Movies - Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence

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	Movies - Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence

Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (Japanese title: (Innocence), or (Innocence: Kōkaku Kidōtai)) is a followup to the anime movie Ghost in the Shell
, but not primarily a sequel.

Innocence is a movie that explores inanimate objects and representative forms as artificial life.

Released in Japan on March 6, 2004, with a U.S. release on September 17, 2004, Innocence had a production budget of approximately $20 million (approx. 2 billion yen). In order to raise such a large amount of money, Production I.G.'s president asked Studio Ghibli's president Toshio Suzuki to work on the project as a producer. The movie is directed by Mamoru Oshii, with a story loosely connected to the manga by Masamune Shirow. The movie was produced by Production I.G., which also produced the original movie and the spinoff TV series Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex.

Alongside the movie, there was a book published that served as a prequel to Innocence called After the Long Goodbye.

Story

Much of the storyline is taken from the original Ghost in the Shell manga, from a chapter called Robot Rondo, albeit heavily modified from the original tale. The story of Innocence begins in 2032, when cities are inhabited by the dwindling races of humans, purely mechanical androids, and cyborgs like Batou who still have a ghost (the in-universe term for the human spirit), but are vulnerable to ghost hacking. In an interesting stylistic twist, all of the cars in the film have a 1950s design while everything else is ultra-modern.

The movie features several characters from the preceding movie, like Togusa, the most organic member of the team, Chief Aramaki and Batou, as the protagonists. Batou was usually partnered with Major Kusanagi, who disappeared at the end of the first film. He's now teamed with a reluctant Togusa, who says he never asked for the assignment and that he knows he could never compare to the Major.

The special officers of Public Security Section 9 are investigating a cyborg corporation called LOCUS SOLUS (from the novel of the same name by French author Raymond Roussel) and its gynoids - androids made in the form of young women, used as sex dolls - that have killed their owners and, as soon as they realize they have a spirit, start to think of suicide.

Batou's body is fully artificial. As the movie's trailer dramatically posits, "the only remnants left of his humanity, encased inside a titanium skull shell, are traces of his brain, and the memories of a woman called Motoko Kusanagi." Major Motoko Kusanagi, the protagonist of Ghost in the Shell
, is listed as missing, although government agents are still looking for her as she has confidential knowledge on Project 2501. In the film, Batou explains to Togusa that he helped the Major escape because Section 9 only cared about what she knew and not her as a person.

Mamoru Oshii on Innocence

:Innocence is Life :"...untested, but virtue is innocence tested and triumphant." (W. H. Griffith Thomas, 1962)

On the origins of the movie, director Mamoru Oshii says:

:When Production I.G first proposed the project to me, I thought about it for two weeks. I didn't make Innocence as a sequel to Ghost in the Shell. In fact I had a dozen ideas, linked to my views on life, my philosophy, that I wanted to include in this film. I attacked Innocence as a technical challenge; I wanted to go beyond typical animation limits, answer personal questions and at the same time appeal to filmgoers.

Innocence begins with a quotation from Mathias Villiers de l'Isle-Adam's Tomorrow's Eve (1886):

:"If our Gods and our hopes are nothing but scientific phenomena, then let us admit it must be said that our love is scientific as well."

The movie is filled with references to fantasy, philosophy and Zen and addresses aesthetic and moral questions. The numerous quotations come from Buddha, Confucius, Descartes, the Old Testament, Saito Ryokuu, Max Weber, Jacob Grimm, Plato, John Milton, Zeami, Villiers de L'Isle-Adam and others.

The characters and character names contain many allusions to earlier works. For example, the "Hadaly" model robots refer to Tomorrow's Eve, the first book to use the word android, and which features a human-like robot named Hadaly. The police forensic specialist, Haraway, is most likely named for Donna Haraway, author of the "".

Dolls are an important motif in Innocence; many beings have a "spirit" of some sort, but at the same time are not quite human. The female dolls are based on the art of Hans Bellmer, whose name briefly appears in one scene on a book cover. As Oshii comments, "They want to become fully human — but they can't. That dilemma becomes unbearable for them. The humans who made them are to blame. They try to make a doll that is as human as possible — but they don't think of the consequences." Even the human or partly-human characters move in doll-like ways, grants Oshii.

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