Oshii's Avalon?

[A.M. Nornes]

At 10:40 AM -0600 11/6/00, Ito, Michiko wrote:
> Dear Markus,
>
> Aaron referred Oshii's work as "Avalon," and I wonder if the Japanese title
> is "Jin-Roh.  If so, I heard it will be relapsed in US next year. . . .
> perhaps.

Jin-roh is a first-time directing outing for a character designer that has
worked with Oshii in the past (was Okiura the name?). For some reason, it
was on the international festival circuit for at least a year before it was
released in Japan last spring (where I saw it). Does anyone know the story
behind that?

The script was written by Oshii and it's an Oshii Mamoru world through and
through. The setting is near future, as is typical of Oshii, but it has been
drawn to evoke early 70s Tokyo. Along with the AMPO popular protests on the
street, it's also about geba-style turn to violence while featuring Oshii's
usual displacement of the uchi-geba of the old student movement onto the
police and government.  The fetishistic treatment of weaponry was a way of
the top, but it was wonderful animation.

Markus