Happy Birthday to Noa Izumi, Anime's Most Ordinary Mecha Pilot!

Since 1988, mecha fans have thrilled to the misadventures Special Vehicles Unit Section 2 of Patlabor The Mobile Police. Section 2 is a rag-tag band of civil servants who—despite the best available gear and adequate training—are stuck on a strip of reclaimed land in the middle of Tokyo Bay and tasked with restoring order when some ne’er-do-well hops in a construction robot (known as a Labor, hence the title „Patlabor“) and commits crimes.

Part police procedural, part „real robot“ mecha anime, part drama, part situational comedy, Patlabor the Mobile Police has been around in some form (OAVs, TV series both animated and live-action, manga, theatrical films, etc.) for decades, and although the series is generally an ensemble piece with a good-sized cast of dreamers, schemers, and giant robot nerds, at the heart of Patlabor is one character: the Ingram AV-98 Patrol Labor pilot, Noa Izumi.

December 17th marks Noa Izumi’s birthday, so today we’re going to celebrate this unsung heroine and appreciate what makes her unique in a medium as vast and varied as mecha anime. Or rather, we’re going to look at what makes her ordinary, because Noa is the audience surrogate in Patlabor The Mobile Police. She is the glue that holds the series together, because no matter how strange or esoteric things get, Noa is there to provide a lay-person’s perspective.

In fiction, characters are defined both by action and by essence. By essence, I mean that a character is defined both by what they are and what they are not, and to better understand Noa Izumi, it’s helpful to see what she is not when compared to her peers and co-workers.

In actual combat, Noa isn’t the most brilliant or efficient Labor pilot; that accolade belongs to the hyper-competent Kanuka Clancy. In training scenarios, Noa isn’t the best at judo or pistol marksmanship; her co-worker, the hot-headed Isao Ota, is better at both in formal settings even if he loses his cool in the field. Noa is not as knowledgeable about Labors as her partner, Asuma Shinohara, nor is she as gifted at cooking and gardening as her co-worker, Hiromi Yamazaki. She’s not a razor-sharp strategist or a consummate bureaucratic manipulator like her boss, Captain Kiichi Goto.

By the numbers, Noa Izumi is average in nearly every respect, with her sole clear advantage over all the other members of Special Vehicles Section 2 being her ability to hold her liquor better than anyone else when things get awkward at the company’s hot springs vacation party.

Despite not being a genius at any given activity related to her job, Noa Izumi is honest, forthright, and hard-working. When the chips are down, she has the mental acumen and emotional fortitude to get the job done, whether this means chasing down a stolen Labor carrier on a scooter (in the Patlabor The Mobile Police TV series), clobbering terrorists with her unit’s own severed arm (in the Patlabor The Mobile Police OAVs), or navigating a collapsing industrial platform full of runaway robots in the middle of a typhoon (in Patlabor The Movie). She is a portrait of ordinary courage, and that’s ultimately what makes Noa Izumi such an endearing (and enduring) character.

Besides rising to the occasion when faced with challenges both unusual (sea monsters, albino alligators, terrorist attacks) and mundane (labor strikes, hot water shortages, food poisoning), Noa Izumi is the emotional anchor of Patlabor The Mobile Police. She’s not particularly nuanced in terms of her character development: she doesn’t have a tragic back-story, heavy romantic attachments, or a goal greater than doing the work that she loves: piloting a giant robot in service to the public good. Her lack of artifice makes Noa feel less like an anime character, and more like a real human being.

In fiction, some characters are interesting because they undergo a fundamental transformation as a result of being battered by fate and circumstance, but some characters are interesting specifically because they remain steadfast despite all that life (and their authors) can throw at them. Surrounded by misfits and weirdos, Noa Izumi is a rock among stormy seas. She is shaped and weathered by her adventures, but she never really strays from her essential core.

Noa Izumi is ordinary, but in a world where giant bipedal robots are as common as trucks and bulldozers and heavy construction equipment, ordinary is good. Despite its science fiction conceits, Patlabor The Mobile Police positions itself as a story about ordinary people dealing with the ordinary problems of their ordinary lives, and what sort of heroine does such a story deserve?

There’s nothing wrong with protagonists with big hopes and even bigger dreams, but a story like Patlabor The Mobile Police needs a heroine like Noa. It needs the kind of person who names their giant robot “Alphonse” because that was the name given to their previous household pets; the kind of person who takes everything in stride and who can adapt to any situation; the kind of person who deals with mortal danger and bureaucratic boredom with equal grace.

Set in a near future that is now the distant past, nonetheless the ideas and issues that Patlabor The Mobile Police explores grow more relevant with each passing year. The world needs more Noa Izumis, more people that are capable of doing the right thing while still following their singular small dreams, more people that are willing to make the jump from traffic cop to giant robot pilot simply because giant robots are cool.

Happy Birthday, Noa Izumi! May you continue piloting Alphonse in our hearts for many years to come.

Would you name your giant robot after a dearly departed pet? Do you prefer your mecha-piloting heroines realistic or exaggerated? Have you ever lobbed something inappropriate while yelling „Rocket Punch!“? Let us know in the comments section below!

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Paul Chapman is the host of The Greatest Movie EVER! Podcast and GME! Anime Fun Time.

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