Ghost in the Shell Turns 30

In 1995 an anime film change the way how the world see Japanese animation and that film was Ghost in the Shell. ()

The film is based on a manga of the same name that was created by Masamune Shirow. The manga and the film is a cyberpunk noir action thriller that not only stand the test the of time, but also set the standard of how a cyberpunk series should be.

The film take place in New Port City in the year 2029 and it follows Major Motoko Kusanagi, a public security agent who is on the hunt for a ghost hacker who is only known as “The Puppet Master”.

The film was directed by Mamoru Oshii and the screenplay was written by Kazunori Ito. The production was done by Production I.G, Bandai Visual and Manga Entertainment (now known as Crunchyroll) and they also had Cinematographer Hisao Shirai to do a lot of the beautiful city scenes and a lot of the action as well.

In terms of how the film was animated, production was done with a process called Digitally Generated Animation or DGA for short. DGA is the process of combing cel animation, computer graphics and audio and entering them all together as digital data. At the time it was looking like DGA was going to be the way animation was going to be done in the future, but it turns out it was a lot of work to be done and while Ghost in the Shell looks so beautiful, DGA was never meant to be. The music was done by by Kenji Kawai and the opening music for the film was a mix of classic Japanese music and notes with Bulgarian harmony and the ending song “See You Everyday” was a pop song that was sung in Cantonese by Fang Ka Wing.

In 2008 an updated remaster was released and was called Ghost in the Shell 2.0, this version has added new digital effects, 3d animation and audio. Over the years Ghost in the Shell still gets praises and at time many people say this film is the most influential film then Akira. Go watch this film and if you love it go read the book and watch the TV series Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex.