Reading Anime 007: Ghost in the Shell (1995) by Mamoru Oshii

So this is a departure from the Studio Ghibli films I've been watching so far. It's an adult cyberpunk film in the William Gibson tradition. (By adult, I mean there's almost a soft porn aspect to it.) The premise is that there is a special ops department SECTION 9 that handles counter cyber-terrorism operations. (And all their agents are cybernetically enhanced.)

What is unusual is that people can be hacked; their memories and hence their identities, their "ghosts" in the parlance of the film, can be altered by outside agency. The agents are in pursuit of a mysterious agency known only as "the Puppeteer." What emerges is that the Puppeteer is a sapient digital entity, a "bug" that resulted from a secret project #2501. What it seeks is asylum to protect it from the agency that created it and to merge with one of the cyborg agents (Maj. Kusanagi).

On the whole, it's a good film. A little hard to understand, at first. The writing is intelligent, and the art is innovative. The level of detail at some points is impressive. My sense is that this is one of those movies that rewards repeated viewing. (I'm still not sure I follow it entirely.) My only problem is that I find that the music can be somewhat off-putting. (But this is probably more a matter of my Western ears, rather than the music itself.)