Deciphering the Universality of Oshii Mamoru’s “Ghost in the Shell”

Ghost in the Shell, released in spring 2017, is directed by Rupert Sanders and features Scarlett Johansson in the role of a public security investigator whose entire body except for her brain has been converted into a cyborg. (© MMXVI Paramount Pictures and Storyteller Distribution. All rights reserved. Japan distributor: Tōwa Pictures.)

Kusanagi Motoko, heroine of Oshii Mamoru’s 1995 Ghost in the Shell. (© Shirow Masamune/Kōdansha, Bandai Visual, Manga Entertainment)

Ghost in the Shell Blu-ray edition, Bandai Visual. (© Shirow Masamune/Kōdansha, Bandai Visual, Manga Entertainment)

Ghost In the Shell depicts a computerized society in which most people’s brains have been cyberized to allow them to connect directly into vast networks of data. (© Shirow Masamune/Kōdansha, Bandai Visual, Manga Entertainment)

In Patlabor: The Movie (1989), the Labors (human-piloted robots) of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police’s Special Vehicles Division 2 try to restore order in a fin-de-siècle Tokyo. (© Headgear/Bandai Visual/Tōhokushinsha)