The Next Generation -Patlabor- is a live-action Toku film series written and directed by Mamoru Oshii (with some other movie episodes done by Takanori Tsujimoto & Hiroaki Yuasa) with music done by Kenji Kawai as a sequel to the Patlabor series, specifically to Mobile Police Patlabor: The Early Days and the animated film trilogy that followed it.
It's divided into thirteen episodes, separated into seven parts released in 2014 and 2015 and a final film released in spring 2015 known as The Next Generation Patlabor Tokyo War. This also includes three novels published for the film series. A Director's Cut version was also released with a couple of new scenes added that didn't make it when the movie was released in theaters throughout Japan.
Set in the year 2013, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department has made some drastic changes to its labor forces after the Babylon Project was finished due to the global recession. The TMPD was forced to get rid of Division 1 and its personnel, although Division 2 was kept due to the need of having labor-trained officers in case of situations where they are still needed. Most of the Division 2 personnel have retired from the force, with Shigeo Shiba and Yoshikatsu Buchiyama as the only veterans in charge of the maintenance department.
The officers, both veterans and new recruits alike, struggle with what they can to use their Ingrams to solve crimes in the Greater Tokyo Area due to budget cuts while trying to prove their unit's worth of existing in Japanese law enforcement before they're permanently scrapped.
The Next Generation -Patlabor- provides example of the following tropes:
- All There in the Manual: Some background details are known in greater detail in the novels.
- Alternate History: The rest of the OVA and film continuity was set 20 Minutes in the Future (circa 2000 for OVA and films released from 1988 to 1993), but this series actually launched the year after the events it depicts, which obviously never happened in real life.
- The Cameo:
- Voice actors Mina Tominaga (Noa Izumi) and Toshio Furukawa (Asuma Shinohara) voice offscreen radio personalities in the third part of the series. Toshio Suzuki, co-founder of Studio Ghibli, has a role as a shady agent in part four.
- In the film, Yoshiko Sakakibara reprises her role as Shinobu Nagumo, dubbing over an actress whose face is never seen.
- Easy Logistics: Subverted. Due to the Babylon Project and other similar projects done around worldwide, major companies that make labors don't see the need anymore of using labors. It's because of this that Division 2 has a hard time in keeping up with maintenance to the point that they sometimes clean the labors up to make them presentable.
- Expy: The new Division 2 members share some similarities in their backgrounds as their original counterparts. Their names aren't exactly subtle in indicating who is based on whom:
- Izumi Noa (泉野明) -> Izumino Akira (泉野明).
- Gotoh Kiichi (後藤喜一) -> Gotohda Keiji (後藤田継次).
- Shinohara Asuma (篠原遊馬note ) -> Shiobara Yuuma (塩原佑馬).
- Yamazaki Hiromi (山崎ひろみ) -> Yamazaki Hiromichi (山崎弘道).
- Ohta Isao (太田功) -> Ohtawara Isamu (大田原勇).
- Shinshi Mikiyasu -> Mikiya Shinji.
- Kanuka Clancy -> Ekaterina Krachevna Kankaeva.
- Multinational Team: Everyone in the new SV2 is Japanese, except for Kasha since she's a Russian of Japanese descent.
- Mythology Gag:
- Shiba's talk with Akira Izumino in Episode 0 over how the Ingrams aren't like the super robots in popular media is similarly done to how Noa had her encounter with Sakaki before she joins Division 2 in the manga adaptation.
- SV2's deployment to take on the kaiju in Episode 6 is a reference to the manga and to Wasted XIII when the old SV2 is also deployed alongside the JSDF to subdue a rampaging kaiju near the outskirts of Tokyo.
- The SV2's involvement against armed terrorists in Tokyo Wars using helicopter gunships outfitted with stealth camo is pretty much based on the Patlabor 2 movie, except that the new SV2 is called in and gets caught in fighting throughout the Greater Tokyo Area.
- The 2015 movie title is named after the Tokyo Wars novel version of the 2nd Patlabor movie.
- A shot for shot sequence was done in the Tokyo Wars novel, dating back from when the old SV2 was initially called in to infiltrate the island hideout Tsuge used via subway tunnels.
- Passing the Torch/You Are in Command Now: The main background for Episode 0 in the eyes of Shiba, having taking the helm of the maintenance department of Division 2 in 2013.
- Police Procedural: Still a part of it in the Patlabor verse since they get called in to solve situations involving Labors.
- Time Skip: The Next Generation takes place in 2013, 15 years after the original setting of Patlabor.
- Urban Warfare: The feature film has this when the Ingrams engages the terrorist-manned helicopter gunships stolen by Tsuge sympathizers in the JSDF.
