Back in my school days, when free and unstructured summer came, I became a nocturnal creature. Sleep was for mornings and even afternoons. The late night hours were for reading, video games and Internet. On Saturdays, because I was a wild and unruly youngling, I stayed up all night watching anime on Adult Swim. This is when I discovered Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex.
The Ghost in the Shell franchise was born in Kodansha’s Young Magazine in 1989. Created by Masamune Shirow, Wikipedia and TV Tropes both tell me the franchise is a work of post-cyberpunk science fiction, a hesitantly optimistic, community and network flavored spin on old fashioned gloom and doom cyberpunk. I’m not sure I even understand that assessment fully, much less agree with it, but what I do know is that I like Ghost in the Shell.
The franchise first came to the screen with the 1995 movie Ghost in the Shell. It was and is an interesting creature because it’s an international co-production between Kodansha, Bandai Visual and the British company Manga Entertainment. It stands alongside Neon Genesis Evangelion as part of the mid ’90s re-ignition of the anime industry in Japan.
The franchise follows Major Motoko Kusanagi, a leading member of Public Security Section 9, a counter-cyberterrorism group. Cyberterrorism in the world of Ghost in the Shell isn’t just taking over your bank account. Many people replace parts of their body with cybernetic prosthetics, include cyberbrains. The degree to which anyone is a cyborg varies from minimal adjustments and enhancements to full-body replacements like the Major’s body. And many if not most people have the ability to connect their brain directly to the Internet and other networks. This means that cyberterrorists can hijack your body and even your mind.
The various stories born from this setting analyze everything from free will and the human soul to government corruption and immigration politics. With all the possible stories that could be told, the franchise would spawn three mostly separate anime continuities.
Ghost in the Shell: The 1995 movie adaptation and its sequel Innocence (2004), stand (mostly) apart from the rest of the anime adaptations. The original movie follows the same plot as the first run of the manga. The Major and her team are trying to stop a cyberterrorist called The Puppetmaster, who implants fake memories into his victims-turned-accomplices. The second movie involves an outbreak of murderous robots. The first movie has been re-released as Ghost in the Shell 2.0 (2008) with updated CGI.
Stand Alone Complex: Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (2002) and its second season Ghost in the Shell: S.A.C: 2nd GIG (2004) are my favorite entries into the franchise. Once again, the Stand Alone Complex continuity is a (mostly) distinct* continuity. The first season involves the Laughing Man incident, a master hacker pulls off a very public kidnapping. The second season’s main plot involves a terrorist cell called the Individual Eleven. There is also a movie meant to serve as a bookend for this continuity, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex: Solid State Society (2006). But there have been rumors of a continuation of this series as recently as 2016. Both seasons of the anime were condensed into OVA series, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex The Laughing Man (2005) and Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex Individual Eleven (2006).
Arise: The most recent entry into the franchise is Ghost in the Shell: Arise, a series of four OVAs released in 2013 and 2014. Though once again set apart from the other entries, Arise is a bit unique as it could serve as a prequel to either of the other two series. The OVAs were adapted into a 10 episode anime in 2015, featuring an additional new plot at the end. 2015 also saw the release of Ghost in the Shell: The New Movie, another entry in this continuity.
These three anime series really just scratch the surface of the mountains of Ghost in the Shell media. We haven’t talked about the controversial Scarlett Johansson-lead American movie from 2017 or the numerous manga adapting anime plots and spinning out from there. We also haven’t talked about the novels, video games and stage plays, but I think this just about does it for tonight. Until tomorrow!
*I resisted the obvious pun. You’re welcome.
chasetriesagain.com 
2 Comments