movies on UMD, UFO Catcher Kewpie
For some unfathomable reason, Bandai Visual in Japan will be releasing the first two Patlabor movies on UMD Video on 24 April 2009. Isn't this format dead for home video? Currently I cannot find any prices or catalogue numbers and they aren't even up on Bandai Visual 's website yet. However both are listed at Amazon.co.jp. Also just as scary is Sega's 4th collection of Kewpie UFO Catcher prizes for Shonen Sunday's 50th anniversary which includes a Patlabor Ingram Kewpie. I previously reported about this version of the Kewpie back in October, but finally they've been released. This release lot is made up of 10cm Kewpie figures of Devilman, Ranma, 8 Man and the Ingram from Patlabor. These will be available from UFO Catcher games across Japan this month. If you don't live in Japan possibly the only way to get one of these is via a Japanese auction website.


28 February 2009 - Shonen Sunday 50th Anniversary T-Shirts, New Date for Ichijinsha Artbook
There's more merchandise being pumped out for the 50th anniversary of Shonnen Sunday. A Patlabor T-shirt will be released on the Uniqlo site on 4 March 2009. Unfortunately at the moment the shirt's design isn't up yet. Also the "Patlabor 2 the Movie Perfect Establishment Data Vol. 4" artbook has been pushed back a month to 17 March 2009.


16 February 2009 - Kotobukiya to Release 1/72 Hannibal Ground Self-Defence Force Model Kit in June 2009
After releasing the UN military version of this Labor in November 2008, Kotobukiya will release a JSDF military version in June 2009. The kit will be a limited edition and will cost ¥4,620. The Labor comes with a 90mm cannon. From memory, I don't think this version of Labor nor the cannon actually made an appearance in "Patlabor 2 the movie".

I still haven't updated the site as promised last week. It's going to take me a week or two to get around to it I'm afraid.


9 February 2009 - New Patlabor Books, Brocken Figures Delayed to March
As if there wasn't enough Patlabor books released, we have two new ones coming out. "Patlabor" Another Century Chronicle Vol 3" (ISBN 4-05-605088-0) will be released on 24 February 2009 by Gakken and will cost ¥1,512. This seems to be part of a series of books relating to anime mecha shows. The first two covered UC Gundam. Also Ichijinsha will be releasing another in it's series of Patlabor artbooks; "Patlabor 2 the Movie Perfect Establishment Data Vol. 4" (ISBN 4-75-801134-6) will be released on 27 February 2009 and will cost ¥2,800. More details on these books to come. Also CM's Corporation have delayed their two Brocken figures until March 2009.

I haven't updated the site for a while as I've just moved house. I'll update the various sections to reflect the above (plus some general housekeeping) this weekend.