In a 2009 postscript included with one of the English-translated editions of his landmark manga Ghost In The Shell, creator Shirow Masamune suggested that the “most sustainable” or “definitive” version of the story doesn’t exist and “perhaps never will.” He was referring to his own desire to keep improving his work and expanding on the ideas presented in the manga, but he was also talking about the compromises that other tellings of Major Motoko Kusanagi’s exploits in the cyberpunk metropolis of New Port City—specifically Mamoru Oshii’s 1995 movie masterpiece, its divisive sequel, and the early 2000s TV series adaptation Stand Alone Complex—had to make in order to fit into their respective formats.
Animation studio Science Saru’s new take on the manga (now streaming on Prime Video) could actually be that definitive take on The Ghost In The Shellthat Masamune wasn’t sure he’d ever see. Not because it’s more faithful to the manga (which it is, very much so), or because it’s superior to Oshii’s film (which nothing ever could be). It’s actually because the new series, like the movie, is gloriously, gleefully, and unapologetically a cartoon. Yes, as unthinkable as it might be for a certain major movie studio that staked its reputation on stringing together a series of illustrations to create the illusion of movement, there are some things that are simply better in animation.
Oshii’s Ghost In The Shell is a groundbreaking work, pairing traditional cels with digital effects and computer animation in a way that was novel at the time (and remains surprisingly novel now). This forward-thinking approach to technology allows the movie’s cyborg heroine to turn invisible while descending from a rooftop, or tear her own body apart while fighting a walking tank. It couldn’t have been done convincingly in live-action circa 1995; even modern CG can’t fully replicate what Oshii and Production I.G. did, and we know that for a fact thanks to the horrible 2017 Ghost In The Shellstarring Scarlett Johansson. There’s a genuine magic to the anime that’s completely absent in the soulless, unimaginative live-action rehash, and that’s because every frame of the former—whether it’s a complex shot of the Major using her high-tech powers or one of the sequences where she and her team communicate motionlessly through telepathic implants—had to be conjured out of thin air by a team of talented artists. It’s not that Ghost In The Shellcannot possibly work in live-action, it’s that the 2017 version’s attempt didn’t work because it tried too hard to replicate the anime rather than playing to the strengths of live-action filmmaking. It’s exactly what Shirow Masamune is talking about in his postscript.
The new series—which pulls a reverse Sean Parker by restoring the “The” to the title that Oshii’s movie dropped—doesn’t aspire to the visual and conceptual complexity of its animated predecessor, but it’s just as much of a cartoon and uses the medium’s advantages in a different way. This is especially obvious in the character designs and exaggerated facial expressions that Science Saru’s animators were able to pull off, which are mostly pulled straight from Masamune’s art. Viewers who only know the perpetually stoic Major Motoko from the movie or Stand Alone Complexmay be surprised to see just how goofy she is here. That would’ve blown the melancholy that Oshii was going for, but it’s somewhat central to her character in the manga. She’s unbelievably competent, sure, but she’s also prone to angry outbursts or the occasional Lupin III-esque lascivious smirk when talking to her various girlfriends.
As much as that’s a nod to the manga, it’s also a loving throwback to the kinds of ’80s and ’90s anime conventions that the Oshii movie tried to avoid. Like something out of Sailor Moon, characters in The Ghost In The Shellwill get big eyes and sharp teeth for a second when they’re mad, someone’s head will get smooshed like a loaf of bread when they get punched in the face, and an energetic smile or wink will be met with literal sparkles appearing in the air. If the Major weren’t an adult with a job that occasionally requires effortlessly executing robotic terrorists, you could almost picture her running late to class witha piece of toast in her mouth and then doing a magical girl transformation into her combat gear. The Fuchikoma tanks that the Major and her team use are also good examples of this, since they now makesilly “uwu” faces when they talk. That’s also from the manga, but the Fuchikoma were cut out of the Oshii movie entirely. So, if the Oshii movie succeeds because it does things that weren’t possible to do any other way, then the Saru show succeeds because it loves being anime.
And that love of being anime extends to the medium’s unique ways of making the unreal real, like when the Major fires a gun that is so destructively powerful that it renders its target an automatically censored mess of gore. (Which raises the question: Is this a visual gag for the viewer, or some kind of in-universe tech to stop the people of New Port City from seeing offensive things? It might actually be the latter, given a gag in episode four where The Major is blocked out while giving someone the finger). There’s a chase scene in the third episode that is so kinetic and chaotic that it wouldn’t be legible in live-action—animation simply affords a greater degree of visual control. It even flips into a sketchier art style and breaks the Major’s basic character model for a moment to show the speed of what’s happening, and you not only can’t do that in live-action, but it wouldn’t even have the same impact in manga. Science Saru is a studio that enjoys showing off (its most recent hit is Dan Da Dan, but it also worked on the surprisingly greatScott Pilgrimcartoon), and The Ghost In The Shelloffers plenty of opportunities to just go nuts with impossible physical movements and stylized character designs.
That, again, is what Masamune was talking about, but in a good way. It’s not necessarily a specific advantage of The Ghost In The Shell as a franchise, but it is a specific advantage of animation that the new series has wholeheartedly embraced. He’s probably still right that there is no “definitive” version of Ghost In The Shelland there probably never will be, because that 1995 movie is still that gooddespite not being a particularly faithful adaptation whatsoever, and this new version is more faithful but also not quite as stunningly profound as the movie. Then again, nearly halfway through the season, the show has (so far) avoided adapting the “Puppet Master” storyline that formed the basis of Oshii’s film, so it still has time to capitalize on its early successes and take more lessons from the movie. If this becomes an adaptation that is both true to the manga and as transcendent as the movie, we might need to rethink the whole “definitive” thing.
