—by Charles McCarter

JINROH is the latest anime from Production I.G. With a story by Oshii Mamoru, it has been touted as the next GHOST IN THE SHELL. Directing for the first time is Okiura Hiroyuki, best known as the character designer for GHOST IN THE SHELL. Mr. Okiura appeared in conjunction with a public screening of his film JINROH at the UCLA Anime Film Festival. JINROH was the premiere event which kicked off a month-long series showing both new and classic anime from GUNDAM to RANMA 1/2.
As the theater filled and the screening began, Mr. Okiura apologized to the audience. Apparently the film had broke at a previous screening, and had to be spliced back together. As a result, several seconds of dialog in one scene was lost. However, it was not really going to be noticeable to the English-speaking audience.
JINROH is set in an alternate past. It's post World War II, and occupied Japan is a lot different. The occupied government has become progressively more strict. And as a result, a rather larger underground resistance has been formed.
In this resistance is a high-school age girl. Cloaked in a red hood, her job is to deliver "packages" from one group of resistance fighters to guerrillas. While others walk above on the surface, she delivers her packages by using the underground sewer tunnels. Unfortunately, however, on this night, the government's special troops are also in the sewers, and they're hunting for rebels. One lone soldier, Fuse, finds the red-hooded girl running through the sewers and corners her.
What happens next changes Fuse's life forever. After the incident, he is sent back to the academy for "re-training." And then, he meets another girl who looks a lot like the first one. She is her sister. They talk and begin to form a rather strange bond.
The backdrop of this story is a political struggle between not only the government and the rebels, but also those within the ranks of the government as well. The police and the government special forces don't get along very well, either.
Like GHOST IN THE SHELL and PERFECT BLUE, the plot twists and turns, seemingly warping reality in on itself. After a while, the viewer no longer is sure who Fuse is. Is he the hero or the villain, or is he neither? Is the he pawn or the puppet master?
This film is definitely very cerebral, and, like PATLABOR 2, has more psychological and political intrigue than all-out action. However, it is Fuse's tenuous grasp of reality, or what he perceives to be reality, that keeps the viewers enthralled as they try to determine what is real and what is false.
The animation quality of the film is exceptional, and is technically superior. After all, this is Production I.G. The film is currently being shown at various film festivals around the world. Before being shown at UCLA, it was shown at a festival in Berlin. After UCLA, it was shipped off to a screening in France. However, a Japanese release date for this film has yet to be determined.
I had a few minutes to speak with Mr. Okiura and he was kind enough to answer a few questions. He has worked in the anime industry for some time, in fact, one of his earliest jobs was working on BLACK MAGIC M-66. Starting as an assistant, he worked his way up to animator, animation director, character designer, and with JINROH, director.

EX: This film really feels a lot like Oshii Mamoru's other works. What was his involvement in this film?

OH: Mr. Oshii wrote the screenplay. After that, it was up to me to edit it and come up with everything else by myself. I tried to add my own touches to make this film feel more like my own.

EX: Does this film follow the continuity of the manga or the live action films?

OH: It's based on the manga version, but the events are different in the film.

EX: People are going to compare JINROH to GHOST IN THE SHELL. How do you feel about that?

OH: Well, I think it's a very different film. GHOST takes place in the future, and this takes place in an alternate past. Although there are maybe some similar themes and ideas, the films are different.

EX: This was your first time directing, right? What was the hardest part of that?

OH: I think the hardest part was just trying to keep track of everything. There is a lot of work to be done and so many people worked on the film.

EX: Did you use a lot of computers to animate JINROH?

OH: Not really, not very much. We used it for doing some of the camera work, but we really didn't use it very much at all.

EX: What would you like to work on next?

OH: Well, since JINROH hasn't been released in Japan yet, it still feels like I'm working on it. So I really can't think about future projects right now.