Ghost in the Shell: the Iron Fist of Cyborg Law

1001 Movies To Watch Before Your Netflix Subscription Expires, Part 25:
Mamoru Oshii (director), Ghost in the Shell
1001 Books To Read Before Your Kindle Battery Dies, Part 89:
Masamune Shirow, Ghost in the Shell

Section Nine is the most advanced mobile police strike unit in post-humanist Japan, and its commanding officer, Major Motoko Kusanagi, takes no prisoners. From feral cyborgs to a government hacker turned rogue, she never fails to retrieve her target, even when failure risks her titanium-reinforced cybernetic skin. But a strange new threat, the Puppet Master, looms. With neither a body to kill nor a system to hack, Kusanagi might’ve met the prey she can’t capture.

Writer-artist Masamune Shirow first serialized his Ghost in the Shell manga (uncolored Japanese comic book) in the late 1980s and early 1990s; its English-language translation appeared in 1995. Shirow’s melancholy existential themes develop so gradually that, given the often improvisational nature of Japanese manga, one suspects even Shirow didn’t anticipate their depth. Yet the comic, and its 1995 feature-length anime (animated film) adaptation, have now influenced a generation of Japanese and Western post-humanist science fiction.

Routine human augmentation has changed the nature of crime, and also crime-fighting. Shirow depicts a world where criminal and victim are often separated by entire continents. The Internet, uncharted territory back then, provided cover for everyone from petty swindlers to contract killers. If anything, Shirow’s predictions appear, thirty years on, too modest. But the scariest monsters trafficked in altered human memories—the forerunners of “fake news.” Technology threatened to usurp our individual and shared identities.

Into this mix, Japan has thrust Section Nine. The story identifies Section Nine as a national police division, with arrest privileges, but it doesn’t take long to realize that, like James Bond or Judge Dredd, Section Nine is its own law. The government dispatches Major Kusanagi’s team to crucify criminals too dangerous to bring in alive. One scene, present in the manga but not the anime, shows the Japanese Prime Minister disclaiming Section Nine altogether.

Major Kusanagi rules Section Nine with an iron fist. Literally so: in the manga, she frequently punches underlings and even superiors to assert her authority. Yet the state permits her excesses because she wins. It’s easy for Westerners to forget that Japan retains rigid gender stratification; a female action hero is downright revolutionary, but every morning she has to prove her chops afresh. She succeeds because human augmentation renders black-and-white morals obsolete. Only winning matters.

Yet Kusanagi struggles with identity herself. A mix of human tissue and digital technology so complex, it’s impossible to separate one from another, Kusanagi spends long off-hours ruminating on human nature. If she quits Section Nine, who owns her body? What happens when her augmentations become obsolete? Can she die, and if so, does she have a soul? The movie strongly implies she might never have been human, her pre-cybernetic memories a mere factory preset.

Major Motoko Kusanagi, in the 1995 anime Ghost in the Shell

The Puppet Master upsets whatever conclusions Kusanagi previously reached. If he can reprogram human memories, then what identity does anyone have? Equally important to her job, how can she pursue criminals if witnesses’ memories, their experiences, their very identities are fabricated? But as Kusanagi chases this master criminal from place to place, she comes to suspect the unimaginable: he might not have a body. What does that make him? And what does that make her?

Mamoru Oshii’s anime adaptation strips Shirow’s subplots, focusing narrowly on the Puppet Master. Most English-speaking audiences will probably first encounter this story through Oshii’s movie. But audiences interested in these themes will find Shirow’s original manga intriguing for themes Oshii triaged out. What limitations does human physiology place on technology? Would robots ever really find sufficient motivation to rebel against humans? (Spoiler: no.) What happens when logical digital programming clashes with the rabid human id?

Shirow’s original manga clearly sets his story in Japan. Oshii’s adaptation obscures the nationality, though his streetscapes, unusually detailed for hand-drawn, pre-CGI animation, strongly suggest Hong Kong, and Jackie Chan’s best action extravaganzas. Both stories strongly suggest that digital culture, and digital crime, have rendered physical boundaries obsolete, although national identities still carry weight; Kusanagi alternately observes and transgresses Japanese gender roles, while clues suggest the Puppet Master is American. Just one more contested identity.

Oshii’s anime has inspired several spinoff media, including one direct sequel which used several of Shirow’s ancillary themes, two TV series, and one American remake which bombed on arrival. None of this spinoff material has recaptured the original magic, and is probably of interest only to sci-fi nerds and Japanophiles. But the original book and movie have massive crossover appeal. Shirow’s themes (if not his technology) remain uncannily prescient. We’re witnessing his story play out now.