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'Mobile Police Patlabor Reboot' Short Anime Announced for October

Japan Anima(tor)'s Exhibition (Japan Animator Expo), the anime shorts project from Hideaki Anno's Studio Khara and the media company Dwango, announced on Friday that it will release a short animation titled "Mobile Police Patlabor Reboot." The 10-minute short will debut as an extra during Japan Animator Expo's one-week screening event beginning on October 15.

Yasuhiro Yoshiura (Time of Eve, Patema Inverted) is both the director and director of photography, and is also handling storyboards. Kazunori Itō, who worked on the screenplays for various earlier Patlabor anime, is collaborating with Yoshiura on the script. Naoyuki Asano (Mr. Osomatsu) is adapting Masami Yuuki's original character designs, and also serving as animation director. Kenji Kawai (Patlabor the Mobile Police, Ghost in the Shell) is composing the music. Studio Khara is handling the animation.

Other staff members include:

• Mechanical design, editing: Yutaka Izubuchi
• CGI animation director: Yūsuke Matsui
• CGI director: Manabu Kobayashi
• Color setting: Terumi Nakauchi
• Art director: Yūji Kaneko
• Sound director: Yō Yamada
• Executive producer, planning: Hideaki Anno

Like the other Japan Anima(tor)'s Exhibition shorts, the Patlabor reboot will star Kouichi Yamadera and Megumi Hayashibara.

The screening event will take place at Tokyo's Shinjuku Wald 9 and Osaka's Umeda Burg 7. The theaters will sell a special "early theater edition" Blu-ray Disc, which includes art by Naoyuki Asano and storyboards by Yasuhiro Yoshiura. This Blu-ray disc will also include a soundtrack CD and will cost 7,000 yen (about US$67). A limited edition Blu-ray Disc with the same extras will ship on October 26 for 5,000 yen (about US$48), and a DVD will ship on the same day for 3,000 yen (about US$29).

The Japan Anima(tor)'s Exhibitionshorts streamed on the project's website for three seasons and a total of 35 episodes.

The Patlabor franchise's original concept of police officers piloting robotic mecha (patrol labors or "Patlabors") was developed by HEADGEAR, a group consisting of director Oshii (Ghost in the Shell, Sky Crawlers), script writer Kazunori Itō (.hack, Dirty Pair), mecha designer Yutaka Izubuchi (Eureka Seven, Mobile Suit Gundam franchise), character designer Akemi Takada (Kimagure Orange Road, Urusei Yatsura, Fancy Lala), and manga creator Masami Yuuki (Birdy the Mighty). The franchise spawned two original video anime, a television anime series, and three anime films. The last anime film, Patlabor WXIII, was released in theaters in Japan in 2002.

The live-action The Next Generation -Patlabor- project, which debuted last year, consisted of a seven-part series and a feature length film.

Maiden Japan has licensed the Patlabor OVA series, Patlabor the Mobile Police: The New Files OVA, Patlabor: The Movie, Patlabor 2: The Movie, and Patlabor WXIII.

Thanks to Dennis R for the embedded video.