Ghost in the Shell




Ghost in the Shell in set on future of mankind where direct neural interfaces are ordinary everyday tools. That makes it even more cyberpunky than Appleseed. The story tells about Police Security Station 9 aka. 'Shell'. Main characters include "Major" Motoko Kusanagi, very skilled officer of 9th division and also number two commander in 9th division. Her whole body is replaced with full cyborg body which houses her living brain. She has an early 20's cyborg body, but actual age is estimated at being in her late 30's. Her sub-brain can access any kind of computer network on the Earth. The appearance of the Puppet Master has caused her to suspect the existence of her very soul or "ghost". Bato is also expert on unlawful activities like Motoko. He and Major Kusanagi have worked together for so long time that they have grown accustomed to each other. Also Bato's body have been heavily modified with cyborg-parts. Very little is known about his personal life. Togusa is in his late 20's and married. Otherwise than most of the members of division 9 who have been transferred from military, Togusa is from police department, scouted by Kusanagi. Even though his brain has a connection to the cybernet, most of his body is still original. Aramaki is very intelligent and resourceful enough to control the unique personalities in division 9. So his head chief of Kusanagi and her team. He has been Chief of the secret intelligence agency for very long time. He hates politics and likes to get things done. With these persons division 9 takes on the terrorists of the informational age.




Mostly Ghost in the Shell is black&white comic but Shirow drew 36 additional color pages, many which are "fade-ins" and "fade-outs" to the black&white pages. English translated version came out from Dark Horse Comics in ????? part miniseries which suits GITS very well because of it's episode like story telling. The comics were later collected into TP. As a story I think that GIS is very much darker and less light hearted than AppleSeed. Technical-cyberpunk- jargon is more complex than in earlier Shirow's mangas. I think that second volume of GITS is already been published in japan and I'm really waiting for Dark Horse and Studio Proteus to translate it. There's also anime made of Ghost in the Shell which is very much liked around. I personally don't like it at all, I guess it just ain't Shirow-like enough (Appleseed anime on my opinion was).




The title Ghost in the Shell seems to refer to what humans may become: the ghost is one's psyche, or soul; the shell seems to be the hardware (body/cyberbrain). In some ways this seems to me to be a little reminiscent of William Gibson's Neuromancer, with things such as "ghost dubbing" possible. Behind the story there's very much though of definition of human and what really makes one human.



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