Gender is another issue within the complex workings of Ghost in the Shell. Motoko doesn’t wish to cause Batou any embarrassment nor does he want to feel like he is exploiting her body. Her partner, Batou, averts his eyes on more than one of these occasions and even covers her up with his coat. She often appears nude in front of colleagues, which symbolises her vulnerability while also emphasises the fact that she has no concept of what it means to expose oneself publicly.
Motoko lacks any discernable personality traits and shows no real understanding of human emotions. It is only a passing moment but one that conveys a strong sense of loneliness and detachment. This is the only hint that Motoko might be a model assembled on a factory production line, defined only by her mind. They observe each other without registering an emotional reaction. At one point she spots another girl, who is the spitting image of her. She gazes at the buildings and those around her, not with contempt but melancholy. The feeling of constant change lingers long after this scene, as the people continue with their daily lives practically oblivious to the cultural conflict that is happening around them.ĭuring this scene, we see Motoko travelling on a boat through the city’s canal system. The original cityscape still stands but has been left to ruin in the shadow of impossibly huge skyscrapers, which look more like machines than buildings. Thirty minutes in there is a four-minute sequence that guides us through the city. In order to analyse the identity crisis at the heart Ghost in the Shell, it is important to consider the surroundings in which the story takes place. His emergence, and the idea of entering another body, pique Motoko’s interest while providing the film with its narrative drive. Motoko and her team are on the trail of the Puppet Master, an elite hacker who has the ability to access the minds of other cyborgs in this world and use them to do his bidding. One of the few remaining biological aspects of these bodies is the brain, which retains a conscience that is known as a ‘ghost’. People can access this data field through their artificial bodies, otherwise known as ‘shells’. Our hero, Motoko Kusanagi, is a cyborg police officer tasked with leading an anti-cyber terrorism unit in a futuristic Japanese city, where everyone is connected to a mass electronic network. But what if technology advanced to the point that our minds could roam free, no longer shackled by the limitations of a human body? That is the central dilemma of Mamoru Oshii’s classic 1995 anime, Ghost in the Shell. Thus I believe this scene is critical to Masamune Shirow’s commentary on technological development, as well as what it means to be “human.Thanks to the constant development and expansion of the internet, we have now reached a point where we are able to project identities and personalities that do not truly reflect the lives we lead. Her body is not “human,” but a combination of “human” biological parts, technology, and a human “essence” or ghost. Throughout the whole movie, Kusanagi questions her own existence and being, and we get the sense both from her own musings and the cybernetic connection in the back of her neck, that she is not entirely “human.” However, this scene is the first time when we truly understand the make–up of Kusanagi’s being. Kusanagi is able to survive, even though her body is ripped to pieces. In fact I would argue that her ghost, and her shell are two mutually exclusive entities, because Kusanagi’s shell can be replaced, thanks to the technological advances of the movie’s futuristic society. However, Kusanagi’s body-her shell-is only part of her existence. She flops to the ground having lost one of her arms-an excruciating experience, which would have most definitely rendered a normal human unconscious. Quickly, Kusanagi’s body explodes under this great pressure into a mess of blood, muscle, skin, and cybernetic materials.
Ghost in the shell 1995 analysis skin#
Her fit and elegant body contorts into a monstrous ball of muscles and tendons and we see theses muscles and tendons tear underneath her skin as she strains with the tank. As Kusanagi attempts to rip the latch off of the tank, we see the uncaniness of her own existence.
Ghost in the shell 1995 analysis movie#
I think that this portion of the movie does an excellent job of demonstrating the duality of the “ghost” and “shell” aspects of Major Kusanagi’s existence. This scene takes place towards the end of the movie (I am not sure of the official time stamp relative to the entire movie however I would particularly like to focus on 5:10-end in the clip above).
I picked the above scene from Ghost in the Shell to analyze, because I thought it was one of the most interesting in the entire movie.