In it, a mercenary ninja is hired by a wizened old Tokugawa government spy to help learn the fate of a village that died after an apparent plague arrived there. Meanwhile, a local clan leader sends a ninja team also to investigate, and they, too, are killed, except for one woman who reports back to the clan leader. She is sent back, where she encounters a devil who tries to rape her, only to have the mercenary ninja save her. Together, the trio uncover a plan by another clan to overthrow the government and they must face eight ninja with supernatural abilities to do so. <\/p>\n So it’s laden with intrigue and gore and nudity and whatnot. It was okay, I suppose.<\/p>\n In it, a cybernetic government agent and her team (and directorate) investigate “ghost” hacking incidents where humans are “hacked” through maniuplated emotions to do actual hacking on behalf of a shadowy figure known as the “Puppetmaster.” She and her team discover that it might be a computer program another directorate created who has become sentient and wants to procreate.<\/p>\n The film dwells on some heavier themes than Ninja Scroll<\/em>, including the nature of consciousness, the soul (the “ghost” in the “shell” of a physical body). Not too heavily–man, I am reading a particularly talky book that touches on Great Themes–but enough to maybe make you think.<\/p>\n This film has a different look than Ninja Scroll<\/em>–the animators have a more Japanese traditional art influence (more straight lines and strokes) as well as the scene selection to<\/em> animate was heavily influenced by traditional noir scenes. So more interesting to look at at times, but to be honest, I was a little lost on a main plot point when one pivotal character looked a lot like an earlier character who was unrelated–I got confused and just rolled with it, but better discernment on my part would have made a bit of it more comprehensible. Although I suppose with more experience and exposure to anime, I could get better at it.<\/p>\n But, no. I would have enjoyed these films more as actual films with actors and stuff, maybe, but I’m too old to be watching a lot of cartoons. And I’m not in my teens or early twenties, latching onto this particular “art” form to differentiate myself from the rest of mass consumer middle-brow taste at the end of the period that actually had mass consumer middle-brow taste.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After watching a couple of martial-arts \/ Eastern-produced movies (The Forbidden Kingdom and Jade Warrior and Blind Fist of Bruce) and having my fill of them for the nonce, I took Ninja Scroll out of the cabinet and saw mention of Ghost in the Shell. Which I also had in the cabinet. I picked both […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3334,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3334"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32529"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32529\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32530,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32529\/revisions\/32530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Book](\"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/bsgfx\/ninjascroll.jpg\")
When I popped in this videocassette, I thought it would be a short, maybe 30- or 60-minute cartoon, perhaps like an episode of Robotech, one of which I actually watched with my boys sometime after readingRobotech: Genesis\/Battle Cry\/Homecoming<\/em><\/a> (my young boys were underwhelmed with the story and\/or animation). But, no, this is a full length movie. I then noted that its animation was about what you would have seen in imported Japanese cartoons that appeared on television in the late 1970 like Battle of the Planets<\/em><\/a> before the American toy-based cartoons like G.I. Joe<\/em>, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe<\/em>, and Transformers<\/em> took over in the middle 1980s. And I have to admit that, when I was a lad watching cartoons after school, I probably never thought, “You know what this cartoon needs? Gore, nudity, and sex!” Because this film has them.<\/p>\n![\"Book](\"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/bsgfx\/ghostintheshell.jpg\")
After watching Ninja Scroll<\/em>, I (re-) discovered this film in the library, and I figured I might as well watch it right away whilst my brief interest in anime was at its peak.<\/p>\n