Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade --- tragically beautiful!

As I was browsing through films in the romance genre last night, I stumbled upon a couple of movies that caught my attention. One is a 54-minute psychological adult film, while the other is a 102-minute psychological military film. I chose the latter, and I'm glad I did. It was beautiful... it's called Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade.

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The story is set after the Second World War but is an alternative universe. Japan was under a totalitarian government. Because of this, a group called "The Sect" staged demonstrations against them.

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To counter "The Sect", the government tasked their counter-terrorism unit to stop them. They had a bloody encounter in the sewers under Tokyo. However, Constable Kazuki Fuse (the MC) failed to shoot a female member of "The Sect" who later ended up blowing a part of the sewers including herself leading to the immense destruction of Tokyo.

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Due to his inability to follow orders to shoot the girl, he was put on trial and was called back to the military academy for re-training.

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The scene of the girl kept haunting him which later became worse after meeting the girl's older sister. Fuse became a target of some powerful men in the government. He was somehow trapped in a world full of conspiracies which made him question who he really is. Will he be able to find his real identity? Watch the movie to find out!

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I EFFIN' LOVE IT!!!
It's tragically beautiful, but there's a hint of realism in it that people can surely relate to. The complications, the betrayals... they were well presented in the film.

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The budding romance between a Special Task Force member and a terrorist's "sister" and how it turned out in the end was to my liking. I was kind of worried when the end of the movie was near because I thought I'd be disappointed, but it was better than I expected. It reflected the basis of the story pretty well and I just love it to bits!

The fairytale "Little Red Riding Hood" was referenced in this movie and the interpretation was solid in my opinion! The story in itself is already a win for me...

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I've always been vocal about how I like the 90s and early 2000s art styles in manga and anime, and this is among them. The animation was nicely produced despite it being released around 25 years ago.

I especially love the sewer scenes both at the beginning and the end of the movie. The soundtrack of the movie made it even better.

I really need more of this kind of storytelling and animation. To end this post, I'd like to quote one of the lines from the movie that struck me:

"We are not men disguised as mere dogs. We are wolves disguised as men."

I'm really glad I watched it, especially as an adult. I may not be able to appreciate this if I watched this when it was released and I was just 8 years old. I'm able to watch it with a more open mind and understanding of the world. haha

If this review made you curious about the film, please give it a try. Thanks for reading and see you around! (^^,)/