ANI-MOVIES, *Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade

Anime pioneer Mamoru Oshii created this anime film as part of his shared universe known as the Kerberos saga largely centered on his manga series, Kerberos Panzer Cop, an alternate universe version of Japan where a heavily-armed special police unit exits to maintain order. This slightly derailed history is a dystopian reality where the government has a larger grip on the citizens. So, basically like a retro version of George Orwell's 1984, but with less resources to simultaneously watch the masses. Oshii's political intrigue views are fairly apparent in his take on Ghost In The Shell which made a standard cyberpunk manga into an intense intrigue saga blended with existentialism. However, Oshii let animator Hiroyuki Okiura take over as director on this anime chapter of his ongoing arc.

In post-WWII Japan, the 1950s are a troublesome time for Japanese citizens as the government's overzealous efforts to make their nation a financial empire causes severe uprising between classes. This gives rise to an anti-terrorist task force that works with the public security police. Kazuki Fuse is special unit soldier who fails to stop a female bomb courier from blowing herself up, and is such demoted by being sent back to the academy for training. Fuse learns that the suicide bomber had a sister that he feels obligated to apologizing to, but the young woman named Kei is secretly working with the public security in a plot to take down the special unit, using Kuse as a sacrificial lamb to take the fall in the following scandal. After rescuing Kei from the staged bomb exchange, Kuse reveals that he's a part of a secret society within the special unit called the "Wolf Brigade", and seek to eliminate the underhanded members of public security.

Jin-Roh was first released in 1999, and created with a fairly obvious Red Riding Hood backdrop to it, and Oshii had tried for over 5 years to have it made, but was given the Ghost In The Shell movie to direct instead. This might be why Hiroyuki Okiura was given the task of taking over production that was put out by Bandai Visual. This eventually lead to enough to success that a Korean live-action adaption was recently unleashed to equal praise. There have been numerous other chapters of the Kerberos saga adapted to multi-media life novels, radio drama, and other animated shorts, much of which has yet to be given and English release. Bandai Entertainment originally put out Jin-Roh on DVD in the early 2000s, and later on re-released on DVD and Blu-Ray through Discotek Media. The dub was handled by the Ocean Group, so if you're familiar with most of the 90s Viz Media dubs, you should get a nostalgic rush in this romantic but tragic action/drama.