Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade

1999. Movie. 102 min. Science fiction/drama. org Mamoru Oshii (manga). dir Hiroyuki Okiura. scr Mamoru Oshii. mus Hajime Mizoguchi. des Hiroyuki Okiura, Tetsuya Nishio, Hiromasa Ogura. -bc

A near-epic of animated realism, Jin-Roh is an unusual drama about political machinations and young romance in a postwar Japan on the verge of fascism. There’s enough of a speculative aspect to nudge it right up to the border of science fiction.

In an alternate-history postwar Japan, where social and economic conditions are in decline, the government establishes an elite paramilitary unit to supplement the police force in suppressing riots and anti-government activity. The Metropolitan Security Police agency, known as “the Bureau,” is deeply resentful of this unit, called the Panzer Corps, and complains constantly about its tactics. There are rumors of a super-secret counter-espionage group called the Wolf Brigade, hidden among the members of the Panzer Corps. Fuse Kazuki is an officer in the Panzer Corps and is suspended from active duty after an incident in the city sewer in which he failed to shoot and kill a bomb-wielding young girl in a red hooded jacket, who then blew herself up. Haunted by the girl’s death, he visits the place where her remains are stored and meets her sister. Over the course of a few weeks, they become close and the sister eventually gives him a book, a German-language version of Little Red Riding Hood, passages of which are used as voiceover narration at various intervals.

Fuse’s superiors become alarmed when they learn that his girlfriend is not really the dead girl’s sister at all, but Kei Amamiya, another member of the terrorist group, the Sect, that gave the bomb to the dead girl. Fuse’s close friend, Henmi, now a member of the Bureau, is ordered to help set a trap for Fuse and have him arrested with Kei in order to scandalize the Panzer Corps and force the government to close the controversial unit. Fuse gets wind of all this and comes up with a plan to avoid arrest and go on the run with Kei. But another party has other plans for the two. . . .

Made by Production I.G. and many of the personnel who had worked on Ghost in the Shell, Jin-Roh is a starkly serious animated drama, set in a sharply detailed 1955 postwar Tokyo setting and designed in an almost photo-realistic manner. It has a slow, deliberate, mood-laden feel to it, as if a postwar Japanese thriller had been directed by a European art film director (think Alain Resnais or Costa-Gavras). Had it been live-action, it would have been most at home in black and white. There are poetic art-house-style passages where Kei provides narration from Little Red Riding Hood over scenes of her and Fuse traveling around Tokyo or Fuse in training exercises at the Academy, with soft, lyrical music playing underneath.

It’s a gray, oppressive Tokyo, not the bustling postwar metropolis in the midst of re-creating itself that we see in so many actual films of the era by Yasujiro Ozu and Akira Kurosawa. The architecture is stately, the automobiles are clean and modern (and American!), and the streetcars offer safe and reliable public transportation. Black-and-white televisions are seen in store windows. However, the people move about as if under occupation, although we see no sign of occupiers other than the police, who engage in a large-scale street battle with protesters in an early scene, reminiscent of the riots in Akira set sixty-odd years later. The impressive production design also includes scenes set in massive public works, such as the underground sewers, where confrontations between police and terrorists take place, as well as a significant gun battle between different factions of the police. The imposing natural history museum is also a frequent location and includes a diorama of stuffed wolves that serves as a backdrop for several secret meetings among different characters.

The character design is unique in that all of the characters look distinctly Japanese, a rarity in anime, and a particular characteristic of Mamoru Oshii (Ghost in the Shell and screenwriter of Jin-Roh). The characters all look as if they might have stepped out of photos of the era. There isn’t a single head of red, blue, or green hair, although a blond head is glimpsed in an unexplained shot of American-looking service men in the opening montage.

Jin-Roh was produced by maverick animation studio Production I.G., and most of the film’s key personnel also worked on other studio titles. Director Hiroyuki Okiura served as character designer on Ghost in the Shell 1 & 2. Screenwriter Mamoru Oshii directed Ghost in the Shell 1 & 2. Art director Hiromasa Ogura served as the studio’s art director repeatedly, specifically on The Wings of Honneamise, Ghost in the Shell, and FLCL. Animation director Kenji Kamiyama wrote the screenplay for Blood: The Last Vampire and later went on to direct Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex.

Jin-Roh offers an intriguing story about one man, an instrument of the power of the state, and how the hidden agendas of different parties within the power structure affect not only his fate but that of the girl who has given him emotional succor, even though she may turn out to be an enemy. The narrative could have used an extra act or two devoted to machinations within the Panzer Corps and its conflict with the Bureau to give the plot that extra kick it really needs. While we are introduced to an alternate history of postwar Japan and the idea of a fascist state, the implications stop short of a logical conclusion. As it stands, the basic story line could be pared down to its strict narrative elements and be adapted into a very good episode of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, but it wouldn’t add up to much more than that.

Still, the movie is a remarkable achievement, chiefly for the way it demonstrates how animation can be used to tell a serious, adult drama and re-create an actual historical time and place still in the reach of audience memory. There aren’t many animated films set in the present or near-past that possess the kind of everyday verisimilitude that Jin-Roh does. Granted, there are scenes of automatic gunfire that seem a little out of place for the time period, and the Panzer Corps battle suits look like SWAT teams on steroids, but it’s an otherwise thoughtful treatment of civil conflict, a government’s response, and the unforeseen consequences of giving too much power to one particular arm of the state.

The scenes of Fuse’s downtime, especially those with Kei, serve to pad out the story to feature-length, although they do add up to some very beautiful padding, thanks to their tender, understated mood. The filmmakers maintain a certain emotional distance from the characters, a necessary strategy given the untenable moral situation Fuse finds himself in, making the emotions stand out all the stronger when the moment of reckoning eventually comes. Overall, the animators succeed in adding a gentle mix of poignance and melancholy to a violent drama about police abuse of power.

An elaborate scene involves surveillance of Kei by members of the Bureau as she waits in the museum for Fuse, who is to be arrested when he shows up. In a series of clever maneuvers, Fuse uses all of his Panzer Corps training to turn the tables on his hunters.

In the alternate version of history served up by the film, Germany evidently defeated Japan in World War II and wound up wielding postwar power there. In the opening “photo” montage, Nazi soldiers are seen in apparent positions of power. American G.I.’s are seen as well, although they don’t appear to be the losers either. In a scene in the film, Fuse is given a copy of a children’s book, Little Red Riding Hood, but it’s in German. However, the cars we see on the streets are clearly American models from the 1950s, indicating some kind of ongoing trade. None of this is spelled out in the film, although screenwriter Mamoru Oshii has discussed it in interviews.

The Little Red Riding Hood story as told in the film is different in some ways from the version read to American children. It includes, for instance, Red Riding Hood eating meat and drinking wine offered her by the wolf who has taken the place of her mother, not her grandmother, and then being told by a cat and bird, respectively, that the meat is the flesh of her mother and the wine is her blood.

This was the last film made by Production I.G. to use traditional cel animation. Subsequent productions were all done by digital animation.

violence Gunplay and bloodshed in several scenes.