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In this essay I wish to analyze the construction of the body in anime, with specific reference to the full-length animated feature film Ghost in the Shell (1995). It necessary to point one specific reference point, as anime by it very nature plays host to a large variety of theories, images, conceptions and constructions of the body. This of course leads to the question: what is “anime”? In the very crudest sense the word can be defined as Japanese animated films, created in accordance with the stylistic trademarks of Japanese comics, called manga. This is a very basic definition of the art form, but provides a basic context in which to situate the essay. It is also imperative to note that the anime industry is not limited to producing fantasy joy rides for the youth. It is an all-encompassing sphere of cultural production with everything from romance to science fiction, and anything from action to philosophical pieces. In term of diversity alone it can be compared to the Hollywood film industry. An analysis that could also be furthered, considering that anime and manga "dominate Japan's narrative media. Manga account for a third of all books published there, [and] anime for about half the tickets sold to movies." (Corliss cited in Tee, 2000: 1) This identifies the film as an instance of popular, or rather mass-culture, and firmly situates it within the boundaries set by the essay question. This as well as the fact that Ghost in the Shell does not only stand out from the crowd of other available anime titles that have been translated to English, but is still one of the most popular titles both in and out of Japan. Ghost in the Shell is based on the manga, of the same name, produced the master Japanese manga- creator Shirow Masamune. The backdrop of the story is AD 2029 East Asia, a “huge corporate zone dominated by multi-national economic and information operations” (Ueno, 2002: 2), and is centralized around the activities of Security Police Section Nine. A unit formed by the Department of the Interior to combat cyber crimes, political terrorism and investigate irregularities in the information network that could endanger the sensitive government initiatives, alliances and diplomatic bonds. The film revolves around the attempts of the leader of one of Section Nine’s sqauds, a woman named Motoko Kusanagi, to track down and capture a powerful pirate computer-hacker known only as the “Puppet Master”. In short, the body, as pictured in Ghost in the Shell, is the “post modern adaptation of the theories of Rene Descartes”. (Miko, 2001: 2) Who argued first and fore mostly that the mind (identity) and body (physical self) is separate, and secondly that the body can be explained in term of mechanics. In the film the body is however not just likened to a machine, but literally pictured as one. Short of a crucial kernel of actual brain tissue, major Kusanagi is entirely “factory produced”. This level of augmentation is what lies at the very end of the cyberpunk rainbow, something which is “populated by a host of post-human entities and identities, often hybridized meldings that cross the human/machine interface” (Rucker, Sirius & Queen Mu, 1993: 74) Extending the capabilities of the human body via augmentation is not something new to the film industry, or in fact real life. At the current state of biomedicine we are able to actually “organically” augment our bodies, either in repair, for example bone-marrow or kidney transplants, or improvement like plastic surgery.
Approximate Word count = 2316
Approximate Pages = 9.3
(250 words per page double spaced)
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