Jin-Roh is set in an alternative present day Japan, where the country is plagued with social unrest and terrorism. The occupied government has become progressively more strict. And as a result, a rather larger underground resistance has been formed. The story starts with a riot: Crowds of people, armed mobs in the city streets, throwing rubble, petrol bombs and all sorts of things at the police lines. Whatever happens after that is a mystery.
I haven't seen the film. For all you aging otakus, you may have heard of this litttle gem - because crap, I've only heard of it today. If you have no idea what anime I am referring to, try watching this old trailer and see if it makes any sense.Wow. Weird, huh? According to one answer site, the animated epic was "... Scripted by Mamoru Oshii (Patlabor and Ghost in the Shell to name a few), the story contains some familiar themes like power struggles inside government organisations, terrorism, back-stabbing and many others. Based on his manga (translated by Studio Proteus under the title Hellhounds) and two live action features (Akai Megane and Stray Dogs), there is plenty of depth and background in this story."
I'll take his word for it. But hey, its not the story I'm interested in, its those designs. Apparently, the Japanese seemed to have beaten the Killzone concept designer with this nasty looking supersoldier. And whaa-- This film was made in 1998! Take that, Xavier Marquis!Gee whiz! I am so out of the times! I really have to find this film on DVD, despite what looks to be another convoluted anime story. Although this is a little worrisome... Charles McCarter mentions "This film is definitely very cerebral, and, like PATLABOR 2, has more psychological and political intrigue than all-out action." Seriously folks, I'm still trying to figure out a lot of the concepts in Ghost in the Shell. OVA and the series.
Whatever man. This is the type of design I want for my projects! If its going to be a 2 hour film with less than ten minutes of high-quality action sequences and the rest is just talking heads talking about existentialist concepts, just like that underwhelming first Patlabor feature, then so be it! Damn you, anime-otaku magazines for telling me its a classic. I almost slept through that one.
This is a strange still feature from something called the 'Last Battalion', or whatever the hell that means. It looks pretty cool. You know what I'm going to do now? Research! I'm going to look through history, and see which time period the Japanese or any other creative people haven't tampered with. Hmm... How about a... a sci-fi universe with a similar concept to Crusades! That's it! It will have over-zealous priest-like soldiers and... and... crap. Stupid Warhammer 40k. Ah, I'll find something that would give me inspiration.
Hey, these designs look so good, and they don't look so bad in real life as well. I wonder if they're selling the live action version of this Jin-roh thing...
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