Ghost In The Shell (DVD)

Ghost in the Shell is inarguably Mamoru Oshii's most famous creation, one that can be seen as standing in a similar position in the director's achievements as Akira is to Katsuhiro Otomo. With its deeply philosophical attitude and pondering feeling, the film is distinctly Oshii's creation with all his strengths and weaknesses. Based on the manga by Masamune Shirow, Ghost in the Shell details the operations of Section 9, the covert organization set up to deal with technology-based crime. As the world has become more and more computerized, crime has developed into more sophisticated hacking into the interactive network in which the cyborg enforcers of Section 9 can access ...  Read the complete review

In Japan, animation is regarded as a serious medium in which films fully intended for adults can be crafted. ‘Ghost in the Shell’ is an example of such a film, and is an example which is surely good enough to convince even the most jaded Western audience that there is more to the animated form than Disney and other sentimental children’s cartoons. Plus, given the fact that digital effects are so prominent in this film, can there be any more suitable medium for viewing it than DVD? THE FILM Ghost in the Shell is one of those films whose impact can be severely reduced by the audience knowing beforehand what is going to happen, and so it ...  Read the complete review

Ghost In The Shell is a full length Anime / Manga film or to use a more derogatory term cartoon. It is set in the year 2029 in Hong Kong. The future has progressed to the point where cyborgs, body part replacements, artificial reality is a part of normal life, people can have artificial brain implants to connect them directly to the computer network, they can communicate with others simply by plugging in. Secret government departments employ cyborg agents who are half human half machine. Some have memories implanted to make them seem like a real person, it gives them their soul, their personality, their ghost. Unfortunately, they are not free to do ...  Read the complete review

Combining animation of the traditional variety, which is of a very high standard in itself, with computer generated imagery, Ghost In The Shell successfully pushed forward the boundaries of adult animation when it was released onto the scene in 1995 and took the anime world by storm. Starting with the attempted defection of a programmer, the film quickly introduces us to Section 9, a covert law enforcement agency able to “get our hands dirty”, and Section 6 who are basically a Foreign Affairs department with a secret. Kusanagi, a Section 9 agent, assassinates the programmer, and then Section 9 are given the task of combating a master hacker known as ...  Read the complete review

Ghost in the Shell like Akira managed to appeal to a larger audience despite anime's usually limited following. It achieved this thanks in no small part to the high quality of its production. Animation and musical scoring combine to evoke a sense of the nightmarish cyberpunk future where brains are wired into the net and even the human mind can be hacked. As with Akira the plot of Ghost in the Shell is the result of compressing some of the ideas found in the manga by Masamune Shirow. Just like Akira some things are gained in the transition to anime and some things are lost. Again a degree of coherency to the plot is lost, but to be fair ...  Read the complete review