To commemorate the 35th anniversary of the popular Japanese science fiction media franchise Patlabor ( starting with the comic by Masami Yuki, first published in 1988 ), publisher Genkosha has released several art books, the first of which is this massive 2 volume collection.

Titled The Mobile Police Patlabor Official Archives (機動警察パトレイバー35th 公式設定集), it is an exhaustive 528 pages resource that collects all the character and mechanic designs from the numerous OVA series, 3 feature films, short film ( Reboot ), marketing materials and more.

Because of the huge amount of content needed to be covered, I have split the review into 2 parts to cover each volume individually; this one will focused on the character designs. I will have another review to cover the mechanic designs in the coming week/s.

As I mentioned previously, the coverage is very detailed, featuring all the character model sheets for the main characters like Noa, Asuma, Gotoh, Nagumo and the rest of the team as well as the secondary/side characters, villains and more. Because the lead characters appearances are recurring, this book is also an excellent resource to be able to cross reference the nuanced ( or not ) differences in their designs from the OVA and the 3 feature films.

If you are a long time reader of my blog, you might have seen reviews of older Patlabor art books I’ve reviewed that might have overlapping material with the ones found in this new book, but many of those older publications have lost since gone out of print, and so it is actually a much welcomed move by the publisher to give Patlabor fans another chance to collect these art work.

The 2 separate volumes that make up this collection; character designs (above) & mecha designs (below). They come housed in a thin cardboard casing will the full color illustration of Ingram and Noa ( image higher above ).

Even some of the character designs for the Mini-Pato series (above) as well as the short film ( Patlabor Reboot ) are included.

This voluminous 2 book set is the most comprehensive collection of Patlabor character and mecha designs yet published, and makes for an excellent resource for fans of the franchise. Recommended.

Note : I will be reviewing the mechanic design volume soon and will update this link when it is posted.

The Mobile Police Patlabor Official Archives 機動警察パトレイバー35th 公式設定集 art book details :

– Dimensions –‎ 29.7 x 21 x 3 cm
– Softcover, 528 pages
– Full color, in Japanese language

  
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