Koukaku Kidoutai

In the year 2029, Niihama City has become a technologically advanced metropolis. Due to great improvements in cybernetics, its citizens are able to replace their limbs with robotic parts. The world is now more interconnected than ever before, and the city's Public Security Section 9 is responsible for combating corruption, terrorism, and other dangerous threats following this shift toward globalization.

The strong-willed Major Motoko Kusanagi of Section 9 spearheads a case involving a mysterious hacker known only as the "Puppet Master," who leaves a trail of victims stripped of their memories. Like many in this futuristic world, the Puppet Master's body is almost entirely robotic, giving them incredible power.

As Motoko and her subordinates follow the enigmatic criminal's trail, other parties—including Section 6—start to get involved, forcing her to confront the extremely complicated nature of the case. Pondering about various philosophical questions, such as her own life's meaning, Motoko soon realizes that the one who will provide these answers is none other than the Puppet Master themself.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Kusanagi, Motoko Main

Tanaka, Atsuko Japanese

Batou Main

Ootsuka, Akio Japanese

Togusa Main

Yamadera, Kouichi Japanese

Project 2501 Main

Kayumi, Iemasa Japanese

Aramaki, Daisuke Supporting

Ooki, Tamio Japanese

Ishikawa Supporting

Nakano, Yutaka Japanese

Garbage Collector B Supporting

Yamaji, Kazuhiro Japanese

Daita, Mizuho Supporting

Miyamoto, Mitsuru Japanese

Tsuan Gen Fang Supporting

Matsuyama, Takashi Japanese

Nakamura Supporting

Genda, Tesshou Japanese

Ishikawa, Mitsuhisa Producer

Watanabe, Shigeru Producer

Iyadomi, Kenichi Producer

Oshii, Mamoru Director, Storyboard

Reviews

Apr 6, 2025

Tuls

Recommended

Roaring with cyberpunk frenzy and dystopian aridity, Ghost in the Shell whispers the philosophy of existentialism and the counter-play of the mind and soul. It follows Major Motoko Kusanagi and her quest to uncover her authentic self in a plenteous sea of memories. Set in 2029, an age where artificial intelligence is prominent, governments wage political warfare through artificially engineered cyborgs stripped of their past. Devoid of her history and being reduced to flesh, bones, and machinery, Kusanagi contemplates if she can be considered human. Is it the body or the soul that makes us human at the core? What if artificial intelligence becomes self-aware ... and self-sufficient? The film's brilliance is that it poses these questions to us but never answers them. An interlink between the human body and technological cognizance might be the next vital step in our progression. But how viable is it, and what perils might come into play with it?

Oshii cleverly uses landscape and scenery, complemented with Kawai's beautiful score, to exhibit the world as a portrait of Kusanagi's inner quandary. An abundance of visual metaphors ranging from an ocean of thoughts, recurring models symbolizing redundancy of life, and a focused shot of mannequins depicting the puppet nature of humans help immerse the viewer into the colossal world of GitS. Elegant on the exterior, with a thought-provoking underlying message, GitS quite possibly asks the most crucial question regarding the evolution of humanity. Will the coexistence of man and machine breed a sentient being? Or will we be left with a void shell of ourselves, roaming as a ghost in a perpetual pool of memories?

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Jan 18, 2025

RemanTheArchean

Mixed Feelings

Ghost in the Shell is one of those superclassics that was clearly brilliant for its time, but doesn't really live up to modern expectations. It might be a worthwhile watch for people who are interested in the evolution of anime or film, but I found little in terms of subjective enjoyment here. I was bored enough while watching it that my mind frequently drifted towards other things, and I was somewhat relieved when it was over.

I watched the dub, and there was a very annoying sound difference between characters speaking and the special effects that meant I either couldn't hear what the characters were ... saying, or I'd be deafened whenever something like gunfire happened. I eventually settled on the dub with subtitles from the sub. The differences between the subtitles and the words being spoken was enough to be a nuisance, but at least I could understand what was being said without randomly going deaf.

The film is too short to do all the things it wants. It's only 78 minutes before the credits roll, and it devotes many scenes to long, ponderous views of the cityscape or futuristic tech. If those are subtracted, then that leaves scarcely over an hour to cram several action scenes, a political thriller, and a bunch of existentialist philosophy into.

The action scenes were what I enjoyed the most, although I'm grading on a pretty generous curve here. If you've read any of my other reviews then you'd know I typically don't find the action scenes in anime to be all that engaging, but this film had enough spectacle to at least be somewhat interesting. Some of the "futuristic" special effects look goofily dated, like how people in the 90s expressed "computers" by spamming green numbers on the screen. Otherwise, the effects in the fights were pretty decent. Old Western special effects can often have an uncanny valley problem, but that's less of an issue in anime.

The political thriller is mostly just used as a setting, which is fine. I enjoy political thrillers so I was a bit disappointed that the film didn't go more into that area, but it's OK to just use a thin vertical slice of political machinations as the backdrop for a story. There's a lot of people and departments thrown out that I had some trouble keeping them straight, but it ultimately didn't matter.

The film Waxes a bit excessively philosophical about the difference between a body ("shell") and a person's sense of self or "soul" ("ghost"). The concept of a soul, while powerfully evocative to almost every ancient human society, is known not to exist by modern science. At best, it's just a useful shorthand for how people perceive themselves. Fanciful notions of the self existing beyond the physical confines of a human brain are childish nonsense. It naturally follows that a robot could be just as much as a "real person" as any normal human, assuming the tech was sufficiently advanced. As such, I found most of the philosophical subtext of the film to be akin to a nuanced discussion of whether Santa exists. The answer is already obvious, and any attempts to claim it's non-obvious seem like a tryhard liberal arts undergraduate attempting to be galaxy-brained.

My score of 4/10 reflects my relatively negative subjective enjoyment while watching Ghost in the Shell, while the "mixed feelings" indicates that I can appreciate the film as a historical artifact. I believe the movies it inspired (e.g. the Matrix) did a much better job of capturing its techno-dystopian vision while also being more entertaining to watch.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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Apr 20, 2025

svvemur

Not Recommended

Funny

Ghost in the Shell thinks it's smarter than it actually is. Right from the start, it throws viewers into its world without explaining anything - what's a ghost? What's a shell? Who are these people? The movie acts like you should already know everything, which is just lazy storytelling.

The animation is technically impressive for 1995, sure. But it follows the same pattern as Studio Ghibli films of that era - all technical excellence, pretty visuals, and not much else. Both studios mastered the art of making things look good while forgetting to tell stories worth caring about. At least Ghibli doesn't pretend its pretty pictures ... are deep philosophical statements.

The main character, Major, is about as interesting as reading an instruction manual. She walks around asking "deep" questions about being human, but it feels fake and forced. The movie keeps stopping dead in its tracks for characters to make long speeches that sound deep but say nothing new.

The story, when it bothers to have one, is a mess. There's supposedly some crime investigation happening, but the movie cares more about characters standing around talking about philosophy like college freshmen who just discovered existentialism.

Fans of the movie love to say "you just don't get it" whenever someone criticizes it. But maybe there's just not that much to get. It's like someone tried to make a smart movie by making it confusing on purpose.

All style, no substance. The movie is so busy trying to look smart that it forgets to be good. Instead, we get beautiful animation wrapped around empty philosophical babbling. Another technically impressive but ultimately hollow piece of work that mistakes visual achievement for meaningful storytelling.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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	Philosophical Musings tsubagakure - Jan 18	11 replies	by deg »» Jan 20, 10:37 PM
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