Kerberos saga


The Kerberos Saga is an alternate history political thriller media mix created by the Japanese writer and filmmaker Mamoru Oshii in 1986; are members of Headgear, including Oshii himself. The most famous installment of the franchise, especially outside Japan, is the 1999 anime film ; it was remade as in 2018.
The saga is centered on the fictitious Tokyo police Special Armed Garrison whose emblem and nickname is Kerberos, the mythological three-headed watchdog of hell. Before it was officially renamed "Kerberos Saga" circa 2004, it was known as the "Kerberos series" or the "Kenrō series".
The franchise is currently owned by Mamoru Oshii; It consists of works based on Oshii's original story spanning in various media including tokusatsu feature films, radio dramas, comic books, animation films and monographs. Licensed products are mainly Special Armed Garrison powered suit based action figures or garage kits called Protect Gears, and Kerberos Saga episodes derived soundtracks, storyboards and guidebooks. Merchandising includes posters, folding fans, mousepads, statuette busts, tee-shirts and even bottles of wine with a dedicated online shop available on the official website.
The most famous paraphernalia of the franchise is the Protect Gears; designed by mechanical designer Yutaka Izubuchi, these are the powered exoskeleton suits wore by members of the Special Armed Garrison.

Release chronology

Kerberos story arc

In order to celebrate The Red Spectacles' 20-year anniversary, a new Protect Gear armour was designed by Jun Suemi in 2006 as part of a new Kerberos Saga project. This new episode was Kerberos Panzer Jäger a radio drama series narrating the Protect Gear's roots on the 1940s German-Soviet War.
2006 was also the opening year for the Kerberos Saga's official website. Kerberos Saga official website owner Raiden released a collectible bottle of German wine, Riesling through the official online shop.
As a 20th celebration of the Kerberos Panzer Cop original edition, the Kerberos Saga's new publisher Gakken will release a collector boxset Kerberos Panzer Cop a Revision: 20th edition. This boxset will feature both volumes from Kerberos Panzer Cop in B5 size original aspect with "digitally refine" graphic arts by Kamui Fujiwara a pamphlet and a new Revoltech Yamaguchi Protect Gear figure. Pre-ordering campaign will last from July 26 to the end of August 2009.
In March 2009, a new comic book chapter entitled Kerberos Panzer Cop: Special Issue, was pre-published in Gakken's Kerberos Saga monograph Kerberos Panzer Cops: Tokyo War. This was released as a sample of the upcoming two-volume Kerberos Panzer Cop "revised edition" to which it will be included.

Setting

Characters & organizations

As a military science fiction work the Kerberos Saga's main characters are members of rival military and police services, namely the Shutokei, the Self-Police and the JSDF. However, these conflictual forces have a common foe, Anti-government organizations and terrorists such as The Sect and its factions.
Secondary and guest appearance characters introduced by author Mamoru Oshii are taken from his previous works such as culinary art and rhetoric masters Tachiguishi or Detective Matsui from the Patlabor franchise.
Members of the saga's core organisation, the Shutokei's Special Armed Garrison, have an animal counterpart which is an allegory and sometimes a metonymy. This animal can be a mythological dog such as Cerberus and Laelaps as in the comic book, or it can be a German dog breeds as in Kerberos Panzer Cop and its sequel ; this comic book series original title means "Dog-Wolf Legend". It can be a Japanese wolf as in Jin-Roh and in Kerberos & Tachiguishi which borrow drama parts to the Little Red Riding Hood tale. Also it can be a stray dog as in the 1991 eponymous movie.

Timeline

The Kerberos Saga is based upon an alternate history with key events called "incidents". Altered historical events turned into fiction include Japan siding with the Allies, the Germany-won battle of Stalingrad, Stauffenberg's then-successful assassination attempt on Hitler, the occupation of Japan by Germany - instead of the United States - called "Weimar Republic, and the prominent 26 February coup d'état attempted by the Special Armed Garrison instead of the Imperial Japanese Army.

Main locations

Although the saga's plot is mainly located in the Japanese capital, some episodes happen in foreign cities including Taipei and Tainan, Old Havana and Stalingrad.
Among the Tokyo landmarks appearing in the saga are Odaiba, Shibuya, the Tokyo International Airport, Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department headquarters building, the Prime Minister's Official Residence and the University of Tokyo's Yasuda Auditorium.
A recurring location is sewer, it can be the Tokyo sewer as in Kerberos Panzer Cop and Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade or abroad sewer as in Kerberos Saga Rainy Dogs. In all these works, sewer is the final stage holding the Special Armed Garrison main character's last fight. In the Greek mythology, the Kerberos watchdog guards the gates of the Underworld, called Hades, to prevent those who have crossed the river Styx from ever escaping. Hence the sewer can be regarded as an allegory of the Underworld; the original title for the 1991 movie StrayDog is "kerberos: watchdog of jigoku" with jigoku being the realm of the dead in the Japanese mythology.

Releases

Japanese releases

The saga started in January 1987 with the Japanese broadcast of the radio drama series While Waiting for the Red Spectacles, prior to the theatrical release of the live-action film The Red Spectacles. A manga series adaptation, Kerberos Panzer Cop started the following year and was compiled as a single volume in 1990.
The following year was released ', the first theatrical adaptation of the manga.
In 1999, the manga series was completed and re-released as two compilation volumes. Few months later was released Jin-Roh the anime adaptation of the first manga. It remains the franchise's most popular work outside Japan until today.
', an animation feature spin-off was released in theaters and DVD in 2006.

Asian releases

Kerclros Panzer Cop 犬狼伝説, an unlicensed Chinese version of the 1990 manga volume was published in Taiwan in the early 1990s.
犬狼傳說, a Chinese version complete volume was available in Malaysia in 2000. A licensed, two volumes, Chinese version of the Japanese 2000 re-edition was issued in Hong Kong the same year. A similar edition was available in Korean language in South Korea the same year.
A traditional Chinese 2-volume licensed edition was published in Taiwan in 2002.

North American releases

A six issues English adaptation of the first manga volume was published in 1994, in the United States and Canada as . A compilation volume edition was published in 1997.
The English dubbed version of Jin-Roh was released in North America in 2001.
Two years later, the English subtitled version of the 1987 and 1991 live action films was released on DVD.

European releases

Hellhounds: Panzer Cops, the English adaptation of the first manga volume, was translated in German and serialized in a German book from 1996 to 1997.
In 1998, the American Hellhounds: Panzer Cops all-in-one volume was licensed and distributed in the United Kingdom.
The following year Jin-Roh was premiered in France and later released in Germany. It was one year before the Japanese release.

Toy lines

With each new episode release, Japanese toys and model kits manufacturers such as Kaiyodo, Medicom or Takara produce Protect-Gear scale models.

Fan works

After the North American release of Jin-Roh, various Kerberos Protect-Gear skins were created by fans to be used in the popular Counter-Strike FPS, an American video game series.
In 2005, Images of the Last Battalion, an independent short anime directed by a student, Koichi Kishita, was released in Japanese film contests. The following year, the bootleg video was edited and projected as an official trailer at Mamoru Oshii's Kerberos Panzer Jäger launch party and Kishita joined Production I.G's 3DCG team.
Japanese and Chinese Protect-Gear fans sculpted, modified, or repainted licensed toys. Some of these "custom" items are released as limited edition garage kits available in conventions and import action figure shops and websites.