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The Soul of the New
MACHINE
Oshii Mamorus Ghost in the Shell
By David Chute
85
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remains inside her titanium alloy cated itself and acquired sentience, the least, Shirow is practically a Luddite.
"shell." In this augmented incarnation, PuppetMaster has commandeered a Most of his work contains certain sig-
Kusanagi makes a stellar operative. She body in order to demand "political asy- nature elements: these are, in his own
can plug listening devices directly into lum," the rights that any other "life words, "females, mecha, computer
her nervous system, and "dive" men- form" would be entitled to. brains, and Special Forces units." His
tally into computer circuits and monkey Superstar writer-artist Shirow Masa- lissome heroines (there isn't a single
around with the programs. Of course, mune, who created Ghost in the Shell in male protagonist in the Shirow canon)
there are other people around who can the pages of Young Jump magazine in tend to be soldiers or SWAT cops in
do this, including some government 1993, is a rare one-man band in the form-fitting battle armor that bristles
"ghost hackers" who are perfectly will- manga field- the norm involves squads with machine enhancements. Shirow
ing to implant false memories - "syn- of assistants working in near factory himself contends, with justice, that his
thetic experiences" - into innocent conditions to crank out hundreds of reputation for turning out minutely
citizens and manipulate them like pup- pages a month. Shirow, a former high detailed art is exaggerated; the com-
pets when it suits their purposes. school art teacher, lives near Kobe, well
plexity is in the content, he says, not in
Kusanagi remains confident, how- away from the high-pressure Tokyo its depiction. His stories, crawling with
ever, that her "ghost," or soul, has manga scene, and lovingly writes, spidery marginal notes that supply fans-
remained intact deep inside her walnut- draws, and Zip-a-Tones every page. He satisfying facts about every vehicle and
sized lump of surviving brain tissue - has been one of the chief exponents weapon,
of have their "technical manuals"
until some strange encounters in the the "mecha" school since the mid- built right in.
line of duty force her to reexamine the Eighties, when his second professional Ghost in the Shell didn't emerge in a
entire concept. A superpowerful pirate cultural vacuum, didn't spring full-
effort, the 1,000-page-plus epic Apple-
ghost hacker, The PuppetM aster, has blown from Shirow's solitary forehead.
seed , was published by a small indepen-
been sabotaging sensitive government dent company and became a Rather, it's an evolutionary advance in
initiatives. But when the PuppetMaster the mecha subgenre of Japanese manga
word-of-mouth hit. It is a pleasing irony
appears, as a ghost in the shell of a and anime, a welter of giant robots,
that these almost fanatically detailed
female cyborg, he/she/it turns out to be "mobile suits," cyborgs, and more
celebrations of the mechanical are pro-
something new under the sun, an intelli- duced in conditions befitting hand- recently, computer hacking and artifi-
gence that has never been human. A thrown pots or boutique jewelry. Incial
hisintelligence. Everything from
fragment of computer virus that repli- attitudes toward manga production,Tezuka
at Osamu's boy-robot hero of the
STAR photos i
Milton Moore
1725 RAINBOW
Suite 1, Box 169 ^
Dept.
Las Vegas, Nevada
a_^|BHB89i02;297i
ACTING CLASSES I
author as by
offers workshops and continuous
Formar faculty mambar for Laa Strasburg.
teachar for STANISLAVSK1 Taachas
for AMERICAN FILU INSTITUTE'S Public Sarvica programs.
BEGINNERS THROUGH
(310)
Also ^ H
Suite Santa
film
FINE, RARE & OUT-OF-PRINT
send 96 cents in stamps
FOR LISTS TO:
CINEMAGE
87
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Fifties, Tetzuan Atomu (aka Astroboy)- befuddlement of an android comrade- olis is now called Newport City, and it
often cited as the founding icon of the in-arms. The central issue here is the
resembles Hong Kong a great deal more
entire Japanese comics and animation one that engaged Philip K. Dick in Do
than Tokyo. The beehive tenement apart-
industry - to later variations like Giant ment blocks and signboards stretched
Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, the
Robo , Mobile Suit Gundam , Macross 1968 source novel of Blade Runner. across the neon canyons are distinctly
(aka Robotech), and Akira fall into the "What if a cyber-brain could generateHK-like, and unless I missed something
same broad category of tales about its own ghost?" wonders the mostly all the signs are written in Chinese char-
humans who interact, or intersect, or cybernetic Kusanagi - with the "ghost"
acters only, without fiirìgana.
meld with their mechanical append- of the title understood as not just theShirow seems to be a basically down-
ages. (The kidcult TV show Power Rang- sum total of a persons memories to-earth
but individual, a responsible citizen
ers is an adaptation of a Japanese concerned about the future. He finally
program from the subgenre's hentai or emphasizes the strategies people will
live-action wing.) have to come up with to function in a
terminally disorienting world. To that
extent, at least, he's an optimist; he
already a leading light of the thinks that our sense of day-to-day
Director already anime
anime branch a Oshii
branchleading of Mamoru
of light
the the mecha
mechaof was the responsibility will keep us from going
movement when he came to Ghost in the under. Oshii, however, seems to
Shell , as distinctive in his way as embrace disorientation. He sees it as a
Shirow, but with impeccable industry- steppingstone to a higher form of con-
insider credentials. His reputation was sciousness. His use of a trance-indus-
built, in films like Patlabor and Patla- trial music score and gliding camera
bor 2, upon the sheer sensuous splen- moves that caress the façades of loom-
SB 55
dor of his futuristic battle scenes. He is ing buildings- especially on a couple of
also credited with making some of the extended montage interludes - invest
first mecha films that are truly adult in the hi-tech vistas with an ominous
their approach to character. undercurrent, a whiff of the uncanny.
In interviews Oshii claims to get He makes the implications of metasta-
many of his best ideas in dreams, and sizing technology seem awe inspiring,
he works in more conspicuous Christian sublime, like the poisonous beauty of a
references per film than any Asian mov- smog-filtered sunset.
iemaker this side of John Woo. He also Ghost in the Shell is a carefully
had enough clout to demand and get a worked-out set of variations on the
free hand on GitS, and in picking and theme of what's human and what isn't.
choosing episodes from this episodic The movie, in its startling soulfulness,
epic he shifted the emphasis in interest- finds a way to resolve the apparent con-
ing ways. The surprising resonance of tradictions. In the manga, Shirow Masa-
the final product results partly from the mune's images of one mind "diving"
tension between Shirow's broader spec-the bedrock of her self- awareness. If
into another are frankly sexual. In the
ulative approach to the implications that
of essence can take up residence as
film, Oshii takes us a step further, hint-
easily in a mechanical as in an organic
the story and Oshii's introspective bent. ing, 2001 -style, at the birth of a higher
system, "then what's the value of being
In general, Oshii's approach to GitS form of consciousness from the inter-
human?"
differs from Shirow's in emphasizing mingling of human and machine intelli-
human and philosophical concerns overOshii condenses the novelistic rich- gence. The ghost of the PuppetMaster,
ness
political and technological ones. A lot of of Ghost in the Shell , of necessity,"spontaneously generated in a sea of
but he also generalizes it. He seems todata," and the ghostly remnants of
Shirow's lavishly depicted weaponry has
been omitted, and Kusanagi's sensewant of to ascend as efficiently as possibleKusanagi's ghost that have survived the
personal implication in the PuppetMas-to the level of abstraction and metaphor.obliteration of her body, produces a
ter case has moved to the foreground. He deliberately elides specificity. new creature, inhabiting the body of an
Shirow is energized by social issues likeIn the manga, the city setting is sim-eerie cyborg adolescent with a reedy,
the potential for eavesdropping and ply Tokyo, right down to the streetoddly inorganic soprano voice. Looking
names. Shirow peppers his pages without over the city, in a shot that mirrors
mind control that would arise with ghost
sly satirical digs at Japanese politicalthe movie's very first, this Neo-Kusanagi
hacking. Oshii is more interested in the
challenge the technology presentsinstitutions,
to and bases some plotlines on quotes the Bible again- "When I was a
one individual's sense of her own recent political scandals, notably thechild, I spake as a child" - and wonders
humanity. covert involvement of the supposedlyaloud, "Where does the newborn go
It was Oshii who added a couple of neutral Japanese government in the U.S.from here?"
quotations from the Bible to the discus- Cold War weapons buildup in the Ghost in the Shell makes supertech-
sion of th birth of ghost consciousness Pacific. In Oshii's version, even the nology feel magical. ®
in either an artificial or an organic shell: locale is indeterminate. Are we even in
"Now I see through a glass, darkly," Japan, any longer, or are we somewhereDavid Chute wrote on New Indian Cinema
mutters a reflective Kusanagi, to the else entirely? Or nowhere? The metrop-in our Jan-Feb '95 issue.
88
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