Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex

The news of a Ghost in the Shell television series was met with a mix of joy and trepidation; highly regarded in the West and being helmed by a then unknown director, the assumption would be that the themes and delicately balanced characters of the Mamoru Oshii movie as well as the racy futurism of the original Masamune Shirow manga would be lost on a televised broadcast. Defying expectations however the series is supremely accomplished, blending the setting of a near-future, highly networked society with cyberpunk brassiness and an acute focus on the implications of such a world and what it means for communities, individuals, organisations and power structures. Production I.G. proves that their animation production was up to the challenge by rendering a fully realised, distinctly designed world where everything from skyscrapers to handguns have a plausible tangibility to them.

Spanning two full length series and an original televised movie, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex follows the secretive paramilitary organisation known as Section Nine across three large scale investigations, distinct in chronology from its predecessors. An eclectic team composed of faces familiar from the 1995 film including Motoko, Batou, Aramkai and Togusa as well as bit parts and new members such as Ishikawa, Saito, Pazu, Borma and the artificial-intelligence tanks, Tachikomas. The case of the Laughing Man starts with the death of a friend before plunging into corporate terrorism, technological misuse and conspiracy as well as demonstrating the first large-scale instance of the titular Stand Alone Complex syndrome. The Individual Eleven investigation had more immediate ramifications when a fleet of military helicopters is inadvertently hijacked and flown brazenly over a refugee slum; igniting existing tensions, a concentrated campaign of provocation accelerates the new government's plans for dealing with the refugee problem but transpire to be part of a sophisticated powerplay by a megalomaniacal official and a dwindling Western superpower. The third and final investigation begins with a series of suicides by foreign operatives and portents of an individual known as the Puppetmaster, the trail exposes a systemic kidnapping of children for a project known as the Solid State Society which, unbeknownst to her, has a very personal involvement with the now freelance Motoko.

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Putting together Production I.G. and Shirow Masamune is cause for celebration nowadays; most noted for his hand in the blindingly excellent Ghost in the Shell universe, even his lesser known works such as Appleseed and Dominion Tank Police stand out as unique and filled with his trademark personality. Given that, it may seem odd that Ghost Hound seems such a vast departure from his other works.

It is less odd when one realises that the series is liberally adapted from a work that Shirow created twenty years ago, that the screenplay is penned by Chiaki J. Konaka and is directed by Ryutaro Nakamura, both of whom were in the same positions for Serial Experiments Lain. It then becomes all the more apparent where the mind bending, perception altering experience comes from. Starting with a trip into the protagonists dream, Ghost Hound never quite lets go and always has that ephemeral, dream like quality to its story, visuals, and most prominently, its sound.

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