Mystery Article File 538#
A nice little piece of classic Oshii from back when it was acceptable to make a totally unsellable OVA that would appeal to very few people. Then again, it was cancelled due to low sales but it's probably not the kind of project you'd bother to attempt today.
It, of course, is composed from ideas and notions that are familiar to any student of his work. One important element that you can find in the
Patlabor TV/Movies,
Beautiful Dreamer and this work is the notion of Tokyo or the city as this entity that needs to consume land. It's much less clear in this than in, say,
Patlabor, but the focus on 'reclaimed land' and a look at older buildings shows the kind of ideas that were peculating in his mind.
Of course he'd already satisfied his more destructive urges with
Beautiful Dreamer and
Patlabor Movie 1 but he still has this weird attitude towards the city. He doesn't shoot in in this flattering, indulgent manner common to American TV shows or movies. It's certainly something that you can look out for in all his works.
The focus on dreams and reality is clearly the main and more obvious theme.
We also get a bit of Oshii himself, when the writer is asked to do something more normal-
Surprisingly a semi-insightful piece has already been written on this OVA -
File 538 is clearly an important work in Oshii's catalog; a reflection of the short time he spent truly down on his luck after Urusei Yatsura ended, as well as an ode to his father - himself a down-and-out private detective. (For Oshii fans, Detective Matsui of Patlabor is essentially the same character.) There's a claustrophobic sense of baking to death in the small apartment, and as the man sweats in the dark shadow of the place, his eyes roll into the back of his head. For Oshii, these insufferable, surreal days of summer are when the mind starts playing tricks on oneself, and the desperation of being down on one's luck starts to take its psychological toll.
