Everybody's written comments on this thinking that this is the movie, "Patlabor 2." Really this entry is for the series of 16 half-hour episodes produced from 1990-1992, between the two movies, after the television series came to an end.
These episodes, called "Patlabor: The New Files" in their American packaging, continue the silliness of the original material, and add sophisticated character exploration, additional intrigue, and experiments in style and tone, as the production team tests the waters for the serious art, design, and themes of Patlabor 2 the Movie.
If you haven't seen any other Patlabor stuff, don't start here: you'll be lost. The characters are not introduced, people come and go, and entire plots are jokes about earlier pieces of the story.
A good place to start is "Patlabor: The Original Series." Watch some of that, see the first movie, then check out these "New Files" stories. They're worth it, and they'll help you see the lighter side of the second movie that all the other comments here are talking about.
If you're hooked, the Patlabor TV series, all 47 episodes of it, has been translated and lucky you if you can rent it, it's a lot of fun. (The New Files is both a continuation of the teevee series and a riff on that material. The more of the teevee series you've seen, the more you'll appreciate how the New Files is playing with the Patlabor world.)
