In the Patlabor world of 2013, the massive reclamation project known as the Babylon Project has been largely completed, leaving Japan in a prolonged economic recession. With the construction boom over, the giant humanoid machines called Labors have fallen into disuse, and the police units created to patrol them have been drastically downsized. The once-mighty Special Vehicles Section 2, Division 2 (SV2), has been reduced to a single, underfunded, and largely forgotten unit on the outskirts of Tokyo. This is the world inherited by the third generation of the SV2.

The new team is a mix of inexperienced rookies and weary veterans. The core pilots are Akira Izumino, a young woman with incredible natural reflexes who is deeply devoted to piloting her aging AV-98 Ingram, and her calm and analytical partner Yuma Shiobara. Joining them is Ekaterina Krachevna Kankaeva, or Kasha, a sharp-eyed Russian sniper with a mysterious past. The team is led by the cynical and pragmatic Captain Keiji Gotoda, a man burdened by the legacy of his legendary predecessor, Captain Goto. Holding the decaying unit together is the cantankerous but brilliant chief mechanic Shigeo Shiba, the only remaining member of the original SV2, who brings a deep sense of history and frustration to his role. The other members include the hot-headed pilot Isamu Otawara, his partner Shinji Mikiya, and the bickering carrier drivers Hiromichi Yamazaki and Yoshikatsu Buchiyama.

The series follows the daily, often mundane, life of this odd squad. Most days are spent in a state of lethargic standby, playing video games, ordering lunch, and dealing with false alarms or incidents that are resolved before their outdated Ingram can even be deployed. However, this tedium is punctuated by strange and dangerous cases that only a Labor unit can solve. One early crisis sees the team tasked with a humiliating public equipment inspection, a trap set by police higher-ups who wish to finally disband SV2 for good. Another mission forces Akira to confront her past at a high school reunion while on a stakeout for a stolen Soviet-made military Labor known as the Red Labor, leading to a tense rural confrontation.

Notable arcs explore the characters personal histories. Kasha must face a former comrade who has become a deadly assassin targeting a Russian official, forcing her to decide where her loyalties truly lie. In a moment of absurdist comedy, the team takes a vacation to the hot spring town of Atami, only to be drawn into a plot involving a mysterious sea monster, a greedy mayor, and a rogue film director, blending kaiju movie tropes with police procedural logic. A more serious threat emerges when a series of time bombs are discovered hidden throughout the SV2 hangar, leading to a tense evacuation and a search for the traitor in their midst. This storyline culminates in the final chapter, where the police superintendent general’s illness gives their enemies the chance to finally shut SV2 down. Captain Gotoda allows an investigation into his past, which reveals he once planned an unrealized coup d’état, putting his career and the future of the unit in jeopardy.

The live-action series maintains the franchise's trademark balance of dry humor, bureaucratic satire, and sudden, intense mecha action. The story of this misfit third generation builds toward the feature film The Next Generation: Patlabor: Shuto Kessen (Capital Showdown), which resolves the lingering mystery of Gotoda’s past and the fate of the SV2 in a more serious, large-scale conspiracy.