Motoko Again by Matías Bergara

Col. Kusanagi by Matías Bergara

The Major by Vallez Gax

Motoko Kusanagi by Matías Bergara

Kenji Kawai - Utai IV: Reawakening

Ghost in the Shell

The most horrifying aspect of Mamoru Oshii's Ghost in the Shell is an almost incidental detail within the film itself: the idea that a human's soul, here referred to as their ghost, is a detectable and quantifiable variable when dealing with cyber crimes where people are hotwired as easily as cars. When examining these puppets, be they flesh and blood or artificial constructs, the pulsing green systems of this near-future spit out interlaced, three-dimensional maps that describe the circumference of sentient identity. Bootlegging these private wavelengths, and the natural decay that occurs during this duping process, is also casually discussed. Naturally, in this setting, these analog appraisals are no big deal. A fact of life both understood and internalised. Human augmentation is, after all, endemic in the urban sprawl of New Port City. Off-the-shelf (and idealised) bodies are everywhere and staring straight back at each other; even the middle-age spread of a windy bureaucrat is, we learn, threaded with black, coiled cabling. 

That mechanical reproduction has sunken into this most sacred of spaces should, naturally, prompt some unusual behavioural patterns in those born out of these processes. Oshii's film doesn't just account for these strange, suicidal eccentricities, it's premised on them. Major Motoko Kusanagi, voiced by Atsuko Tanaka and Maaya Sakamoto, is a cyborg working for a particularly amoral internal security agency that specialises in murderous, interdepartmental in-fighting. The Major, and her colleagues, are so heavily customised that their bodies are no longer their own property. We are told, almost in passing, that these leased people are physically and psychologically dependent on their continued participation in government black ops. They have next to no agency. Resignation or retirement would mean that they would need to be dismantled. That their memories would have to be wiped. Who or what then would be left? In Oshii's film the deeper co-mingling of the flesh and digital realms is a lopsided relationship; one that demands that human beings give up ownership of not just their physical appearance, and any ego attached to that, but the very personal, individual essence that makes them who they are. This shock permeates Oshii's film, detectable in depressive, dehumanised interludes where dolls glimpse their doppelgangers and the resignation with which our heroes subject their gleaming outer shells to grievous mutilation.

Passengers - One Minute Warning

Innocence

Innocence, Mamoru Oshii's follow-up to 1995's Ghost in the Shell, imagines a future full of cybernetically augmented people with various hard and wireless data ports woven into their bodies, allowing them instantaneous access to all-recorded information. Frustratingly, this cerebral elevation hasn't brought about a profound change in the behaviour of mankind. Old habits die hard. Criminals still have various, horrifying, skin trades cornered while stock job roles and interpersonal patterns hold sway in the lives of the lawful.

Basic conversation has evolved in step with this mind-expanding progress though, transformed from bland, interchangeable pleasantries into passive-aggressive jousts. Participants use knowingly obscure, philosophical musings to bully their quarry into compliant silence. There's a sense in Innocence, especially since we spend so little time in the company of civilians, that an entire class of people have sealed themselves inside plastic and metal fortresses that enable them to mainline statistics and broadcast ideology. Understanding only their reality, Innocence's denizens are lonely and isolated, forever puzzling out the exact connections that anchor them to their physical world.

Innocence's plot revolves around a politically sensitive investigation into a brand of sex doll who are malfunctioning then killing their affluent owners before tearing themselves apart. In deference to their status as coveted but ultimately shameful product, the toys themselves are diminutive and sad looking, their bodies designed with the same super-articulated care as expensive Japanese action figures. Interestingly, the automatons spark a sense of kinship rather than revulsion in lead detective Batou. After all, he is himself a piece of dense, dutiful machinery. For the finale Oshii cuts loose, trading static posturing for maximum movement. Kenji Kawai's wonderful The Ballade of Puppets: The Ghost Awaits in the World Beyond thunders along the soundtrack while a liquid lithe Batou dodges crumbling gantries and an army of high-kicking drones to breach and clear his way to a resolution.

Toren Smith

One-man anime scene Toren Smith has passed away. Mr Smith and his publishing company Studio Proteus, in conjunction with various other comic companies, are completely responsible for shaping mine, and many of my generation's, Japanese media tastes.

Studio Proteus was dedicated to a boutique style approach to manga translation. Pages were photographed from original elements and translated sound effects were designed by award winning comics letterers and manga artists. Studio Proteus was also committed to treating artists and manga professionals ethically. Page rates were high, royalties were paid, and original artwork often commissioned.

Thank you Mr Smith for helping to bring us Akira, Appleseed, Lone Wolf and Cub, Ghost in the Shell, Gunsmith Cats, Intron Depot, Domu, Dominion, The Dirty Pair, Metropolis, The Legend of Kamui, and Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind.

HEAVILY CYBORG

I never took the time to check out the TV series, but as a property Ghost in the Shell has always read to me as a morose feedback loop. Even Masamune Shirow's original fingerbang manga dwelt heavily on identity destruction and black ops dick measuring. In contrast this trailer for prequel series Ghost in the Shell: Arise seems to be a poppy repackage of a nostalgia property in the vein of Dragon Ball Kai. All aboard for cybernetic augmentation as a way to facilitate hyper-kinetic martial arts!

Ghost in the Shell 2.0

To coincide with the release of his latest feature The Sky Crawlers, director Mamoru Oshii revisits his 1995 production Ghost in the Shell, retuning the classic animated feature for (assumed) contemporary tastes. This update entails jettisoning entire sequences in their original cel form, replacing them with brief, computer generated inserts. The effect can be jarring, especially since some of these additions aren't particularly sophisticated. In certain shots, during the opening assassination, Kusanagi's figure presents as rounded and polished of detail. Aesthetically, it could be argued that Kusanagi's 'clean' appearance serves to further accentuate her status as a mostly artificial being. Kusanagi does look synthetic, moulded and airbrushed like a garish person shaped doll: a choice that prefigures many of the film's central themes of identity. A shame then that this layering occasionally registers as primitive. The new digital intrusions work best when visualising the vast, all-consuming information mindscapes. What existed previously as blocky green readouts are now a seething, autumnal deluge. If the intention of this update was to salve near-sighted speculation on the future's technologies, then these unfathomable information clouds do succeed. The change of hue also creates a technological through line between this Ghost in the Shell and its sequel Innocence; as well as differentiating this piece from the heavily indebted, green keyed Matrix series.