Nakama Britannica

This week’s ‘Ghost in the Shell’: What’s inside the Shell? will examine scene three, the scene in which The Republic of Gavel is introduced as a side plot operating as a shroud to distract the viewer from the real story. We also explore scenes four, five and six which are about the hunt for the Puppet Master and its various puppets. The scenes are linked in a remarkable fashion to ensure that the viewer observes a change in the attitude of Kusanagi and her colleges as we start exploring the real aim driving the plot: that of Kusanagi’s over-riding desire to define herself as a human and her journey in trying to differentiate herself from the Puppets in scenes four, five and six.

3: Puppet Mastery and The Republic of Gabel.

“Access!”

The next scene covers the arrival of the Japanese Diplomat to talk to Aramaki, head of Public Security Section Nine, who introduce the sub-plot of Gabel and how “Puppet Mastery” is being used in the foreign affairs of the country of Newport City. This “Puppet Mastery” is personified in the sorry state in which The Foreign Minister’s interpreter finds herself in. She is cyberhacked as “predicted” linking into a complex hacking-web, likening the series of brain hacking in the film to a food-web, from a rubbish bin man and his ‘friend’ who supplied him with equipment to hack brains to the higher ranking Foriegn Minister’s Interpreter. This scene is a scene about “access”!

The birth scene was so multifaceted and complex, however this scene is about access and how certain people can break down boundaries. Indeed the scene is all about political boundaries, although the scene does examine how the boarders of the mind can be disregarded and infiltrated, and how the government of Newport City is working to come out the winners in the confrontation between it and Gabel, involving some underhand practise in the form of The Puppet Master.

In many ways Gabel is a representation of the boundaries faced by governments in terms of different countries but also about how they can deal with problems with those countries. Gabel is an example of a country which the country in which Newport City had exploited in the past.

It could be suggested that Gabel is a mixture between North Korea, a country with which Japan has never really experienced a true friendship and has to pay reparations too for past exploitation and appearing good within the community, and Burma, governed by a military junta. The country in which Newport City is governed has in the past exploited Gabel resulting in a moral dilemma which is inserted within the film to provide a need for both Section Nine to become involved because of the damage that could be inflicted by the Puppet Master.

The moral dilemma faced by the country is to deport Coronal Maless who represents the former military junta ruling over the country. He is at the centre of an increasingly growing circle of manipulation and controversy. Indeed there are two options open to the government of Newport city. One, the government grant him asylum and therefore, seemingly, back the former military junta. Or two, the government deport him and continue foreign aid to Gabel who are really “no better than the last lot”.

The diplomat desires the second option. This will allow the prestige of the country of Newport City to remain intact and unblemished. The first option would suggest that the country of Newport City supported the old regime and therefore condone the actions of dictatorships.

It is within these boundaries that the diplomatic corps must work within. This demonstrates the power of information. If someone, e.g. a country, has information on another country then it has power over that country. In this way the diplomat is attempting to create a boundary which the country of Newport City will never cross: shame in the eyes of the international community. Section Nine, answering directly to the Prime Minister, naturally also wish to create that boundary which cannot be crossed. This is why Section Nine, a section dealing with cybercrime, and Section Six, the treaties council/Ministry of foreign Affairs, were working together to prevent access to information presented by Project 2501 (or the Puppet Master). So, ironically, while Cyberpunk is about breaking down boundaries, this early part is trying to establish boundaries.

Perhaps if the minister’s interpreter had a stronger boundary around her brain then it would not have been hacked and all the worry about the manipulation of the information she was carrying would not be spilling out into the open. Highlighting yet again information is a vital weapon in the society of 2029 just as it is in contemporary society.

“Accessed”. This part of the scene involves the minister’s interpreter and the fact that she has had her ghost hacked. The interpreter is having her ghost, her soul, hacked into by a foreign influence. This not only puts all the information she has in her mind at stake but also the her physical self is at risk also. This is the scary reality of 2029.

Oshii, in this part of the scene in particular, wishes to remind the viewer of the importance of being human. This anthropomorphism is what is driving this scene. The fact that he deliberately has “accessed!” uttered at the same time as the interpreter’s brain appears on the screen and Kusanagi’s troubled face examining what has happened to this individual. At the same time she is thinking about her own humanity and what if she too, will lose her humanity.

This anthropomorphism continues into the end of the scene in the van driven by Togusa with Kusanagi in the back preparing to tackle the hackers. Kusanagi makes another iconic quote from the film…

“A whisper…I have a whisper from my Ghost.”

This line is really important in the context of this part of the film. She emphasises her human side because she has seen what has just happened to the interpreter. The fact that the Puppet Master is using Maless’ drive to survive as cover for its actual intention will become clear. It could be argued, therefore, that Oshii is using all of Shirow’s politically derived stories from the manga to supplement his desire to probe Kusanagi’s humanity. This is because it is so unclear as to his role in any of this! Perhaps Maless is attempting to locate information that would put the country of Newport City in the ’sin bin’. It is clear, however, that the Puppet Master is using Maless’ influence against the country as leverage to obtain what It really desires.

Togusa: “I like my mataver [gun]”

-”Why did you transfer a guy like me from the police force?”

Kusanagi: “If we all reacted the same way, we’d be predictable, and there’s always more than one way to view a situation. What’s true for the group is also true for the individual. It’s simple: overspecialise, and you breed in weakness. It’s slow death.”

Susan Napier points out Oshii’s “lament for the loss of humanity in the world. This is what he is trying to say by this. If Shirow had written these words it may be about overspecialisation in regards to different things within society at the moment. e.g. too many people working in the media or too many farmers rearing cows etc.

In essence this scene is about two things: how people break through the boundaries through hook or by crook and how that is a bad thing. Whilst simultaneously Oshii examines what a bad thing that is. It is scary to think that in the future humanity may have harnessed a technology where information could be accessed from the human brain and how that could be abused. It is also scary to think that Oshii is saying something about the modern world when he created this scene.

4, 5 and 6: Equal and Opposites.

Scene four commences with the rubbish bin men collecting the rubbish in the Zone of Discard, according to the Core Frame Model, which is an area where heavy industry and the people who work in that sector live in poor conditions. One of the rubbish bin collectors is a chirpy, and reasonably happy, person. The other can only be discribed, at best, as bored and, at worst, really really tired of life.

Section Nine are attempting to seek and locate the person hacking into the interpreter and eventually leads them to the happy and cheerful rubbish collector. This is because he, along with the puppet which has made him a puppet, have been ghost hacking into the interpreter as to access the information she has on the talks on the Gabel Republic. Essentially a catalysis to drive deeper into the jaded ghost of Kusanagi, the two puppets ghost-hack into the interpreter utilising phones located in the discarded zone.

Eventually one puppet abandons another and a fight ensues between a theromotically camouflaged puppet and Batou. Eventually after sometime the puppet is beaten by both Kusanagi, using theromotic camouflage ironically, and Batou. The scene ends with Batou and Kusanagi revealing a little about their very different characters.

This scene is about contrasts. However it is also about how those contrasts are merely the flip side of the same coin. Consider the two rubbish bin collectors. One is happy, the other is sad. Contrasting characters but they are merely the flip side of the same creature: Humanity.

There is also a contrast between the city centre which is probably the Central Business District and The Discarded Zone. The rich and powerful inhabit the CBD and live in the area which is located away from the poor and dilapidated areas. The poor live in poverty in a makeshift area like a shanty town or favela.

The scene finishes with the two most important contrasts. The first is the way in which Kusanagi’s response to the empty puppet, known as Tsun Gen Fang, is very different to that of Batou’s. Rather than react with sympathy and tact Batou essentially bullies the lifeless doll. One could stipulate that this is due to the fact that Fang kills an innocent bystander whilst fighting him is the reason. Or you could agree with Napier and read into it as a difference between females and males, although this is not really cricket. This is the reason why Kusanagi seems to become even more jaded in regards to this case. Fang makes her question her own humanity and this brings the viewer to the second important contrast: the difference between the puppets.

One is implanted with false memories to ensure his part in the plan would function perfectly. Fang, on the other hand, is merely programmed like an android, a shell or a doll, to do as the Puppet Master wishes. Kusanagi asks questions which form the basis of all humans as they move into adulthood.

“Your Mother’s face. The place you grew up in. Memories of your childhood. Can you remember any of those things?”

This scene is also about humanity and what makes a person human and not human. This latter contrast is what makes this an important scene as it links into an idea of critiquing and attempting to discover what exactly humanity is. The fact that Kusanagi asks the Fang all the things about his childhood is a device utilised by Oshii to attempt to make the viewer think about what defines humanity. Oshii is asking whether it is memory that defines a human. People may say that it is there job or their DNA etc. Oshii will become the Master of Puppet Mastery later in his film and attempt to answer the question posed by this scene: what defines humanity?

The scene is also merges into the fifth scene like two tributaries of a river forming a confluence. They may be two different scenes but both come to the same end. This scene manages to integrate itself closer to the manga than other scenes manage. This is because the scene is highly reminiscent of one of the chapters from Shirow’s classic manga in which Section Nine are involved in the arrest of a leader of a crime syndicate.

However this scene is also manipulated by Oshii. Rather than provide another political jab whilst simultaneously providing a thrilling story, Oshii introduces us to how deeply spread out the manipulation of the Puppet Master actually is. Instead of dealing with drugs like in the manga, Oshii is dealing with yet more of this business with the Republic of Gabel and how the Puppet Master has manipulated the situation to It’s own ends.

This scene really severs the link between the Puppet Master and Gabel because Aramaki realises that these people are merely puppets and are under the strict control of the Puppet Master. It transpires that the empty puppet was a man called Tsun Gen Fang, who’s nickname was Corgi, and who’s occupation was a “rather nasty scrap dealer” or “thug” as Batou summarises.

This really serves to highlight the underlying horror resonating within ‘Ghost in the Shell’. The fact that a person can be changed in such a quick fashion and then forced to serve a being which has no concern for that life is quite frightening and only serves to bolster Oshii’s “lament”.

Even the Sixth Scene is very short and concerns the the chirpy rubbish collector. Togusa demonstrates his human side while Kusanagi and Batou also demonstrate their own humanity in muted styles. It is a chilling scene and perhaps goes one further in creating that atmosphere which was fostered in the previous two scenes. The last two scenes, five and six, are small and do not go into great length into any single subject, they merely illustrate the ill-effects of a bad business that the Puppet Master has initiated.

These four scenes make up some of the greatest scenes within the film. However next week’s article is one of the greatest pieces of aesthetic animation ever created. Next week we will be looking through the glass, darkly!