This year’s 24th issue of Shogakukan’s Weekly Big Comic Spirits magazine revealed on Monday that Masami Yūki will publish a new one-shot manga story for the Patlabor franchise in the magazine’s next issue on May 18. The manga will have a color opening page.
Image via Weekly Big Comic Spirits magazine’s website
© Shogakukan
Yūki was part of the Headgear creative group that originally conceptualized the Patlabor franchise. Yūki drew the manga adaptation of the franchise in Shogakukan’s Weekly Shonen Sunday magazine from 1988 to 1994, which was compiled in 22 volumes. Viz Media released the first two volumes in English in 1998, but did not release the rest of the manga.
Naoto Tsushima recently launched a manga crossover between the Patlabor and Zoids franchises titled Zoids x Patlabor -Code Name B.U.D.D.Y.- on IMAGICA Infos’ Hero Comics website in September 2025.
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 Mamoru 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 Yūki (Birdy the Mighty). The franchise spawned two original video anime, a television anime series, and three anime films. The last anime film, Patlabor WXIII, opened in theaters in Japan in 2002.
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.
The franchise’s new Patlabor EZY anime project will consist of eight episodes, and will debut theatrically as three films on May 15, August 14, and March 2027. “File 1” and “File 2,” debuting on May 15 and August 14, will consist of the anime’s first six episodes, and will be in an omnibus format with stand-alone stories. “File 3,” debuting in March 2027, will contain the last two episodes, and will tell a two-part story.
Source: Weekly Big Comic Spirits issue 24
