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There're some Mamoru Oshii book lists on the Internet, but they don't have detailed explanations about the contents. My Mamoru Oshii book collection is far from complete, but I'd like to write some short summaries for each of those books.
I apologize in advance for grammatical errors and misinformation.
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(Kerberos X Tachiguishi: The Girl of Harahara Tokei)
release: 12/01/2007
publisher: Tokuma Shoten
[contents]
Act 1
Act 2
Act 3
Act 4
Act 5
Act 6
afterword by Hiroshi Mori
afterword by Mamoru Oshii
[review]
The Girl of Harahara Tokei is a manga written by Mamoru Oshii and drawn by Mamoru Sugiura. It is pretty difficult to explain this series. Oshii nerd level probably reaches the max in this manga, so let me explain step by step.
The story is set in alternate Japan. After Germany's occupation, armed police called "Special Unit" got into a political conflict with Public Security Unit.
The main character is a girl called Ogin. She appears as one of the far-left bomb mules called "Little Red Riding Hood". One day, she is captured by Special Unit soldiers. She undergoes interrogations, but she speaks nothing.
Public Security Unit takes her from Special Unit and makes her into a spy against the far-left group.
After so many missions against the left activists, she is ordered to become intimate with a Special Unit member called Ichiro. A big battle between Special Unit and Public Security Unit begins.
According to Oshii's afterword, his initial motivation was to portray Ogin again. Ogin is his original character from a very old anime. She first appears in Gyakuten Ippatsuman (1982). She was featured again in Urusei Yatsura (1984).
Her character was finally established in Tachiguishi Retsuden (2006). Oshii put a new-left propagandist image into her at that time. After Tachiguishi Retsuden, he got interested in her origin. He thought she was once in "Zengakuren", a far-left college students' organization.
He decided to connect that origin story with JIN-ROH. Nanami and Kei from JIN-ROH are far-left activists, so he merged those two girls and Ogin. In other words, he made a sort of reboot with Kerberos Universe and Tachiguishi Universe. I said "reboot" because Oshii himself says that this manga is a retrial of JIN-ROH. Okiura changed the script into his own story, so Oshii wanted to make another JIN-ROH.
The title, Harahara Tokei, shows Oshii's stance in the manga. Harahara Tokei is a title of a real book written by a far-left group called Okami/ "Wolf Cell". Wolf Cell is one of the so-called "non-sect radical" groups. The members bombed several buildings in the 1970s and got arrested. Before they got arrested, they released some ideological books. Those books include instructions like how to make black powder bombs. It's similar to The Anarchist Cookbook, but the political context is pretty different. There is an English Wikipedia page for the book.
Anime fans remember that the wolf symbol was important in JIN-ROH. That symbol came after the dog symbol in Kerberos Saga. Okiura requested a main heroine in JIN-ROH, so Oshii had to think of a story about a dog and a girl. The combination of a dog and a girl reminded Oshii of the little red riding hood. That’s why he changed the dog symbol to the wolf.
On the other hand, The Girl of Harahara Tokei deals with Wolf Cell/ terrorists. The wolf symbol is given to the anti-authority side, so the thesis/ antithesis are inverted. In the manga, Ogin/ the little red riding hood sometimes looks like a wolf. In the last chapter, Ogin and Ichiro are symbolized by a pair of wolves.
To me, it looks like Oshii put a symbolic game around the wolves and dogs into this manga. That's why I said it is very difficult to talk about it. Plus, it is not a straight entertainment manga. It's difficult to enjoy this manga without background knowledge. I recommend reading it after marathoning all the Kerberos saga and Tachiguishi saga.
