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Life-Size Patlabor Ingram Cheers On The Chiba Lotte Marines Baseball Team

Baseball is wildly popular in Japan, so it's no surprise that even a Patlabor AV-98 Ingram would want in on the action. To drum up publicity for the next installment of The Next Generation -Patlabor- project, the live-size, 8 meter (26.2 feet) robot made a visit to QVC Marine Field on April 20, where it even sported a scarf in support of the Chiba Lotte Marines.

As an added bonus, the starting lineup was announced by actor Shigeru Chiba, who will reprise his anime role as maintenance crew chief Shigeo Shiba, and the opening pitch was thrown by former Hello! Project singer and actress Erina Mano, who stars as pilot Akira Izumino. There was also a stage event before the game.

Here's a video of the Ingram being set up:

Videographer darwinfish also posted a video of the Ingram being set up near Tokyo's Kichijoji Station.

For more pictures from the game, check out the movie's official Twitter page.

Part 2 of the live-action project (comprised of episodes 2 and 3) will premiere in Japan on May 31 with an appearance by actor Naoto Takenaka who voiced the pivotal role of Shigeki Arakawa in Oshii's 1993 Patlabor 2: The Movie.

Two life-size Ingram robots were built at the cost of several tens of millions of yen (several hundred thousand US dollars). The production also used Suidobashi Heavy Industry's real-life rideable robot Kuratas.

[Source Chiba Lotte Marines official, @TNGpatlabor]