New Jin Roh Short

[JELEINEN]

mms://mercury.via.or.jp/dhw/df05/lastbattalion.wmv

Saw this posted on ANN earlier today. It's pretty good, though very short and not much in the way of plot.

[Macross73]

uh ....what Jin Roh. looks like a WWII game.

the last battalion

edit:

I see my error

http://www.jin-roh.net/

"JIN-ROH's setting is Tokyo–not the Tokyo of the future, but of an alternate past. In the bizarre, ironic tradition of Philip K. Dick’s THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE, JIN-ROH presents a Japan that lost a different Second World War–not to America, but to Nazi Germany. Now, more than ten years after the defeat, the occupation troops have left, but their legacy is JIN-ROH’s twilight-zone city where the domestic terrorism of "The Sect" plays out in everyday bombings and street battles against the counterterrorist Capital Police–and their elite armored, helmeted, and red-goggled Special Unit."

Edited July 25, 2006 by Macross73

[JELEINEN]

Jin-Roh Short Film Online (2006-07-24 12:18:55)

Production IG animator Koushi Kishida's Jin-Roh anime short film, Images of the Last Battalion, is now online. The short film won Japan's Digital Frontier Grand Prix Best VFX Award last year.

[Sumdumgai]

They may be reporting it as Jin-Roh, but it sure as hell looks like WWII Nazis, what with the swastikas and all, and the European looking battlefields. Doesn't look at all related to the Jin-roh anime.

[Die, Alien Scum!]

They may be reporting it as Jin-Roh, but it sure as hell looks like WWII Nazis, what with the swastikas and all, and the European looking battlefields.  Doesn't look at all related to the Jin-roh anime.

419183[/snapback]

I agree. While it was pretty cool, it simply looks like Nazis wearing something very similar to Protect Gear. Here's a short list of all the inconsistencies: the Panzer Cops never wore any German symbols, be it Iron Crosses, Swastikas, or SS insignias; they never had any tanks, artillery, or anti-aircraft guns; they weren't in the battlefields of Normandy; and most-importantly, the faces shown near the end aren't of Japanese men. If they want to call it Jin-Roh, more power to 'em, but I just don't see it.

[Retracting Head Ter Ter]

Eh? WTF?!?

I see signboards and signposts but they aren't in Japanese. And AAA? In Jin-Roh?

[bsu legato]

Maybe this is depicting the alternate universe Nazis, who defeat and occupy Japan.

[Sumdumgai]

Heil Illpallazo!

German guns are awesome though. Man I feel like playing DoD, too bad I uninstalled it before it went public and you had to buy it. I loved using the MG-42. Set up in a nice position, lay down, set-up the bipod, and mow down everything that moves.

[JELEINEN]

Maybe this is depicting the alternate universe Nazis, who defeat and occupy Japan. 

419213[/snapback]

That could be. There wasn't any real explanation for it on any of the sites I could find (that I could read anyway).

[Lynx7725]

Heil Illpallazo!

German guns are awesome though.  Man I feel like playing DoD, too bad I uninstalled it before it went public and you had to buy it.  I loved using the MG-42.  Set up in a nice position, lay down, set-up the bipod, and mow down everything that moves.

419308[/snapback]

I know what it's like. I used to play Enemy Territory, a Castle Wolfenstein-based FPS. I remember a couple of matches where I was a MG-er and just camped a chokepoint with the MG. It got so bad that the other side had to use either rockets or mortars (depending on the map) to get rid of me.

Anyway, it doesn't look Jin-Roh-ish (*compares with the CG Protect Gear Midori nearby*). Maybe inspired by it, certainly related to it somehow, but doesn't look quite it.

I find it a bit funny that one scene seemed to be inspired by the cover of my Band of Brothers DVD -- a obviously Axis group protraying an iconic Allied scene.

[CoryHolmes]

"Oh, blagh" is the only phrase that springs to mind when I see that. One of the most iconic parts of Jin Roh is the Protect Gear, and it's barely even referenced in this short.

[GreatMoose]

I think BSU is right, looks like it's almost a 'prequel' idea. How the Protect Gear and Panzer Cops came to be, or what they were derived from. I really like it, just wish it was longer.

[bsu legato]

It turns out I was right on the money. From Wikipedia:

Images of the Last Battalion is a student concept work, it is designed like a trailer and is centered on a Schutzstaffel battalion equipped with Protect-Gears-like armors and fighting during World War II, and eventually been defeated, hence the title.

The photography and editing are obviously inspired by IG. Production directors works, such as Oshii's Avalon feature film released in 2001, whom it borrows various visual effects such as motion blur among other After Effects filters, and Hiroyuki Okiura's Jin-Roh, particularly the stills used in the 1999 feature anime's prologue.

Another strong inspiration could be Killzones CG cutscenes directed by Graham McKenna from the Glasgow based, Axis Animation studio. Some sequences from Images of the Last Battalion are restaging of Killzone's promo teaser and video custscenes based on WWII key themes, e.g. the Nuremberg rally or the Trench warfare. The 2004 Dutch game inspired by the Kerberos saga was lastly published in Japan, in 2005, by Sega. Killzone was finally released in Asia after the Killzone 3 E3 trailer shock.

The similarities between Images of the Last Battalion's characters and geographical background and the events portrayed in Kerberos Panzer Jäger could be interpreted as a direct motivation or inspiration to the drama series. Actually the Panzer Jäger characters were introduced within the saga back in 1999, in the Kerberos Panzer Cop part 2 (Act 5) as well as German-built tanks. According to an interview published in the Japanese notorious news website, WatchImpress, Kishita's original short film was modified to become a "trailer" for Panzer Kerberos Jäger which was showcased at the drama series' launch party. Cosmetic changes included alteration of the SS imagery, replaced by Jäger emblems, in order to fit the Kerberos saga's thematical universe.

Kerberos Panzer Jager, by the way, is a

2006 extension explores the European, military, origins of the Kerberos Panzer Cops, the German troopers known as Kerberos Panzer Jäger. The story is mainly set on the "Eastern Front", in East Europe, during the 1940s, with the German fighting the Soviet and eventually winning against them at the 1942 Battle of Stalingrad, creating a paradox and a major change in the course of History leading to the parallel world portrayed in the Kerberos saga.

I just stumbled onto this completely by accident, but I figured I'd share with the other Panzer Cop fans on the board.

[JELEINEN]

Cool. Great find.