An Animated Film that Foretold the Future
Text by Ryusuke Hikawa

The setting is an imaginary Tokyo in the near future (circa 2000). Humanoid robots, known as "Labors," are being mass-produced for use in a mammoth land reclamation plan known as the Babylon Project. But the increasing presence of Labors is accompanied by a dramatic increase in the use of these giant machines to commit crimes. To combat this growing menace, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department establishes the Special Vehicles Section 2 Patrol Labor - or Patlabor - Company. The SV2's 2nd Unit is commanded by Ki'ichi Gotoh, and on one seemingly ordinary day, he and his team head to work, blissfully unaware of what's about to unfold...

This was the first theatrical release in the PATLABOR franchise. Directed by Mamoru Oshii, the movie was made in 1989 in response to the tremendous popularity of the first OVA series, later referred to as The Early Days episodes. Considered PATLABOR's first milestone achievement, the film helped spur the franchise into a true anime success story that spans TV, OVA and theatrical releases that remain popular to this day.

The world is now in the early 21st century. And looking back from that vantage point, one is immediately struck by how prescient this movie was in terms of story ideas and plot devices. This uncanny prescience is even more evident in the central plot, where the 2nd Unit's ultimate adversary proves to be a computer virus embedded in the Labors' operating system. With viruses now sent as attachments to our e-mail on a virtually daily basis, there's nothing remarkable about this concept. But remember that this film was made in the late 1980s - a full five or six years before the age of the Internet came into its own. And here's an interesting fact that shows just how cutting-edge this movie was: when the film came out, BBS users created and distributed freeware that mimicked the startup screen for HOS just as it appeared in the film.