Hey everyone, my name is Anthony and welcome back to my Movie Review.
Back in 2017, i've talked about the remake one that was directed by Rupert Sanders and it starred Scarlett Johansson as Major Kusanagi. Oh im sorry, i mean Major "Mira Killian", its as if they wanna mind-F***ing the fans for her identity crisis. Anyway, while the movie is pretty cool for its action and its visual, but we can all agree that the plot is confusing and the some new elements isn't helping for the remake. Aside from the tiresome "Whitewashing" excuses when Major is a freakin cybernetic human!! (Sorry, im getting ahead of myself...)
Anyway, after nearly five years, i think its time to take a look at one i should've done... Looking at the original.
The first "Ghost in the Shell" is a 1995 anime cyberpunk movie that was directed by Mamoru Oshii, produced by Yoshimasa Mizuo, Ken Matsumoto, Ken Iyadomi and Mitsuhisa Ishikawa, then written by Kazunori Itō.
As i said in my remake review, this film was adapted from the manga with the same name by Masamune Shirow, in fact, this manga got some much attention when it first came out, its no secret to be an adaptation to an anime show. But as we all know, they decided to going into the movie, which it explained by Mamoru Oshii got so much attention from the manga based on its story and the setting. And when the movie came out, the film was well-received from critics and audience, based on the narrative, the action and even the visual between cel and CGI. But of course, since it became popular, they wanted to making it into a franchise with shows like "Stand Alone Complex", a sequel "Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence" and the aforementioned live-action remake that i covered before. And not to mention, it became an inspiration of many directors like The Wachowskis's The Matrix.
Just to heads up, im watched the Japanese language with English subtitle, and im watching the original version, which yes, im aware that there’s an updated version called “Ghost in the shell 2.0”, by looking at the updated, in the words of Josh Scorcher: You went “Star Wars Special Edition”, never go “Star Wars Special Edition”. Like, just stick to the original for an unnecessary changing quality that looked... Questionably dumb...!
So, with all that said, will this movie will bring justice against cyber-terrorist, or is this movie made me going brainwash by The Puppet Master?
Well, lets find out.
The Story
Even though its based on manga, im not gonna do a comparison between of two, but, the story is quite fascinating for narrative, even if its complex.
In the near future year of 2029 (Huh, 6 years in between, as im writing this), where the world is living with advanced cybernetic technology, including human bodies are either augmented or replacing with cybernetic parts, along with cyberbrain are created after the human brain for connecting both the internet and various network (As in the brain as “Ghost” and the body as “Shell”). Anyway, we introduce our main protagonist named Motoko Kusanagi, the major of the assault-team of “Public Security Section 9” in “New Port City” in Japan. After her first mission from the request of Section 6’s Chief Nakamura for assassinating a foreign diplomat to preventing a defection from a programmer Daita, they heard about the mysterious hacker who goes by the name of “Puppet Master” where his goal is brainwashing people’s brain for his will to taking over, its up to Major Kusanagi, Batou and Togusa on their search to eliminating Puppet Master once and for all.
Its a pretty standard story involving the security team on their search to find the hacker for brainwashing people for his will in not-so far future, but the idea and the setting that are pretty good and nicely fit how even though the future looks pretty impressive, but its nowhere safe when we have an antagonistic hacker out there. However, the biggest part of the movie’s writing is the narrative, it explains how we live in the future with self-identity in the futuristic world we living, its as if it tells us how we’re connected with advanced technology in the new level, showing not all cybernetic people may or may not as strong we live, we have feelings in cyborg’s body from a cyberbrain being created after the human brain from the human’s passing. I gotta say, its pretty impressive how they explained what we’re living and feel in the future, even if it gets too complex with various parts and such, since its not just the focus of action, its the focus of a dialogue for, again, giving us a philosophy in future what we live in the future or heck the villain’s motivation like Puppet Master.
While it explanation got complex at the time, but we’ll get use to understanding, since the writing is pretty good, while the story is standard, but the pretty good for its execution.
The Animation
For a movie’s budget of 330 million yen (which is about more than $2.48 Million), the animation looks impressive as i said before, this is thanks for the work of Production I.G. for their third anime movie after Patlabor 2: the movie in 1993 and their first called The Weathering Continent in 1992.
For started the background setting of this movie takes place are pretty good, the futuristic city looks impressive, even if the future city may look like we’re getting down, flashier and colorful. But then you have the other side that you have the old and poor small town, which it nice inclusion that not everything is 100% futuristic, which is probably explained that they still have cars with wheels (but with some advanced technology that we have today, such as communicating outside of the car, except we using Bluetooth than connecting from our neck) and guns with bullets. Huh, not futuristic enough for their weaponry, but i digress.
As for the animation with effects, they use a novel process what’s called “Digital Generation Animation”, or “DGA” for short, which it uses for combination both traditional animation and CG animation with audio entering as “digital data”, which they believe that DGA is gonna be the future of animation process for mixing together both hand-drawn and CG, and i gotta say, they’re right, cause what they did is impressive looking for 1995. The character designs are pretty cool that ranging from standard anime character designs to sorta realistic human look with a twist of cybernetic like the aforementioned connecting from the neck for communication to my personal favorite, spreading fingers to multiple fingers for keyboards, man i wish i have those kind of hands to write on the keyboards easily, only problem is we’re gonna wait for next decade for getting amputated and replacing with advanced prosthetic hands to a new level.
Anyway, the effects are also pretty good to show with gunshots, the creation of Motoko Kusanagi with its beautiful 90’s quality to digital view for CG, again, pretty impressive for mid-90s.
As for the action scenes, they’re pretty cool and fun to see car chase, running chase with guns and even a fighting scene with unique ways, like when Major Kusanagi uses camouflage (with the use of TIMA Software) to fight over one bad guy or a mecha-tank.
Oh yeah, did i mention this movie has some bloody violence and female’s body revealing? Yeah, definitely explained why its for mature audience to see cybernetic violence and full skin revealing.
The movie’s presentation of the animation, the quality and the action are impressive to see in its 90’s glory, for the most part, but still, looks pretty good.
The Characters
When it comes to the movie’s characters, there’s not a lot, but, it has some likeable ones in this movie.
Lets easily start off with Major Motoko Kusanagi (voiced by Atsuko Tanaka), the main protagonist and the leader of Section 9 and quite strong and smart for her set of skills and knowledge. Which is exactly like she gave a philosophical dialogue what she gave us is pretty fascinating, especially how she explained about her ghost from the past. Unlike most cyborgs that are pretty much emotionless, Kusanagi has acknowledge with aforementioned philosophical dialogue, strong-will and somewhat stronger for her strategy. Which is fascinating what makes Kusanagi a memorable protagonist and Tanaka did a nice work of her role.
Next, we have Batou (voiced Akio Otsuka), the second-in-command of Section 9 and Kusanagi’s partner. He’s quite opposite from Major Kusanagi, while he’s both lead investigator and the fighter of Section 9, he’s also meant to be a serious comic relief, based on his “don’t give a crap” personality that he’s not in a mood of messing around, but he does has a respect to Kusanagi, which is also exactly that he’s also a likeable character based on his personality and his chemistry with Motoko, and Akio did pretty good work of his role too.
After that, we have Togusa (voiced by Koichi Yamadera), the second lead investigator of Section 9 and the one and only human member of the group. Unlike Kusanagi and Batou, he may not have experience of military, but more like a police civilian as a human family man. I find him ok, he may not have something special compare to first two leads, and Koichi did a nice work as always.
And finally we have the Puppet Master (voiced by Iemasa Kayumi), the main antagonist and the mysterious evil hacker being for manipulating at any shells (aka hacking the bodies without knowledge). I find it to be fascinating villain for its manipulation in attempt to screwing over both Section 9 and 6, as well as having a unique plot twist (which we’ll get there). Though its odd to hear Puppet Master’s voice is male at the female’s body, but i didn’t mind for the oddity that it has a nice performance from Kayumi for his monologue of it’s threat.
As for the rest of the characters, there’s not much else to give us.
There’s Chief Aramaki (voiced by Tamio Oki) is the lead chief of Section 9, Chief Nakamura (voiced by Tessho Genda) is the chief of Section 6 and Ishikawa (voiced by Yutaka Nakano) who’s also a lead investigator, but also technology specialist.
SPOILER ALERT for those who haven’t seen the movie or don’t mind
The final act is plenty of complex, but does got interesting about the truth.
After caught a damaged female body from being ran over by a truck (typical anime, getting in fronted by a truck), they trying to study the shell about the ghost based on whereabouts of “Project 2501” and researching about Puppet Master, after a further research of Chief Aramaki, it turns out Section 6 created Puppet Master for political reason, and the Puppet Master isn’t even a mysterious hacker, but rather a rogue advanced A.I. as “Project 2501” that Section attempted to using firewall against him, but it escaped before to possessing one before before the aforementioned hit by a truck, which Puppet Master is demanding for the asylum as a sentient creature due to self-preserving program, which causing a battle between Section 9 and 6. Meanhwile, Major Kusanagi is on the chase at one car with a shell to the abandoned building, only to be confronted by a spider mecha tank, which is gonna be too challenging for her desperate to defeat the spider mecha tank that has Puppet Master’s ghost, she took a risky move by attempting rip open the tank, but she ended up rip and tearing herself up, thankfully, Batou shows up in a right time to stop the mecha tank to saving damaged Kusanagi. After the battle, he helps her to connecting with Puppet Master for the truth. As the Puppet Master explained, as i said before, it is said that it was created by Section 6, but it ended up became sentient and contemplating its existence that it goes to essence the life of reproduction and morality, by wanting to going into a physical brain to death, but again, got firewall’d by Section 6, desperate to break free, it downloaded itself into the shell in Scott-free. After believing to questioning humanity to Kusanagi (with a lot of common), it also wanting to merging with ghosts, she accepting to putting her ghost on the line with rogue A.I.. That is until a Section 6’s sniper brought in to shot down Puppet Master’s ghost and even Kusanagi, but she was thankfully saved by Batou. After its all done, Kusanagi wakes up in a new body after her original body and Puppet Master got combined, according to Batou. In the end, she’ll see him and Section 9 again for the next journey and the next mission.
Man, pretty complex about the ending, but pretty nice for the final action and saving Kusanagi without getting merging up with a rogue A.I., otherwise it could’ve been worse for her fate after dealing with spider mecha tank. Aw well.
And now for my final opinion of this movie
Overall, 1995’s Ghost in the Shell is a pretty impressive anime movie in a complex way.
The story is nicely written, along with philosophical element between machines and humanity, the action scenes are pretty good, characters are fascinating and some likeable and the anime’s presentation looks pretty nice for mid-90s.
While like i said, it sometimes got a bit to complex for the philosophical, but i understand what they try to give us some messages. And do i think its a better film the live-action remake after i covered a years ago? Yes, i definitely think so, which is something i should’ve done in the first place.
But, if you’re curious about the movie or the whole series of Ghost in the Shell, check the first movie, im sure you won’t disappointed, but like i said at the beginning, stick to the original version than the “2.0” version nor even the unnecessary remake one.
For my rating, im gonna give this one a 9/10, with earning the Trophy of Success.
So this ends of my movie review, if you guys have your opinion or any suggestions, let me know at comment bellow and support me on KO-FI.com/blackevil.
Thanks for reading, and im Anthony, signing out.
No comments:
Post a Comment