The Red Spectacles

The Red Spectacles (紅い眼鏡, Akai Megane) is a 1987 Japanese science fiction neo-noir film directed by Mamoru Oshii, co-written with Kazunori Ito, and starring Shigeru Chiba and Mako Hyōdō. The first film in Oshii's Kerberos Saga, but the second installment overall after its radio drama companion piece While Waiting for the Red Spectacles (which aired a month prior), the film follows Kōichi Todome, a former police tactical unit officer who, after fleeing Japan following a failed rebellion by his dissolved unit, returns several years later per a promise to his colleagues, only to find Tokyo in a surreal and unrecognizable state. The Red Spectacles was released on February 7, 1987. It would be followed by several works intended to explain and expand the film's universe, the most notable of them being Kerberos Panzer Cop. The film was followed by two prequels—StrayDog: Kerberos Panzer Cops in 1991, and Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade in 1999—that adapted the established stories and settings from Kerberos Panzer Cop. Kamui Fujiwara adapted the film into a manga in 2024.