A Robot from a Popular Anime Franchise is Ready for Fans to Operate; Tokyo-Based Startup Builds Real-Life Ingram from Patlabor

Susumu Saito / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer

1:00 JST, September 15, 2024

Boldly climb into a robot, skillfully maneuver it, and defeat a villain. Who didn’t dream of doing that as a kid? Now a startup based in Sumida Ward, Tokyo, might be about to make those dreams come true with a real-life version of one of the robots that appears in the popular anime franchise “Mobile Police Patlabor.” Tickets for a trial session to operate the robot will go on sale on Sunday. A representative of the company said, “We want you to experience what it’s like to be the protagonist of an anime.”

In a high-ceilinged warehouse, about a 10-minute walk from Tokyo Skytree Station on the Tobu Isesaki Line, sits the upper body of a massive robot, roughly 5 meters tall and colored black and white. The chest is adorned with a police emblem, and lights on the shoulders give off a red glow.

“Mobile Police Patlabor,” which began in 1988, is set in Tokyo at the end of the 20th century, where giant industrial robots called Labors have rapidly come into wide use. The series follows the Patlabor unit of the Metropolitan Police Department as they combat accidents and crimes caused by Labors.

The new robot, developed by MOVeLOT, a Tokyo based robotics venture, is modeled after Ingram, a patrol robot which is set to appear in an upcoming anime. This machine is intended for testing purposes, so it was built as just an upper body.

Kento Hiroi, the president of MOVeLOT, previously worked at the now-closed Robot Restaurant in the Kabukicho district of Shinjuku Ward, Tokyo. At the restaurant, where robots and dancers performed against a backdrop of vivid, multicolored illumination, Hiroi, 32, learned a lot about how to stage robot shows.

After working at a company specializing in developing and manufacturing manually operated robots, he founded MOVeLOT in February 2023. The idea to start his own independent company came to him in a flash when a customer at his previous company, who had experience operating robots, remarked, “I guess most people will go their whole lives without ever riding in a robot.”

Though many classic anime series and movies which feature robots have become highly regarded worldwide, there are almost no services offering rideable robots to satisfy the dreams of the generations that grew up watching that anime. So Hiroi figured that there should be demand.

He chose to build a robot from Patlabor because he thought that would resonate with people in their 40s to 50s, and because he judged that robots from that franchise would be easier to build in reality, since in the anime they did not exceed a few meters in height. He began work on developing an Ingram last October, after getting a permission from the original creators.

The most difficult part was making the robots move the same way and give off the same impression as their animated counterparts, while still ensuring the operator’s safety.

Just like the pilots in the anime, the operator climbs into the robot through the chest area and controls it while seated in a chair. The pilot wears gloves equipped with special sensors that transmit body movements to the robot’s motors, enabling it to move.

The trial session will take place in Sumida Ward from October 1 to 31. 80 spaces are available on a first-come, first-served basis and are targeted at people from ages 12-70. The fee is ¥5,500. Reservations will be accepted via MOVeLOT’s account on Line, a messaging app, from 9 p.m. on September 15. There is also an observation course available. For details on how to apply, visit the company’s website through the following QR code.

After the trial session, the company plans to upgrade the robot and introduce “XR technology,” which involves combining reality and virtual reality. They are considering equipping the robot with a gun, allowing the operator to use special glasses to see virtual “live ammunition” fired from the robot.

Hiroi said, “We aim to create a space where not only the person operating the robot but also those watching it can have fun together.”