Around 1995, Japanese animation (anime) began pouring into North America, Europe and across the globe in video form. Most of these titles were unknown outside of Japan and never covered by animation journals. Whether a title is highly popular or very obscure, a high-quality theatrical feature or a cheap and unimaginative direct-to-video release, they all look the same on a store shelf. Therefore, Animation World Magazine will regularly review several new releases (including re-releases not previously covered) that have merit and about which our readers should know.

© 1999-2001 Mamoru Oshii / BANDAI VISUAL • Production I.G. English adaptation by Bandai Entertainment and Viz Communications. All rights reserved.

Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade.
Theatrical feature, 2000. Director: Hiroyuki Okiura. 102 minutes. Price & format: DVD bilingual $29.98/Special Edition DVD bilingual 162 minutes with extras $59.98. Distributor: Bandai Entertainment and Viz Communications.

Jin-Roh was released in Japan on June 3, 2000, but it had been winning awards in international film festivals in Europe since February 1999. It was originally to be directed by Mamoru Oshii (Ghost in the Shell); but he turned it over to his protege, Hiroyuki Okiura. The details, which provide an informative glimpse at how the Production I.G. studio's creative team works, are presented in the Special Edition in an hour-long second DVD of interviews, theatrical trailers and other extras. The Special Edition also includes a music C.D. of Hajime Mizoguchi's lovely though melancholy symphonic score, and an illustrated booklet.

Jin-Roh is a suspenseful but bleak political thriller, so realistically staged that everyone's first question is, "Why didn't they just film it as a live-action movie?" It is technically science fiction, set in an alternate-history postwar Japan. As the Occupation ended, there was some Communist agitation. Oshii's story exaggerates this into a major terrorist underground, the Sect, too serious for the regular police. In this fictional Japan, the government creates a separate Capital Police organization, with a paramilitary Special Unit to meet the terrorist squads with deadly force.

As the economy improves in the mid-1950s, the Sect's popular support dwindles. They frenetically step up their attacks to continue looking strong. The Capital Police are in a quandary; if they do not stop the Sect they will look incompetent, while if they do crush the Sect they will put themselves out of work. Some within the regular police want to disband the parallel force anyway. There is a rumored loyalist group in the Capital Police, the Wolf Brigade, willing to oppose their bureaucratic rivals with the same deadly tactics that they use on the terrorists.

Kazuki Fuse is a new member of the Capital Police's Special Unit. During a confrontation with the Sect in Tokyo's sewers, he hesitates to kill a teen "Red Riding Hood" terrorist, allowing her to set off a suicide bomb. Emotionally shaken, he visits the dead girl's crypt and meets her older sister, Kei. As a fragile romance grows between them, the viewer sees that several factions are planning to use the lovers for their own purposes. There are also hints that the lovers themselves may not be innocent. Is Kei really a terrorist trying to infiltrate the CP? Is Fuse callously using her to get information on the Sect? Is Kei innocent but being used by the Sect? Is the romance that develops real despite what their original motives may have been? Are the regular police planning to use the romance to discredit the CP? The plot keeps twisting and the audience is offered a new possibility every few minutes, but each development seems to offer less hope that Fuse and Kei will escape the fate of tragic lovers.

"Jin roh" actually means "wolf men," and that translation better describes the extremists' own self-image as savage wolves who do not hesitate to kill to protect their own pack, the Capital Police. But they also have no compassion for weaklings among themselves. Is Fuse weak for having different values? Are "different values" a rationalization for genuine weakness? Or is the answer different altogether? While it seems unarguable that Jin-Roh could have been made just as well as a live-action feature, Okiura's direction is so skillful and the "acting" of the cartoon cast is so convincing that you rapidly forget that you are not watching a live-action feature.