KERBEROS SAGA©押井守/バルク 犬狼伝説©押井守・藤原カムイ/バルク・双葉社 © Futabasha Publishers Ltd.
Futabasha announced last Friday that Mamoru Oshii‘s The Red Spectacles (Akai Megane) live-action film is inspiring a manga adaptation by Kamui Fujiwara, which launched in Futabasha‘s Manga Action magazine on Tuesday.
The Red Spectacles is one of the entries in Oshii’s Kerberos Saga mixed media story, which he has been developing in various media since the Akai Megane o Machi Tsutsu (While Waiting for The Red Spectacles) radio drama in January 1987. The Red Spectacles film came out only a month after that radio drama in February 1987.
The multimedia story is set in an alternate history where Japan joined the Allies in the Second World War, but where the Allies lost largely due to new technology developed by Nazi Germany. Though Germany de-Nazified after the assassination of Adolf Hitler, it still occupied a defeated Japan. As extremist elements in both the left and the right emerge in a quickly re-emerging Japan, the Japanese police militarizes, with the Capitol Police deploying the so-called “Kerberos” corps of armored military policemen, armored in advanced German infantry “protect gears,” and authorized to use lethal force against dissident elements. The stories largely center around the actions of the Kerberos corps, the rise of organized insurgencies against the Japanese government, the increasing brutality of the Kerberos, and their eventual purge of the Kerberos corps after increasing unpopularity.
The Red Spectacles focuses on former Kerberos member Koichi Todome, who returns to Japan three years after fleeing the Kerberos uprisings and subsequent purges, and finds a changed city. He attempts to find and reconnect with former comrades.
Fujiwara already previously worked with Oshii on the Kerberos Saga, drawing the Hellhounds: Panzer Cops (Kenrō Densetsu) manga, released from 1989 to 1990, with a second serialization in Kadokawa‘s Shōnen Ace magazine in 1999 to 2000.
Perhaps the part of the Kerberos Saga most known to anime fans is Jin-Roh, a 1998 anime film by Oshii’s frequent collaborator Hiroyuki Okiura, with a script by Oshii. The film inspired a South Korean live-action remake titled Illang: The Wolf Brigade, which opened in South Korea and Japan in July 2018, and debuted on Netflix overseas in October 2018.
Source: Futabasha
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