With the whole Patlabor Rebootproject underway, the short for it has landed in theaters in Japan this past weekend and Bandai Visual is now streaming a minute long promotional video for it. The short itself only runs eight minutes and hopefully we’ll see Bandai Visual streaming it in full in the near future to entice fans to other events.
The segment was directed by Yasuhiro Yoshiura with Kazuni Ito working on the script for it. Naoyuki Asano worked on the character designs and served as the animation director with Studio Khara involved there.
The cast includes Kouichi Yamadera and Megumi Hayashibara.
Original concept: 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.