Opinion on The Ghost in the Shell (1989) and related work
- Adaptation: Ghost in the Shell (1995)
- Sequel: Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (2004)
- Adaptation: Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (2002)
- Bonus material: Tachikoma Specials (2002)
- Sequel: Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex 2nd GIG (2004)
- Sequel: Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex – Solid State Society (2006)
Shirō Masamune (writer-artist).
References here: “Silent Möbius” (1991), “New Dominion Tank Police” (1993).
sequential art text Japanese production fiction cyberpunk
‣ Ghost in the Shell (1995
)
Oshii Mamoru (director).
A rapidly growing city on an artificial island in the area of Hong Kong, 2029 CE. Traditional society has begun to dissolve with the advent of ever more invasive electronic communications. A hacker brainwashes cyborgs through the net, masking out their true memories, making them act as pawns in intercorporate crimes. Section 9 of a fractionalized Public Peace Department is on this hacker’s trail.
The Section’s chief operative retains only one biological component and has begun to question the nature of her existence. Her traditional mental complexity qualifies her as the possessor of a “ghost”, a secular, operationalized term for what used to be called a soul, but what does that matter? When she discovers that the hacker she is chasing isn’t human, and that it seeks her, she risks everything to communicate.
Pure cyberpunk: Extrapolative near-future science fiction in the vein of William Gibson, in an animated feature. Uncommonly international in character, with 50% of its budget coming from US company Manga Entertainment, this adaptation is one of the least faithful to Shirō’s original, though it is loosely based on a few of his chapters. The Japanese title was a better fit for that original, on account of the spider tanks commanded by its protagonists, but the English title is still a good fit for this film.
Incidentally, this film, the FMV cuts from an 1997 PlayStation 1 game by Exact, and the Stand Alone Complex (2002) leg of the franchise were all produced by Production I.G. Only this film and its sequel were directed by Oshii Mamoru.
This film is prefigured by Blue Thunder (1983), Gall Force: Earth Chapter (1989), “Silent Möbius” (1991) and many others, but only vaguely. It’s a creative landmark, some of Oshii’s densest work at almost half the length of Mobile Police Patlabor: The Movie 2 (1993). Its setting, a version of Hong Kong, invokes Milton Friedman’s dream in Free to Choose (1980), Gibson’s future, and the reality of an overworked society where monopolies not only exist, but actually vote in elections. In this setting, the film marries the contemplative style and temps mort (Jp. ma) of L’Eclisse (1962) to a techno-thriller genuinely concerned with the future, and this is not easy. It’s possibly the greatest masterpiece of cyberpunk film in the world.
As with Gibson—note the Armitage/Corto-puppet parallel—the science is only selectively credible. There is frivolous use of androids and invisibility for example, yet remarkably ineffective targeting of weapons and archaic keyboards. The quotes from 1 Corinthians 13 add little. On a script level the treatment of brain-computer interfaces is better than that of manufactured superhuman slaves in Blade Runner (1982), but not by much; it’s roughly on a level with Gibson’s quasi-visual cyberspace.
References here: En betraktelse av A Silent Voice, Gundress (1999), Anime from Akira to Princess Mononoke: Experiencing Contemporary Japanese Animation (2001/2005), Cowboy Bebop: Knocking on Heaven’s Door (2001), Avalon (2001), Japanorama (2002), I’m a Cyborg, But That’s OK (2006), Pacific Rim (2013), Blade Runner 2049 (2017), Violet Evergarden (2018), Upgrade (2018), Mars Express (2023).
moving picture adaptation animation Japanese production fiction cyberpunk
‣‣ Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (2004)
Suzuki Toshio (producer), Oshii Mamoru (writer-director).
Three years later. Bateau is despondent after the disappearance of Kusanagi. He cares for his dumpy old Basset Hound and toys with death in his combat-cyborg body. He and Togusa, who now has a cyberbrain implant, investigate a new line of androids who are going insane.
An animated feature. This one retains the thrilling action set pieces and philosophical depth of the 1995 film, but the visuals and the writing style are very different. Philosophy is now front and centre. The script, though based on chapter 6 of the original comic, is overloaded with quotes from and allusions to famous thinkers, all the way from Psalms 139 to Saitō Ryokuu’s 19th-century aphorisms and Richard Dawkins’s Extended Phenotype (1982). A one-scene forensic technician named Haraway is based on Donna Haraway, whose Cyborg Manifesto (1985) echoes throughout. Here’s a passage from the real Haraway that may shine some light on the plot:
Cyborg writing is about the power to survive, not on the basis of original innocence, but on the basis of seizing the tools to mark the world that marked them as other.
Haraway’s “them” are marginalized women of colour in the USA. In Oshii’s case, they’re something more Buddhist: Artificial women and Asian victims of trafficking. In his visual style, meanwhile, he combines variably textured 3D CGI with 2D animation in a way that is often beautiful but rarely illusionistic. Outside the set pieces, there is little movement, but Oshii puts his thumb on this doll-like immobility to match the dialogue’s overt intertextuality. The style is a curious mix of the surreal with the “piss filter” of contemporary video-game shooters.
The film is challenging but successfully develops a couple of themes. The basic plot is driven by the theme of Haraway’s women exploited in transnational capitalism: The Locus Solus corporation selling sexbots programmed with AI trained on trafficked girls and manufactured literally off shore. These women, as cyborgs, are able to fight back through the means of their own exploitation, which are means of production. Similarly, the operatives of Section 9, who normally hack their opponents, are now hacked with false inputs, re-introducing the first film’s theme of phenomenology and integrating it with authenticity and pained ruminations on the Buddha nature of non-sentient dolls. Androids, discussed at length here, were also visible in the original: the girls in Aramaki’s op centre.
References here: Ex Machina (2014), Westworld (2016).
moving picture sequel animation Japanese production fiction cyberpunk
‣‣‣ “Towards A New Posthuman Ontology – The Anti-Anthropocentrism of Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence” (2020
)
Yalun Li (writer).
Read in 2020.
A medium-heavy case of the hedging typical of contemporary film studies, aggravated by mistakes in copy-editing:
This dynamic system is generated by both the diverse array of subjects but also the tone of the relations. The subjects, animal (Batou’s basset hound), human (Togusa), offspring (Togusa’s daughter), cyborg (Batou and Kusanagi), gynoid, dolls generate a complicated web of relations of companionship, kinship, care, desire, lust, ambivalence, hate, fear, resistant, respect, hope, and love.
Presumably, “dolls” should be in the singular, “resistant” should be “resistance”, and the second sentence should have used some means of separation other than commas alone for its two lists. The academic style, assuming familiarity with the author’s various citations, needs special attention to clarity on this more basic level.
‣ Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (2002)
Shirō Masamune (cooperation).
Near-future Japan, especially New Port City (Niihama-shi) near Nagasaki. Stand-alone chapters (often treating emerging social problems) are mixed with the coherent story of the Laughing Man, a young genius and cyberterrorist.
TV series. Modernized cyberpunk with a lot of criminal investigation. Closer to its comic basis than Oshii’s films, but set in another universe where Tachikoma replace the manga’s and PlayStation game’s Fuchikoma, and where the Puppet Master never meets Kusanagi. Naturally, a lot of other stuff is altered, and many storylines are original. There is no significant overlap with the films, and no Oshii involvement.
The show seems to try to emulate Oshii’s style of direction, but a pay-per-view TV budget means more static shots and less realistic designs, especially for poor Kusanagi who wears a swimsuit and has hideous hair. The CGI is often flawed, particularly the cars, and elements of the hastily finished opening from episode 3 onwards.
From the point of view of a literary cyberpunk fan, this is an odd beast, falling somewhere between a 1980s retrofuture and a more contemporary extrapolative effort. Of course it would be absurd to show increased overcrowding in the near future of Japan, barring disasters, but there are also no brooding cityscapes, no punk attitude, no great cultural or social change. As a serious modernization, it’s not very good: Where then are the depletion of aquifers, the energy crisis, the changes in diet, and so on? The Tachikoma are pathetically pitched for comedy, and the writing is often opaque. The very clear use of disconnected stand-alone stories and the final reset hurt believability. Add to this the choice of Kanno’s progressive pop-rock instead of something like Kawai’s transcendent soundtracks, and quite a lot of the series turns out only so-so.
References here: Ghost in the Shell (1995).
moving picture adaptation animation Japanese production fiction series cyberpunk
‣‣ Tachikoma Specials (2002)
The Tachikoma hang out in virtual space. Their activities are often tied to the corresponding SAC episode’s plot.
One small spoof per episode of the SAC series, distributed with the series on DVD. There is one moment of brilliance: The musical in episode 25.
moving picture bonus material animation Japanese production fiction cyberpunk
‣‣ Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex 2nd GIG (2004)
Section 9 is reconstituted two years after its nominal destruction, because of a new terrorist threat in connection with large numbers of refugees from World Wars 3 and 4.
TV series. GIG as in a musical “gig” or the gig economy.
This is slightly more classical cyberpunk, including both a peripheral apocalyptic event—old Tokyo under water with general upheaval—and political themes, probably in reaction to the murder and robbery of a Japanese family of four in Fukuoka perpetrated by Chinese students, as well as other real-world events which helped reignite a fear of foreigners around the time of the production.
The Tachikomas return, despite what happened to the last batch, and a relatively huge amount of background info on the Section’s members is provided, including scenes from the Major’s childhood and from one of the wars.
moving picture sequel animation Japanese production fiction series cyberpunk
‣‣ Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex – Solid State Society (2006)
After another two years, Togusa is a senior member of the greatly expanded Section 9, now playing Kusanagi’s role after she went solo. Their paths converge in the investigation of a transcendent hacker who has something to do with a device providing automated medical care for the elderly in their homes. That device has the side effect of practically inducing a coma, but perhaps the mind is simply elsewhere?
Animated feature. SAC handles the shift in format remarkably well, but other than the appropriate adaptations (including more smooth vehicle animation) there is little difference, hence little commonality with Oshii. The hacker is called the Puppet Master, but the specific term is kugutsu mawashi as opposed to ningyoutsukai, which is what they call the Puppet Master in Oshii’s first film.
moving picture sequel animation Japanese production fiction cyberpunk