Ghost in the Shell (1995)

English Voice Cast:

Mimi Woods is Major Motoko Kusunagi
Richard George is Bateau
Abe Lasser is Project 2501/The Puppet Master
Christopher Joyce is Togusa
Michael Sorich is Ishikawa
William Frederick is Section 9 Department Chief Aramaki

What the box says:

Mamoru Oshii's futuristic animated masterpiece, ghost in the Shell, is the perfect film to experience on Digital Video Disk. Seamlessly merging traditional cel animation with the latest computer graphic imagery, this stunning sci-fi spectacle has broken the boundaries of mainstream aniamtion with its detailed artistic direction and uniquely intelligent story line.

Ghost in the Shell took the world by storm in 1996, introducing a new wave of Japanese animation through its mesmerizing cinematic expression. A movie that questions our own human existence in the fast-paced world of the information age, this remarkable, award-wiining, cyber-tech thriller has gone on to become one of the leading Japanese animation films of all time.

Plot:

A screen crawl informs us of how technology and computers have advanced.

A digitized city map and on screen data crawl ensues.

Major Motoko spies on a guy in a nearby building. Unplugging the data plug in the back of her neck, she strips and holsters her gun. A nearby surveillance team is about to head into action. The very naked Major Motoko jumps off the side of the building before her line catches her.

In a meeting, a group of guards unload their guns on the cops. An ambassador claims diplomatic immunity. A programmer wants political asylum and to leave the country. Major Motoko delivers a few well placed bullets in the ambassador’s head which quickly resembles a few chunks of bloody meat. The cops open fire but don’t get her. They see Motoko falling alongside the building and turning invisible like Predator stealth fu.

Hi, if I'm invisible, I'm naked.

The credits are rolling as a Cyborg is being repaired. The Cyborg is coated in a resin and is very naked. The resin cracks and we get a very naked Motoko who has a better rack than Trinity.

Later, Motoko gets up and heads to work at Section 9.

A helicopter lands. Aramaki, the head of Section 9, is trying to get briefed about a meeting with a foreign country and its deposed leader seeking asylum.

Motoko and Aramaki study the Foreign Minister’s interpreter. Apparently her brain has been hacked by the infamous Puppet Master. Section 9 is trying to track the hacker’s signal.

Motoko and Togusa are on the road with Bateau and Ishikawa in another car. We get some expository dialogue how the Puppet Master hacks into people’s brains and uses them to commit crimes. She starts packing some serious heat. Togusa is a new recruit to Section 9 and mainly human.

Average Joe is transmitting some data. Apparently, he is trying to hack into his wife to learn why she wants a divorce. A programmer showed him how to do it.

Bateau and Ishikawa missed the hacker. A guy who was late with bringing out his trash mentions that one of the trash men was using the phone.

Motoko uplinks to the data concerning the trash trucks. Apparently, the hacker points match exactly with the trash route.

In the trash truck, Average Joe is talking about how he has to do everything for his daughter. They learn the route was checked. Average Joe drops the hammer so he can warn the programmer.

Motoko is ready to jump into action.

Average Joe is able to yell at the guy on the phone. He grabs his machine pistol and opens fire at Motoko.

Gunman is able to blow up the car. He has a Predator stealth cloak. Bateau pulls up and chases after him. Togusa arrests the trash men.

Motoko is on a nearby roof, overlooking a street market. Bateau is able to track Gunman who may be invisible but keeps shoving people out of his way. A gunfight ensues. However, Gunman gets to the river.

Motoko tries sniping at the guy to no avail.

It appears the Gunman escaped.

Too much advertising in the future. Suddenly, the invisible Motoko beats him as if he owed her money.
Why you should never anger kung fu invisible chicks? Motoko finally reappears and is still very naked. Gunman doesn’t even remember his own name. The Puppet Master hacked him, too.

Another helicopter lands. Aramaki watches some creepy white haired guy.

Bateau reports the Gunman thought he was a high dollar mercenary. In reality, he is street fence.

Togusa and Ishikawa question Average Joe, the trash man. He doesn’t have a wife and daughter. In fact, Joe doesn’t have any real memories of this supposed family. The Puppet Master erased the previous memories. Joe is getting distraught realizing all he has lost. Motoko watches detached.

Motoko is diving. She heads back to the boat. Bateau asks her about the diving. Motoko explains about her lack of identity from being a Cyborg. Bateau and she are both cyborgs. Neither of them have much of their original bodies left. She waxes away philosophically about humanity.

Motoko is taking a boat tax through the city. The very grungy city seems quiet for a change as people go about their lives.

A naked blonde woman walks on the road and gets run over.

Bateau, Motoko, and Aramaki watch as the blonde is rebooted. They don’t understand how a Cyborg body was created and escaped without any programming. It doesn’t have any organic brain but has a ghost in it.

A cybernetic specialist explains the Cyborg to Section 9. The blonde was created by the same company that created Motoko’s, Bateau’s, and Ishikawa’s bodies. Togusa and Ishikawa are to investigate Mega Tech. Motoko will see about the ghost in the Blonde and leaves.

Bateau expresses his worries about Motoko with Aramaki.

All the Section 9 operatives leave as Nagusa, head of Section 6, meets with Aramaki.

Motoko is worried about her identity with being a cyborg.

Nagusa demands custody of the blonde cyborg.

Togusa replays the surveillance video of Nagusa and Dr. Willis entering the building. He contacts Motoko about his thought. Section 6 is up to something. Apparently, someone snuck in using thermoptics or the Predator stealth cloak.

Nagusa, Aramaki, and Dr. Willis are around the torso of the blonde cyborg. Willis displays his unique typing abilities.

Naughty finger tentacles He mentions the ghost is a him. The Puppet Master is trapped in the cyborg. Section 6 manipulated the Puppet Master into the body and killed his original body.

The Blonde activates and demands political asylum. Nagusa claims the cyborg to just be a self-preserving program. The cyborg claims to be alive and throws out enough biological terms to shake a mitochondria at.

Suddenly, several explosions occur. The Puppet Master escapes. The car is driving off when Togusa is able to get a tracking bullet in the car. Bateau is after the car.

Nagusa wants the Puppet Master brought back in alive.

Aramaki is told by Motoko how Section 6 is involved and mentions the thermoptic camo. Motoko is getting ready to take off in a chopper. Aramaki orders her to destroy the Puppet Master if she can’t catch him.

In Nagusa’s car, he can’t understand why Project 2501 went to Section 9.

Motoko’s chopper is in flight. Bateau and Togusa are tracking the car, too. The police are putting up numerous blockades.

Ishikawa reports to Aramkai about Dr. Willis and Section 6. He is the head of secret project. The head programmer that tried to defect at the beginning of the movie was involved in the project, too. The project was started a year before the Puppet Master appeared. He surmises the Puppet Master came from the project. The code name was project 2501.

The car with the Puppet Master stops to make it look like he was transferred to another car.

Aramaki is the control room as the data keeps flowing in.

Bateau goes after one of the cars. A police barricade stops the car. The very large and angry Bateau quickly eliminates the driver. The Puppet Master isn’t there. He goes after Motoko.

The chopper has been following the other car. Motoko will handle it without any backup. She infiltrates the warehouse and scans the car.

The Predator stealth fun ensues. A tank appears beside the car. Motoko tells Bateau about not packing anything powerful enough to stop a tank.

Motoko readies her gun. She can’t even put a scratch on the tank. The chopper contacts her about 3 approaching helicopters that refuse to identify themselves. Motoko decides to get stealthy and naked.

She is able to get on top of the tank and tries opening the hatch. It seems she’s doing a better job of pulling herself apart to no avail. The tank is able to grab her by the head when Bateau arrives with his BFG. The Big Freakin’ Gun makes mincemeat of the tank.

Bateau finds the Puppet Master in the car. Motoko wants to dive into it now.

The approaching helicopters are given orders. The primary objective is to terminate the Puppet Master. The secondary objective is Motoko. The snipers are preparing.

Bateau wires Motoko to the Puppet Master. Puppet reveals main purpose was for industrial sabotage, information gathering, and using people as ghosts. Project programmers considered Puppet self-will as a “bug”.

The Puppet Master has been looking for Motoko. He came to Section 9 of his own free will and wishes to propagate. Biology speech fu ensues. Puppet Master wants to merge with Motoko. Bateau desperately tries pulling the plug unable to physically use his arm.

Laser scopes are aimed on Puppet and Motoko. Suddenly, the snipers are being jammed and unable to take any shots.

The identity debate continues. Puppet wants to be elevated from just being a program.

Bateau tries blocking the sniper shot from Motoko. He loses his arm in the process. Puppet’s body is thoroughly shredded.

Section 9 choppers are able to drive the Section 6 ones away.

Bateau finds Motoko who shuts down.

It seems that younger Motoko awakens. Bateau explains he had to get a black market body for her. The entire diplomatic fiasco will be covered up. Motoko decides to leave. Bateau asks if the Puppet Master is still in her. She explains being more than just Motoko and the Puppet Master. He gives her car and safe code to contact him.

Motoko leaves and overlooks the city as the credits roll.

What I say:

Anime is a hard idea for outsiders to grasp. The French word for animation is used by the Japanese for their animation and is sent to America. I'm sure that some irony was included in the previous sentence. Cartoons not being made for kids. Without a proper understanding of Japanese culture, a lot of anime does seem to lose a in the translation. If hentai gets mentioned, tentacles going where tentacles shouldn't be going. A lot of new reports love to mention Legend of the Overfiend or La Blue Girl. Of course, the same reports neglect to mention the larger part of the anime industry creating more mainstream entertainment.

I know a lot of people who think anime is about 2 places above sliced bread or are bored silly by it. This isn't the first anime that has some thought provoking issues included. A lot of people just assume anime to be Sailor Moon or Dragonball Z which isn't a fair assumption. Unfortunately, a lot of the more famous animes like Akira seem to have a problem like Frank Herbert's Dune novels. They seem to be above your head, and everytime you read them you feel you're getting less and less of it. Well, either that or the story is just getting more and more progressively insane. I wouldn't consider myself as a big anime fan but some of what I've seen I liked. The idea for an anime month had been crawling around in my head for more than a year. I finally decided to scrap it for general reasons. The few movies I would reviewed have been done many times across the web. It would be better to split them up and just post them to help increase the variety of my reviews.

I saw Ghost in the Shell as a college freshman in 1996. It didn't impress me, though I wasn't really paying attention to it. Picked up an issue of the manga version, it just never grabbed me. I never really found any manga that really caught my attention. Later, after DVD started its massive conquest of the world, I picked up Ghost in the Shell. First time, I watched it in years had me fairly ambivalent to it. When going over it a couple years later for this review, it seemd to click and gel. It sitll seems a movie should be able to grab you the first time instead of watching it numerous times to pick up new subtle points.

I'm sure I've complained about the bullet time shots from the Matrix. A lot of people think it to be truly original. Others hate it. Well, I've complained a lot about how the Matrix stole from a lot of other sources. Some of us think the Whachaever brothers stole from plenty of Hong Kong wire fu movies, Transformers: the Movie, a short story I wrote (it's true...), the comic book series Invisibles, and probably far more I haven't mentioned. The entire idea of life is but a dream or a virtual reality simulation has been floating around for a long time them to seize onto it.

Obligatory Matrix ripoff counter
Data plugs in the neck.
First action scene features a chick kicking serious gluteus maximus.
Credits have a green code crawl.
Reality is more confusing than what we assume it to be.

If you're craving more Motoko action, there is another movie Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence. I'm not sure how the movie version Ghost in the Shell connects to the series Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex. The few episodes I've seen seem to be set before encountering the Puppet Master. The background is rich enough to have plenty of possible stories. A cybercrimes task force/police department having to handle various hackers and even other government deparments.

Apparently, the movie likes to use the term ghost and soul interchangeably. Part of the problem is going by the English subtitles and dubbing. Each is different than the other. Some tricks of linguistics just don't work quite right as spoken or written language. Although, something with as big a budget should be a bit more consistent between subs and dubs.

There are a lot of thought provoking questions brought up in Ghost in the Shell. What is the soul? How much of yourself can lose before actually losing your soul? What is life? Is it as the Puppet Master explained a pattern of data? The DNA coding organic being is similar to the coding to create a computer program. I never thought of much of a connection between an adenine-guanine chain and being similar to a "Hello World" computer program.

Besides the philosophical questions, we get a lot lot of Major Motoko for her nakedness, too. I sure lot of GITS detractors would rage against heroine being a "nimbo". She spends most of the fights very naked. However, nimbos are more considered as being completely unable to do anything but have large 80s hair, high heels, and great ability to jiggle. The clothing or lack thereof doesn't mark her as a nimbo. Motoko can take care of business better than most guys would in battle armor or a Veritech in batteloid mode.

The action scenes aren't as stylized as in Ninja Scroll. They still are quite impressive. I wouldn't doubt if some complained about Motoko having to fight naked. In a way, it is distracting. Pay attention to the cool gunfight or the hot naked chick. Sorry, Motoko may be 2 dimensional character but is still hot. I believe if you thought like Garth from Wayne's World that when Bugs Bunny wore a dress and went around as Girl Bunny that was hot, dude you have some serious issues.

The computer generated effects may have been state of the art when it was first released. 10 years later, they don't seem hokey. I never really understood why every future version of the web had to be some vast sprawling hyper-graphic data representations. It just seems like a waste of a lot of processing power. Well, the future never mentions anything like Amdahl's Law or any of the other computer science concepts. Well, science fiction is a lot cooler than science fact. I'd rather read a story involving dilithium cyrstals than anything involving differential equations.

We never have any idea of what motivates any of the characters. Motoko keeps questioning how little of a person is needed to have a soul. Bateau apparently carries a torch for our extremely naked hot assassin/spy chick. He doesn't have a hard time finding a new body for her even if it a bit on the young side. The Puppet Master keeps throwing around the similarities between computer programs and organic genetic codes. A little depth with any of these characters would have made Ghost in the Shell a much richer movie.

Unfortunately, Ghost in the Shell is a movie that needs to be watched a couple of times to really start to appreciate it. A movie should grab you and not let go. Instead, it just starts shaking your hand and refusing to let go. Far more annoying than captivating. The philosophical debates really detract for some of the incredible action scenes the gunfight at the beginning or the invisible Motoko fight. None of the animation will get you to being confused about it being live action. It is quite an accomplishment for the mid 90s.

Quotable Subtitles
"There's a lot of static in your brain."
"Overspecialization leads to death."
"Just when I thought I saw everything, I saw a cyborg diving in her spare time."
"My code name is Project 2501."
"Since when does that Amazon need backup?"
Morals of the Story
The Matrix stole the code from Ghost in the Shell.
Don't get in a knife fight with an invisible woman.
Women need to be naked to be invisible.
Men can wear invisiblity cloaks.