The Red Spectacles
Encyclopedia
is a 1987 absurdist
, surrealist
Japanese film
directed by Mamoru Oshii
, co-written with Kazunori Ito, and starring Shigeru Chiba
and Mako Hyodo
.
This is the first film of the Kerberos saga
and last episode in Oshii's Orwellian
Watchdog of Hell feature trilogy.
It is the end of the 20th century. The Metropolitan Police have begun to lose control of the city; crime runs rampant and people are no longer safe. The solution: the establishment of the Anti Vicious Crime Heavily Armored Mobile Special Investigations Unit. Created by men and women of high intellect and physical strength who had a particularly strong, even fanatical sense of justice, they were nicknamed "Kerberos" (loose Japanese translation of "Cerberus" ), and armed with special "reinforcement gear" body armor and heavy weaponry.
But what started as a noble and courageous effort to stop the onslaught of crime soon spiraled out of control. Their overzealous actions and fanatical hatred of evil soon led to less-than policeman-like behavior. Public criticism grew as their investigational tactics grew more aggressive, crueler, and more corrupt. The turning point occurred when a Kerberos member, during a routine investigation, beat a misdemeanor offender to death.
This was the catalyst, the justification to shut the group down forever and dissolve it completely. However, there were those in the Kerberos group that refused to disarm. Three of the elite rebelled against the system, and fought their way through the city. The other two become wounded, and were unable to escape capture. Only one—senior detective Koichi Todome—managed to escape, and he promises the others that he will return for them.
Several years later, Koichi, a fugitive from the government, returns home for reasons that seem unclear. The city has decayed at an exponential rate and is completely unlike the place he left behind. Everything is surreal and strange, blurred and nondescript. He wanders, trying to find some semblance of his past, trying to find his comrades left behind. But the city itself seems to resist him, and there are those who realize the threat Koichi imposes, that his return is more dangerous than anyone could realize.
, which Oshii worked on as chief director and head writer.
and last episode in Oshii's Orwellian
Watchdog of Hell feature trilogy. The second and third feature film of the trilogy are based on the Kerberos Panzer Cop
manga
series published by Kadokawa Shoten
between 1988 and 1990. This manga is illustrated by Kamui Fujiwara
and written by Mamoru Oshii. A sequel, Kerberos Saga Rainy Dogs
, was launched in 2003 in collaboration with a different illustrator, Mamoru Sugiura.
While Waiting For The Red Spectacles
(1987) is a radio drama
prequel written by Kazunori Itō
with an original soundtrack composed by Kenji Kawai
.
In early April 2006, Mamoru Oshii theatrically released an animation movie, Tachiguishi-Retsuden
based on key elements, including characters, from The Red Spectacles. This spin off is part of the Tachiguishi arc. In late April of the same year, the Japanese author launched a radio drama
series Kerberos Panzer Jäger
.
On February 25, 2003, the DVD edition was made available in Japan as part of the Mamoru Oshii Cinema Trilogy anthology box set, which contained four DVDs and one soundtrack CD. On November 4 of the same year, a subtitled version of Akai megane was released in North America as both a single DVD and also as part of a US release of the box set. The US version of the trilogy box set has different box artwork and lacks the "Revisited Scene & Production" DVD of the Japanese version.
The American The Red Spectacles DVD edition was reprinted in 2004, and since then is only available in the box set which was printed three times as of 2006 and remains the only edition released outside Japan.
Absurdist fiction
Absurdist fiction is a genre of literature, most often employed in novels, plays or poems, that focuses on the experiences of characters in a situation where they cannot find any inherent purpose in life, most often represented by ultimately meaningless actions and events...
, surrealist
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
Japanese film
Cinema of Japan
The has a history that spans more than 100 years. Japan has one of the oldest and largest film industries in the world – as of 2009 the fourth largest by number of feature films produced. Movies have been produced in Japan since 1897, when the first foreign cameramen arrived...
directed by Mamoru Oshii
Mamoru Oshii
Mamoru Oshii is a Japanese filmmaker, television director, and writer. Famous for his philosophy-oriented storytelling, Oshii has directed a number of popular anime, including Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer, Ghost in the Shell, and Patlabor 2...
, co-written with Kazunori Ito, and starring Shigeru Chiba
Shigeru Chiba
is an actor and voice actor. He has also worked as a sound effects director and music director. He is employed by the talent management firm 81 Produce....
and Mako Hyodo
Mako Hyodo
, also credited as Mako Hyoudou, is a Japanese voice actress and member of 81 Produce company.- Notable roles :* Girl in Angel's Egg* Christella Revi in Birdy the Mighty and Birdy the Mighty: Decode* Young Lady in The Red Spectacles...
.
This is the first film of the Kerberos saga
Kerberos saga
The is a military science fiction franchise and alternate history universe created by the Japanese writer and filmmaker Mamoru Oshii in 1986. The saga is centered around the fictitious Tokyo police Special Armed Garrison which emblem and nickname is Kerberos , the mythological three-headed...
and last episode in Oshii's Orwellian
Orwellian
"Orwellian" describes the situation, idea, or societal condition that George Orwell identified as being destructive to the welfare of a free society...
Watchdog of Hell feature trilogy.
Chronicles
Kerberos saga historical background and significant dates in both the real and fictitious history.Prologue
Summer 1995. With the arrival of the "Age of Cats" (猫の時代), the former Kerberos police unit is now disbanded. However one member remains, a stray dog who returns to his old roost after a three-years exile. This wild dog no longer has a master, but now the "Young Lady of Fate" (運命の少女) will guide him on his journey...Plot
They were known as the "Watchdogs of Hell."It is the end of the 20th century. The Metropolitan Police have begun to lose control of the city; crime runs rampant and people are no longer safe. The solution: the establishment of the Anti Vicious Crime Heavily Armored Mobile Special Investigations Unit. Created by men and women of high intellect and physical strength who had a particularly strong, even fanatical sense of justice, they were nicknamed "Kerberos" (loose Japanese translation of "Cerberus" ), and armed with special "reinforcement gear" body armor and heavy weaponry.
But what started as a noble and courageous effort to stop the onslaught of crime soon spiraled out of control. Their overzealous actions and fanatical hatred of evil soon led to less-than policeman-like behavior. Public criticism grew as their investigational tactics grew more aggressive, crueler, and more corrupt. The turning point occurred when a Kerberos member, during a routine investigation, beat a misdemeanor offender to death.
This was the catalyst, the justification to shut the group down forever and dissolve it completely. However, there were those in the Kerberos group that refused to disarm. Three of the elite rebelled against the system, and fought their way through the city. The other two become wounded, and were unable to escape capture. Only one—senior detective Koichi Todome—managed to escape, and he promises the others that he will return for them.
Several years later, Koichi, a fugitive from the government, returns home for reasons that seem unclear. The city has decayed at an exponential rate and is completely unlike the place he left behind. Everything is surreal and strange, blurred and nondescript. He wanders, trying to find some semblance of his past, trying to find his comrades left behind. But the city itself seems to resist him, and there are those who realize the threat Koichi imposes, that his return is more dangerous than anyone could realize.
Characters
Several of the cast members are voice actors and appeared in Urusei YatsuraUrusei Yatsura
is a comedic manga series written and illustrated by Rumiko Takahashi that premiered in Weekly Shōnen Sunday in 1978 and ran until its conclusion in 1987. Its 374 individual chapters were collected and published in 34 tankōbon volumes. The series tells the story of Ataru Moroboshi, and the alien...
, which Oshii worked on as chief director and head writer.
- Kōichi Todome (Shigeru ChibaShigeru Chibais an actor and voice actor. He has also worked as a sound effects director and music director. He is employed by the talent management firm 81 Produce....
) - Washio Midori (Machiko WashioMachiko Washiois a Japanese actress who works in both live action as well as voice over work for anime. To anime fans, she is well known as the voice of Sakura in Urusei Yatsura.-Filmography:*The Red Spectacles *Kuroi Ie is a Japanese actress who works in both live action as well as voice over work for anime....
) - Sōichirō Toribe (Hideyuki TanakaHideyuki Tanakais a Japanese voice actor. He is a graduate of the Toho Gakuen School of Music. He is most known for his roles in Dokaben , Kinnikuman , Captain Tsubasa , Touch , Saint Seiya , Metal Gear Solid and Slam Dunk .-TV Anime:*Akagi...
) - Bunmei Muroto (Tessho GendaTessho Gendais a Japanese voice actor. He is employed by the talent management firm 81 Produce. When he debuted, he used his real name, . as artist name. Because he had experience with ballet, he was known by the nickname "Pirouette Genda."...
) - Young Lady (Mako HyodoMako Hyodo, also credited as Mako Hyoudou, is a Japanese voice actress and member of 81 Produce company.- Notable roles :* Girl in Angel's Egg* Christella Revi in Birdy the Mighty and Birdy the Mighty: Decode* Young Lady in The Red Spectacles...
) - Moongaze Ginji (Hideyo AmamotoHideyo Amamotowas a prolific Japanese actor from the Wakamatsu ward of Kitakyūshū best known for portraying Dr. Shinigami in the original Kamen Rider series as well as many other characters in tokusatsu films and the Godzilla series. Amamoto also used the pseudonym of Eisei Amamoto for most of his career, Eisei...
) - Hamburger Tetsu (offscreen)
- Beefbowl Ushigoro (offscreen)
- Medium Hot Sabu (offscreen)
- Baked Bean Pastry Amataro (offscreen)
- Crepe Mami (offscreen)
- Middle-aged man in billiards, taxi driver's voice (Ichiro NagaiIchiro Nagaiis a male seiyū from Ikeda, Osaka Prefecture. He was formerly represented by Tokyo Actor's Consumer's Cooperative Society, but is now represented by Aoni Production.-Television animation:*Akuma-kun *Bikkuriman...
) - Taxi driver (Yasuo OtsukaYasuo Otsukais a Japanese animator who worked with Toei Animation and Studio Ghibli.Prior to becoming an animator, Ōtsuka worked in the Kantō-Kōshin'etsu district drug enforcement office at the Ministry of Health and Welfare. As a member of the support staff , he was responsible for the seizure of drugs and...
) - Oriental Hotel receptionist (Oikawa Hiroe)
- Soba Udon cook (Fuyuki Shinada)
- Airport announcer (Fumi HiranoFumi Hiranois a Japanese voice actress and essayist who is best known for voicing Lum Invader in the anime series Urusei Yatsura. Fumi attended Tamagawa University in Machida, Tokyo where she graduated with a degree in Theatre from the Department of Fine Arts in the College of Humanities...
) - Umibōzu (Kintaroh Sakata)
Related works
The Red Spectacles is the first film of the Kerberos sagaKerberos saga
The is a military science fiction franchise and alternate history universe created by the Japanese writer and filmmaker Mamoru Oshii in 1986. The saga is centered around the fictitious Tokyo police Special Armed Garrison which emblem and nickname is Kerberos , the mythological three-headed...
and last episode in Oshii's Orwellian
Orwellian
"Orwellian" describes the situation, idea, or societal condition that George Orwell identified as being destructive to the welfare of a free society...
Watchdog of Hell feature trilogy. The second and third feature film of the trilogy are based on the Kerberos Panzer Cop
Kerberos Panzer Cop
Kerberos Panzer Cop, also known as Kerberos Panzer Cops literally , is a 1988 to 2000 Kerberos saga manga written by Mamoru Oshii and illustrated by Kamui Fujiwara with mechanical design by Yutaka Izubuchi. This comic series tales events prior to those portrayed in Oshii's 1987 live-action feature...
manga
Manga
Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...
series published by Kadokawa Shoten
Kadokawa Shoten
is a well-known Japanese publishing company based in Tokyo, Japan. Kadokawa has published both manga novels and magazines, such as Newtype magazine...
between 1988 and 1990. This manga is illustrated by Kamui Fujiwara
Kamui Fujiwara
is a Japanese character designer and manga artist. Fujiwara's father was a soldier in the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. He excelled in mathematics and computer science when in grade school. He graduated from the Kuwasawa Design School, which is attached to Tokyo Zokei University...
and written by Mamoru Oshii. A sequel, Kerberos Saga Rainy Dogs
Kerberos Saga Rainy Dogs
Kerberos Saga Rainy Dogs, . Hayashi . .]]Kerberos Koichi Todome chases elite sniper Eito Kurosaki a.k.a. "Afghan Hound" in Asia with a vengeance. During the Kerberos Riot event , Kurosaki betrayed the Special Armed Garrison by letting know Bunmei Muroto about the coup d'état...
, was launched in 2003 in collaboration with a different illustrator, Mamoru Sugiura.
While Waiting For The Red Spectacles
While Waiting For The Red Spectacles
is a 1987 radio drama written and directed by Mamoru Oshii. The music is composed and performed by Kenji Kawai.It was released in 2000 as a limited CD drama bundled with Kerberos Panzer Cop: Complete Book [Zen] edition.-Kerberos:...
(1987) is a radio drama
Radio drama
Radio drama is a dramatized, purely acoustic performance, broadcast on radio or published on audio media, such as tape or CD. With no visual component, radio drama depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the listener imagine the characters and story...
prequel written by Kazunori Itō
Kazunori Ito
is a Japanese anime screenwriter and artist who is well known for his work in the .hack Franchise and his writing for the Ghost in the Shell movie. Itō also provided the art for .hack//Another Birth. He is a member of the artist group known as Headgear....
with an original soundtrack composed by Kenji Kawai
Kenji Kawai
, born April 23, 1957 in Shinagawa, Tokyo, is a Japanese music composer, for motion pictures, anime movies, video games and televised programs. He has contributed to the musical scores for numerous films from Japan and other countries in Asia, working in film genres as diverse as anime, horror,...
.
In early April 2006, Mamoru Oshii theatrically released an animation movie, Tachiguishi-Retsuden
Tachiguishi-Retsuden
is a 2006 animation movie directed by Japanese filmmaker Mamoru Oshii, who also wrote the eponymous novel on which the film was based. Both works are part of the "Kerberos saga"...
based on key elements, including characters, from The Red Spectacles. This spin off is part of the Tachiguishi arc. In late April of the same year, the Japanese author launched a radio drama
Radio drama
Radio drama is a dramatized, purely acoustic performance, broadcast on radio or published on audio media, such as tape or CD. With no visual component, radio drama depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the listener imagine the characters and story...
series Kerberos Panzer Jäger
Kerberos Panzer Jäger
Kerberos Panzer Jäger is a 2006 radio drama series based on a story written by Japanese filmmaker and novelist Mamoru Oshii...
.
Releases
The American The Red Spectacles DVD edition was reprinted in 2004, and since then is only available in the box set which was printed three times as of 2006 and remains the only edition released outside Japan.
External links
- Kerberos saga official website (Japanese)