It could be that Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade (人狼, 1999) is one of the most underrated anime offerings of all – a situation no one into the more adult leanings of the medium should ascribe to since there’s tons of action and sizable armaments involved.
Kiddie stuff this most certainly is not, and with equally big gun anime production houses Production I.G and Bandai Visual working together here (along with one Mamoru Oshii), there was never any real doubt about the grown-up nature of this material or the quality of the animation.
Down in Australia there’s a very nice edition available through the cool cats at Madman Entertainment.
Add to the guns and action a tall, dark, silent-type protagonist, a mysterious terrorist organization femme fatale, government-condoned death squads, post-modern German WW2 helmets, gasmasks, full-on body armour, and – hidden amidst all this – some overt references to the Little Red Riding Hood fairy tale.
Penned by Mamoru Oshii (Ghost In The Shell, Sky Crawlers), as part of his Kerberos saga, the alternate reality late ‘50s story underpins Oshii’s earlier live-action film Stray Dog (1991) – a movie which starred actor Yoshikatsu Fujiki, and who here returns to voice our hero Kazuki Fuse.
Fujiki also starred in Oshii’s more recent live-action movie Assault Girls (2009), and his presence is all the more reason that you should watch the movie in the original Japanese dub (with English subtitles) rather than opting for the easy-listening local lingo.
The depth of talent involved in the production is something guaranteed to rock the socks off any anime admirer.
Kenji Kamiyama (later the director of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex) worked as sequence/animation director, the character designs (based on director Hiroyuki Okiura’s originals) were embellished on by Tetsuya Nishio (a key animator on Millennium Actress and FLCL) and the superb music is composed by Hajime Mizoguchi – one of Japan’s leading musicians in the ‘80s, and Yoko Kanno’s ex-hubbie; Kanno herself moonlights as the pianist here.
Many people are still waiting for the director, Okiura, to helm his next movie.
He was just 33 when Jin-Roh was released, yet while he’s also worked on key animation and character designs for Akira, Ghost in the Shell, Blood: The Last Vampire, Patlabor 2, Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence and Magnetic Rose, the shame is that the man hasn’t offered up another movie in over a decade.
When that does happen I probably won't be the first to report on it – there are rumours afoot – but in the meantime back-tracking to his 1999 singular classic is well worth the ride.
“Jin-Roh is one of the most stunning movies I’ve ever experienced, period,” says independent film-maker Toshiaki Yamashite. “Each time I watch it I walk away with more. It’s a work of genius.”
Amidst all the angst and bullets it’s a typical Oshii-style yarn: mind-boggling and ultimately mind-blowing stuff, with Fuse himself striking a note as anime’s most elusive male lead.
Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade
© 1999 Mamoru Oshii / BANDAI VISUAL / Production I.G All Rights Reserved