A long time ago, while conjuring up some superbly detailed artwork, my friend intimated that God resided in the details.
Not being Christian per se, and without a religious
millimetre illuminating anywhere on my body, I didn’t have a clue what
this guy was on about, or which dippy deity he referred to. The only
thing similar I’d heard was that Old Nick (you know, the Devil) was in
those same details.
Which rendered me somewhat confused.
That is, I until around 16 years ago — when I first watched Mamoru Oshii’s enthralling anime feature Ghost in the Shell (1995).
While the original manga pages — titled Kōkaku Kidōtai in Japanese, written and illustrated by Shirow Masamune — pushed quirky as much as cerebral, light-hearted and a trifle perverted, this animated movie interpretation by Oshii, of Patlabor fame, was dark, a tad more intelligent, and the most innovative cyberpunk romp since Akira (1988).
It also led to an obvious Wachowski siblings’ homage with The Matrix in 1999.
Truth is, Ghost in the Shell knocked off my cotton socks to
hammer home the studio behind the film — Production I.G — as my
favourite Japanese anime company. It’s a lofty perch that I.G retains
nearly two decades later.
Here’s where I get to lob in some silly puns relating to the
introductory ‘theme’: God knows I.G deserves it, and by Heaven above
they go for the jugular of those little details, glean ‘em, tweak ‘em,
and quite often leave you gob-smacked, gasping for more with each
successive experiment in style, form and technology. Halle-bloody-lujah.
To start with, there’s so much damned depth to I.G productions.
Not just the background animation or those aforementioned little
details; it goes beyond the superlative character designs, the tight
direction and slick production values; the depth lingers somewhere
beyond this production company’s penchant for risk-taking along with
clever marketing panache.
They’ve got to be doing something right to have established
themselves at the forefront of the severely stiff competition that is
the Japanese animation industry, and further to have maintained that
position.
Likely this has to do with the talent involved at the studio.
It might well be that Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade (1999) is one of
the most underrated anime offerings of all time – a situation no one
into the more adult leanings of the medium should ascribe to.
Here you’ll find gallons of action, philosophical undertones, and sizable armaments involved - set alight with manic abandon. Kiddie stuff this most certainly is not.
With equally big gun anime production houses
Production I.G and Bandai Visual working together here (along with one
Mamoru Oshii) there was never any real doubt about the grown-up nature
of this material or the quality of the animation.
Add to the military hardware and action a tall, dark, silent-type
protagonist, a mysterious, unlikely femme fatale who’s a member of a
terrorist organization, government-condoned death squads, post-modern
German World War 2 helmets, gasmasks, full-on body armor, and – hidden
amidst all this – some overt references to the Little Red Riding Hood fairy tale.
Penned by Mamoru Oshii of Ghost in the Shell fame as part of his Kerberos saga, the alternate reality late 1950s story underpins Oshii’s earlier live-action film Stray Dog (1991) – a movie which starred actor Yoshikatsu Fujiki, who here returns to voice our hero Kazuki Fuse.
Fujiki also starred in Oshii’s more recent live-action movie Assault Girls
(2009) and his presence is all the more reason that you should watch
the movie in the original Japanese dub with English subtitles, rather
than opting for the easy-listening local lingo.
The depth of talent involved in this production is guaranteed to smack around anyone vaguely interested in anime.
Kenji Kamiyama (later the director of TV series Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex)
worked as sequence/animation director, the character designs (based on
director Hiroyuki Okiura’s originals) were embellished on by Tetsuya
Nishio (a key animator on Millennium Actress and FLCL) and you’ll also find Hiromasa Ogura - the man behind the surprisingly cool background art in Drawer Hobs(2011).
What other nation in the world annihilates its own capital as much as Japan tends to?
Think of all the times Tokyo's been trashed, caned, victimized and atomized - from the big bang at the beginning of Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira (1988) to nearly every single Godzilla flick etched out by Japan's workhorse production house Toho Co.
Both the manga and the first anime interpretation of Ghost in the Shell(攻殻機動隊, Kokaku Kidotai) continued this trend, setting the scene some time after World War 5.
The twist here was that Tokyo was a city that had revived itself and embraced a slick, somewhat violent sci-fi futurism. Yet while the manga pages drawn by Masamune Shirow were also quirky, a good chuckle and occasionally hentai (perverted), the first anime movie of Ghost in the Shell, released in 1995, was darker, a tad more cerebral and the most innovative post-cyberpunk anime since Akira.
Some, like me, say it’s even better.
Ostensibly the story of a public security anti-terrorist squad (Section 9) coming to grips with an unknown force who is "ghost-hacking" into cyborgs' brains and souls, Ghost in the Shell drifted into a philosophical treatise on the nature of humanity and its relationship with technology.
If any one movie was responsible for impacting upon the latent psyches of the Warchowski brothers before they produced The Matrix, this was it.
The movie may have been drafted by manga-ka Shirow and co-scripted by Kazunori Ito, but the director here was one Mamoru Oshii.
While Hayao Miyazaki (of Spirited Away, Ponyo and The Castle of Cagoliostro notoriety) juxtaposes concerns with the environment over a strange blend of whimsy, humour, adversity and triumph of the spirit, Oshii's films are often dark, bleak and caustic with a resounding reliance upon technology; even so there is humour here if you look closely enough.
“I've always liked humorous movies and gags,” Oshii told me in 2006 for an interview in the Daily Yoimiuri after he unveiled the zany Amazing Lives of the Fast Food Grifters.
“But in Japan it seems that the audience prefers serious movies. I'd love to make a big budget comedy movie, but the current Japanese film industry would hardly allow such a project.”
What Oshii and Miyazaki do share is a predilection for tales in which there is no specifically "bad" character – even the perceived villains often struggle for something they think is right.
But whereas in Miyazaki's realm this means good intentions, in Oshii's it's a need to know the unknown, to succeed at any costs, and often inspired by baser qualities. In Ghost in the Shell and its equally powerful sequel Innocence (2004) Oshii is at the height of these subversive, mind-bending powers. They’re as as visually stunning as they are philosophically bewildering. After all, characters in Oshii’s movies have a hankering for citing Jean-Paul Sartre as much as they proffer up obscure references from the Old Testament.
“I think that Innocence will remain a movie understood by a very limited number of people,” Oshii said back in 2004 when I interviewed him about the sequel.
Even so he had the benefit of two superb scores by Kenji Kawai for both movies.
“I haven't thought about using any other composer but Kenji," Oshii confided in a tone that was somewhat reverential.
“I like the Ghost in the Shell movies basically because I like sci-fi animation,” says DJ/producer Ko Kimura. “The story behind Ghost in the Shell is really intriguing and the graphics are gorgeous – if you see it a second or third time, you'll find new facets within the two movies again and again. For its graphics I’d say Innocence is one of the best anime movies made in Japan.”
Renowned fellow Japanese DJs Tatsuya Oe (aka Captain Funk) and Jin Hiyama agree.
“The first Ghost in the Shell may be an old movie, but this is our future, our world. Innocence took it further: we taste life but have no choices,” Hiyama muses. “I think this has always been my own theme too.”
“Ghost in the Shell is the magnum opus of my master Mamoru Oshii,” anime director Kenji Kamiyama quipped in deferential fashion when I asked him for his favourite movies a couple of years back.
“The first Ghost in the Shell movie is the movie that depicted the big bang of that new infrastructure that we now know as the Internet, from an almost prophetic standpoint,” Kamiyama explains, “and for this reason it should be regarded as a monument in the whole sci-fi genre.”
Today I chatted with my student Aiko K, an apprentice mangaka who works on both shojo and shonen styles of manga but personally prefers doing horror stuff herself.
Somehow we got to talking about a few different tomes I'd read myself over the years, and ended up with this list of 12; we then set about deconstructing each and putting them into some sort of order she felt happy with herself. Half of this ordering I don't agree with; a couple I do.
Aiko based her selection on self-admitted biases like over-saturation here in Japan (Leiji Matsumoto's Galaxy Express 999) and a love for the people involved in the anime versions rather than the original comics (director Mamoru Oshii and musician Yoko Kanno on Ghost in the Shell).
Others Aiko couldn't really explain her affection for, apart from the fact that she grew up with them; she loves CLAMP but considered Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle their weakest effort, while she felt that Doraemon is the best manga (and anime) ever made in Japan.
Anyway, with further ado, here's the list:
1. Doraemon (ドラえもん) by Fujiko F. Fujio (a.k.a Hiroshi Fujimoto) and Fujiko A. Fujio (a.k.a Motō Abiko)
2. 20th Century Boys (20世紀少年 Nijusseiki Shōnen) by Naoki Urasawa
3. Ghost in the Shell (攻殻機動隊 Kōkaku Kidōtai) by Shirow Masamune
4. Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (風の谷のナウシカ Kaze no Tani no Naushika) by Hayao Miyazaki
5. Tekkonkinkreet (鉄コン筋クリート Tekkon Kinkurīto) by Taiyō Matsumoto
6. Kiki’s Delivery Service (魔女の宅急便 Majo no Takkyūbin) by Eiko Kadono
7. Princess Knight (リボンの騎士 Ribon no Kishi) by Osamu Tezuka
8. Akira (アキラ) by Katsuhiro Otomo
9. One Piece (ワンピース) by Eiichiro Oda
10. Battle Angel Alita (銃夢 Gunnm) by Yukito Kishiro
Have been awaiting this baby for some time now, with whispers circulating round the traps - Mamoru Oshii's first feature-length live-action movie since the brilliant Avalon (2001).
It's called Assault Girls, and will be released in Japan in December.
Until that happens, here's a quality taster from the director of the Ghost in the Shell movies.
