Mamoru Oshii

Mamoru Oshii (押井守 Oshii Mamoru; born August 8, 1951 in Tokyo) is a Japanese animation and live-action film writer and director. Presently, Oshii lives in Atami, Shizuoka prefecture, Japan with his dogs – a basset hound named Gabriel and a mutt named Daniel.

Style

Mamoru Oshii's films typically follow a rhythm of slow-paced exposition in near-silence, punctuated by several sequences of fast action. His visual style is easily recognizable with long dramatic moments of beautiful images in montages in which nothing significant generally occurs. Frequently repeated elements include flocks of birds (like Hong Kong action director John Woo), and basset hounds similar to his own. The basset hound was seen most prominently , and was a major plot point in his live action film, Avalon.

Related Topics:
Montage - John Woo - Basset hound - Avalon

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Oshii is especially noted for how his directing style has uniquely influenced the films for Urusei Yatsura, Patlabor, and Ghost in the Shell. In their original manga or anime forms, these three titles exhibited a mood that was more frantic slapstick comedy (Urusei Yatsura) or convivial seriocomic (Patlabor, Ghost in the Shell). Oshii, in adapting the works created a slower, more grey overcast atmosphere especially noticeable in Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer and Patlabor: The Movie. For the Ghost in the Shell movie, Oshii elected to leave out the humor and character banter of Masamune Shirow's manga, resulting in a presentation reminiscent of Stanley Kubrick, who himself considered Mamoru Oshii a "genius."

Related Topics:
Masamune Shirow - Stanley Kubrick

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Oshii also wrote and directed numerous animated movies and live-action films based on his personal worldview influenced by the anti-Anpo (U.S.-Japan Security Treaty) student movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Because the student movements were falling apart by the time Oshii became involved, he has a much more cynical worldview than older members of the same movements, like Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata. The first film to touch on his political background was the live action film, Jigoku no banken: Akai megane, known in English as The Red Spectacles (1987). This film, set in the same world as Hiroyuki Okiura's film ' (for which Oshii wrote the script), is about a former member of the special unit of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Force dealing with a fascist government.

Related Topics:
U.S.-Japan Security Treaty - 1960s - 1970s - Hayao Miyazaki - Isao Takahata - Hiroyuki Okiura - Fascist

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