TSUYOSHI JITSUYAMA
TJ
A senior Shinohara Heavy Industries executive and factory manager who helped oversee the Ingram's construction. Jitsuyama is close enough to Asuma that the younger man affectionately calls him Grandpa, making him a far warmer connection to the family company than Asuma's relationship with his father. He is also an old friend of Sakaki, linking the corporate engineers who build the machines with the veteran mechanics forced to keep them working in police service. Whenever Asuma needs an impossible technical favor, Jitsuyama is usually somewhere near the receiving end.
TSUYOSHI THROUGH THE ARCHIVE //
LABORS, POLICING & REPLACEMENT //
Open page →The AV-98 Ingram Is Valuable Because It Fits Police Work
Open →The Ingram is not introduced as the strongest Labor in the world. It is introduced as a new Patrol Labor built for Special Vehicles police work. That difference becomes increasingly important as the series introduces military machines, private-sector prototypes and replacement candidates that can outperform it in selected areas.
Noa's success is therefore not proof that the Ingram is secretly unbeatable. The machine works because its pilot, commander, maintenance crew and police mission all fit together.
Noa's success is therefore not proof that the Ingram is secretly unbeatable. The machine works because its pilot, commander, maintenance crew and police mission all fit together.
Why it matters
Patlabor's mecha comparison is usually about suitability rather than a universal ranking. The best machine depends on what job you are trying to do.
The Economy Ingram Turns Replacement Into a Practical Argument
Open →The Economy Ingram exists because the police cannot assume the AV-98 should remain the answer forever. Cheaper mass-production machines promise a more scalable future, and Shinohara Heavy Industries keeps refining the concept using operational feedback.
Noa's skepticism is partly technical and partly emotional, continuing Noa Names the Ingram Before She Learns to Treat It Like Police Equipment. Ohta is right to notice that she compares every replacement against Alphonse, but Noa is also right that police work cannot be reduced to a specification sheet.
Noa's skepticism is partly technical and partly emotional, continuing Noa Names the Ingram Before She Learns to Treat It Like Police Equipment. Ohta is right to notice that she compares every replacement against Alphonse, but Noa is also right that police work cannot be reduced to a specification sheet.
What changed
By episode 39, the question is no longer whether Noa likes her Ingram too much. It is whether experience inside a specific machine has value that a procurement process can measure.
SV2 WATCH GUIDE //
Open page →Noa Names the Ingram Before She Learns to Treat It Like Police Equipment
Open →Noa names Ingram Unit 1 Alphonse almost immediately, long before the series has given her any professional reason to treat one police machine as irreplaceable.
Patlabor then spends forty-seven episodes testing that attachment. The SRX-70 looks better on paper. The Economy Ingram exists because the police cannot pretend cost does not matter. The Helldiver gives Noa a glimpse of a military career with different hardware. The AV-Zero finally arrives looking like the machine that should end the argument completely.
Noa's problem is never that she cannot pilot anything else. Episode 45 proves the opposite.
Patlabor then spends forty-seven episodes testing that attachment. The SRX-70 looks better on paper. The Economy Ingram exists because the police cannot pretend cost does not matter. The Helldiver gives Noa a glimpse of a military career with different hardware. The AV-Zero finally arrives looking like the machine that should end the argument completely.
Noa's problem is never that she cannot pilot anything else. Episode 45 proves the opposite.
What changed
By the finale, the question is no longer 'Is Alphonse the best Labor?' It is whether Noa understands why this particular machine, this particular job and this particular group of people became tangled together for her.
Why it matters
The series keeps building better machines because Noa's attachment only means something if replacing Alphonse is a genuinely reasonable option.
