

The film’s brilliantly creative action sequences inspired Western filmmakers from the Wachowskis to Steven Spielberg to take note. It’s a bold direction to take with the source material, placing the Major on the brink of an existential crisis, and flipping the manga’s fetishization of her body on its head (but not getting rid of it, heavens, no).

Ghost in the Shell (1995), directed by Mamoru OshiiĪrguably the high point of the franchise, and certainly the most internationally known, Mamoru Oshii’s feature film adaptation took a subplot from Shirow’s manga and turned it into a meditation on consciousness and the philosophy of the self.
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Shirow followed the original series up with Ghost in the Shell 2: Man-Machine Interface in 1997. Still, “cute Motoko,” with her silly faces and easygoing fraternal relationship with her colleagues, is a fun variation on her more well-known anime counterpart, swilling beer with abandon, not yet affected by post-bubble ennui. It can be distracting in what is otherwise a densely conceived and entertaining sci-fi procedural. He’s also a bit of a lech, and never saw a female character whose crotch he wouldn’t draw in loving close-up. He writes copious idiosyncratic notes in the margins, fleshing out various ideas more thoroughly for whomever cares, and cracking jokes. Shirow is responsible for the technical concepts of cyberbrains, prostheses, and ghost hacking, as well as the “Puppeteer” plot that would serve as the basis for the 1995 film. Shirow’s first series follows the episodic adventures of the special-ops security force Section 9, headed by Major Motoko Kusanagi, a tomboyish tough-girl who happens to be 97 percent cyborg.

The manga, after all, debuted in the late ’80s, before Japan fell into an extended recession, when the tech boom was still a source of gee-whiz inspiration for sci-fi comic authors and animators. The manga that kicked off the franchise may surprise first-time readers already familiar with the anime, due to its lighter tone and depiction of the Major. The Ghost in the Shell (1989), by Masamune Shirow Here’s a quick guide to the essentials to get you started. The silver lining, of course, is that it’s an excellent excuse to dig into the heady world of Ghost in the Shell. In other words, if ScarJo’s take flops, she won’t be the first Major that fans have accused of ruining the series. And the cyborg heroine Major Motoko Kusanagi has been reincarnated in multiple ages, temperaments, and bodies (or lack thereof).
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Still, most American moviegoers have only seen Oshii’s film, if that, and Ghost in the Shell, like many anime franchises, exists over multiple films, TV series, and manga that were still going strong as recently as 2015. But in the case of a classic franchise like Ghost in the Shell, which most American viewers know from the 1995 Mamoru Oshii film, there’s more of a known quantity to live up to - this is one of the most influential franchises in anime history. It’s been notoriously tricky for Hollywood to successfully adapt anime and manga titles, even if they later get a critical reappraisal (see: Speed Racer, Edge of Tomorrow). The Scarlett Johansson version of Ghost in the Shell is being released this Friday, whether we want it or not.
