20 years after its release, Patlabor remains ever popular amongst anime fans, perhaps in part due to its highly realistic portrayal of a mecha augmented society that isn’t too far removed from the world we live in. There’s already a dozen or so artbooks dedicated to Patlabor’s artwork and materials, but there seems always room for just one more – “The Labor Industry” is the latest.

For the record, “The Labor Industry” isn’t exactly an artbook, because a huge chunk  of the contents are text filled pages dedicated to detailed explanations of Labor technical jargon, mechanics, operating software, weapons systems, and the like.

The book however, does contain (to the best of my knowledge) the most complete collection of full colored Labor illustrations in the Patlabor series/movies, well worth the purchase of the book, in my opinion.  (Those nasty critter Labors that the team battled at the end of Patlabor II The Movie isn’t in this book though.)

(above) The Mobile Police’s flagship unit Av-98 Ingram. (below) The Hell Diver, I remember having both the Ingram and Hell Diver DIY figure kits as a kid.

(above) The Phantom’s formidable plasma cannons were a big challenge for the Ingram. (below) The sleek and intimidating Griffon made short work of the Alphonse in the TV series.

(above) Fans of Oshii Mamoru or Patlabor II will of course remember the Labor unit above, used for UN Peacekeeping missions. I had no idea it was called Hannibal though.

So what’s your favourite Labor ? It doesn’t seem like the most obvious of choices, but my is the type X10, it’s an unstoppable badass that kicked the s**t out of the Ingram in the episode it appeared.

“Patlabor – The Labor Industry″ art book details :

– Dimensions – 10.1 x 7.2 x 0.6 inches
– Soft cover, 148 pages
– Full color

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