Ghost in the Shell

dascoyne · May 2, 2016

Krull said:
I'm a big anime fan and this backlash is funny and stupid as the honest damn truth is.....almost no one looks Japanese in anime,NO ONE,half the time they bring out a new anime and trot the characters out more often then not if you didn't hear their names you'd swear the characters were based on Caucasians.

Motoko Kusanagi never looked Japanese to me,never looked white either more mixed race Japanese/white plus these people have artificial bodies so they can be anything including gender and you saw some actual gender swapping in GITS.

So all I worry about is if this is going to be done right,all you have to do is follow Blade Runner a bit and you'd do well with this GITS is one of the animes I think would do well as a live action film,more so then Alita actually.

Don't get me started on Evangelion,I've NEVER thought that should be live action it would be beyond stupid,trust me.

*ETA*

What...the...hell happened with the type face? :confused

Thank you!

That's exactly what I'm getting at. Caucasion(oid) characters are everywhere in anime. Motoko Kusanagi is built like a westerner and even has blue or hazel eyes, as I recall. She doesn't look at all Japanese to me.

Krull · May 2, 2016

dascoyne said:
Thank you!

That's exactly what I'm getting at. Caucasion(oid) characters are everywhere in anime. Motoko Kusanagi is built like a westerner and even has blue or hazel eyes, as I recall. She doesn't look at all Japanese to me.

Her eyes vary from red to purple to occasionally blue....consistency in anime changes LOL! mostly it's red I think.

I'm gonna show you folks something and you tell me what you think:

This girl is from a new anime adaption of a manga about Japanese candy,her name's Saya Endou and she's Japanese......does she LOOK Japanese to you? yea,me either she looks like any various number of white chicks in my state!

The Japanese love foreign women as they find them "exotic" and Japanese women go to all lengths to look either white or something else,it's really obvious in anime so the fact that no one in GITS looks Asian or will be played by Asian's doesn't only not bother me it doesn't surprise me in the least,you give them body swapping and the Japanese would be looking like the residents of Southern CA,probably.....

CB2001 · May 2, 2016

I don't mean any offense, but I don't see why they couldn't have Rinko Kikuchi as the Major. I mean, people would recognize her from Pacific Rim, Babel and The Brothers Bloom.

Krull · May 2, 2016

Well for one thing I don't think I'd buy her trying to rip the hatch off a tank.......Scarlett I could.

CB2001 · May 2, 2016

Krull said:
Well for one thing I don't think I'd buy her trying to rip the hatch off a tank.......Scarlett I could.

For me, it's actually the reverse. I don't don't buy Scarlett ripping off the hatch. But more importantly, I don't see Scarlett convincingly portray the Major when she questions everything about her existence (if they decide to include it in the film). For Rinko, I can see her convincingly do that.

But then again, we don't even know if the upcoming film will even feature that scene.

Krull · May 2, 2016

I always thought of Mokoto as being rather tall and imposing,in the first film they noted the cyborgs would trip weight sensors since they weigh in excess of three or four hundred pounds,now unless you have some super metal I don't see anybody under five six going that heavy but someone tall could.

Basically ever since my earliest days of liking anime I always thought if you did live action you'd need either white or mixed race people to accurately portray most anime characters.

Maybe that's just me and a few others......

Cephus · May 3, 2016

Krull said:
I'm a big anime fan and this backlash is funny and stupid as the honest damn truth is.....almost no one looks Japanese in anime,NO ONE,half the time they bring out a new anime and trot the characters out more often then not if you didn't hear their names you'd swear the characters were based on Caucasians.

Motoko Kusanagi never looked Japanese to me,never looked white either more mixed race Japanese/white plus these people have artificial bodies so they can be anything including gender and you saw some actual gender swapping in GITS.

So all I worry about is if this is going to be done right,all you have to do is follow Blade Runner a bit and you'd do well with this GITS is one of the animes I think would do well as a live action film,more so then Alita actually.

Don't get me started on Evangelion,I've NEVER thought that should be live action it would be beyond stupid,trust me.

*ETA*

What...the...hell happened with the type face? :confused

The whole thing is, she isn't white and she isn't Japanese, she's a CYBORG! She isn't even human! Who the hell cares?

Nth · May 3, 2016

Cephus said:
The whole thing is, she isn't white and she isn't Japanese, she's a CYBORG! She isn't even human! Who the hell cares?

Well she's trans-human. She was born a Japanese human. Isn't it going to seem really shoehorned to see Scarlett going by the name Motoko Kusanagi? Are the other supporting Japanese characters of Section 9 still Japanese? Is Section 9 even still part of the Japanese National Public Safety Commission if all Japanese aspects are being cut away from the IP.

Cephus · May 3, 2016

Nth said:
Well she's trans-human. She was born a Japanese human. Isn't it going to seem really shoehorned to see Scarlett going by the name Motoko Kusanagi? Are the other supporting Japanese characters of Section 9 still Japanese? Is Section 9 even still part of the Japanese National Public Safety Commission if all Japanese aspects are being cut away from the IP.

No, you don't know that. If you watch 2nd Gig episode 7, "Kusanagi's Labyrinth", you find that she was in an accident as a child and in a coma. While she was in the coma, she was ASSIGNED the name Motoko Kusanagi and put into a cyborg body. She has no clue what her actual name or background is. So unless they've retconned that relatively recently, all of this "whitewashing" nonsense is just bullcrap, based on people not having the slightest ***** clue about the actual source material.

Jeyl · May 3, 2016

Cephus said:
No, you don't know that. If you watch 2nd Gig episode 7, "Kusanagi's Labyrinth", you find that she was in an accident as a child and in a coma. While she was in the coma, she was ASSIGNED the name Motoko Kusanagi and put into a cyborg body. She has no clue what her actual name or background is. So unless they've retconned that relatively recently, all of this "whitewashing" nonsense is just bullcrap, based on people not having the slightest ***** clue about the actual source material.

It's made even more spectacular in the "Arise" series. It's her pregnant mother that gets into an accident and they replace Motoko's entire body with cybernetics before she was even born. It's one of those stupid cases of "Hey, if they can replace her entire body with cybernetics at a young age, why can't they do it while she's still an embryo?!". I just finished the four episode series (Haven't seen the movie yet) and I was seriously underwhelmed. Stand Alone Complex spoiled me in ways I didn't even contemplate.

As for Rinko Kikuchi? Forgive me if this winds up being an unpopular opinion, but I don't see the Major in her at all. And not just her looks, but also her voice. Motoko should be very adult sounding. Rinko's voice is more appropriate for the Tachikomas than the Major.

Cephus · May 3, 2016

Jeyl said:
It's made even more spectacular in the "Arise" series. It's her pregnant mother that gets into an accident and they replace Motoko's entire body with cybernetics before she was even born. It's one of those stupid cases of "Hey, if they can replace her entire body with cybernetics at a young age, why can't they do it while she's still an embryo?!". I just finished the four episode series (Haven't seen the movie yet) and I was seriously underwhelmed. Stand Alone Complex spoiled me in ways I didn't even contemplate.

As for Rinko Kikuchi? Forgive me if this winds up being an unpopular opinion, but I don't see the Major in her at all. And not just her looks, but also her voice. Motoko should be very adult sounding. Rinko's voice is more appropriate for the Tachikomas than the Major.

Like I said, I haven't kept up on it so they could have changed it, they just made it more silly. But in either case, we can be sure that these social justice warriors have never seen any of it, they have no clue what Ghost in the Shell is actually about, they just see "oh look, a white woman is playing the role, we have to freak out!"

These people are idiots.

Nth · May 3, 2016

Cephus said:
No, you don't know that. If you watch 2nd Gig episode 7, "Kusanagi's Labyrinth", you find that she was in an accident as a child and in a coma. While she was in the coma, she was ASSIGNED the name Motoko Kusanagi and put into a cyborg body. She has no clue what her actual name or background is. So unless they've retconned that relatively recently, all of this "whitewashing" nonsense is just bullcrap, based on people not having the slightest ***** clue about the actual source material.

She was never going to remain Asian in an American adaption regardless; even if she was explicitly stated to be Japanese (which she likely is). Same thing is going to happen when Akira goes into production.

CB2001 · May 3, 2016

Krull said:
I always thought of Mokoto as being rather tall and imposing,in the first film they noted the cyborgs would trip weight sensors since they weigh in excess of three or four hundred pounds,now unless you have some super metal I don't see anybody under five six going that heavy but someone tall could.

Scarlet Johansson is 5'3". Rinko is 5'7". And some sources say the Major's height is 5'6".

Dessa · May 3, 2016

Nth said:
Are the other supporting Japanese characters of Section 9 still Japanese? Is Section 9 even still part of the Japanese National Public Safety Commission if all Japanese aspects are being cut away from the IP.

Beat Takeshi is playing Daisuke Aramaki. Pilou Asbæk is playing Batou. Chin Han, Danusia Samal, Lasarus Ratuere, Yutaka Izumihara, and Tuwanda Manyimo are playing unnamed Section 9 members. Kaori Momoi also has an unnamed role, Juliette Binoche is playing Dr. Ouelet (I'm assuming a new character), and Michael Pitt is playing the Laughing Man.

Especially with the international cast, it feels like they're going for a story placed on a worldwide level, not just Japan. Most likely, Section 9 will be under the auspices of the UN, rather than the Japanese government. And personally, I have no problem with this. I've never felt that GitS is specifically a Japanese-centric story (especially SAC, which they seem to be adapting specifically), so I have no problem with that.

dascoyne · Sep 22, 2016

The "whitewashing" still doesn't bother me. The one thing I'm worried about is the characterization.
Motoko (at least from the 1995 anime) is supposed to be extremely cold and pragmatic - even more so than Batou who is at least a little introspective. Motoko doesn't have a gram of sentimentality, as I recall. I always thought Motoko from the anime was fascinating because she had a poker-face even through horrific events (e.g. her body getting ripped apart). I felt it said so much about how she regarded her own life - that her absence of sentiment simply reflected her resignation to commit to the present when her past is uncertain/irrelevant.

Motoko also carries herself with a casual efficiency of motion.

I don't get that vibe at all from the few shots of SJ who doesn't seem that much different from her other action roles where she has to question her identity/past.

It's too early for me to damn the movie based on a couple of seconds of material but that's my initial reaction.

Noeland · Sep 22, 2016

CB2001 said:
I don't mean any offense, but I don't see why they couldn't have Rinko Kikuchi as the Major. I mean, people would recognize her from Pacific Rim, Babel and The Brothers Bloom.

She has never headlined a film. Scarlett Johansson is a world wide movie star and a household name. She's an above the title of the movie kind of star.

The Major is the lead character in this film, so they can't cast a lesser known/proven actress in the role.

Wes R · Sep 22, 2016

This is going to be a disaster like Speed Racer and the Fist of the North Star live action movie. I bet this thing is why we haven't gotten another season of Stand Alone complex.

NeoRutty · Sep 22, 2016

I ended up checking the time 23 seconds in... "Aw man... 29 seconds to go?"

What a boring teaser.

Darth Lars · Sep 22, 2016

That video is actually several ridiculously short teasers edited together into one.

CB2001 · Sep 22, 2016

Noeland said:
She has never headlined a film. Scarlett Johansson is a world wide movie star and a household name. She's an above the title of the movie kind of star.

The Major is the lead character in this film, so they can't cast a lesser known/proven actress in the role.

But she has headlined a film, and it won several awards and received nominations, one of those nominations being Best Female Lead at the Independent Spirit Awards. Yes, I know, "it doesn't count. It's not a major Hollywood film." But it does count, because she was the lead of the film and got some recognition of it.

BTW, has anyone seen the Mamoru Oshii directed Avalon? It's a pretty good one. Looks like it could almost take place within the GitS universe, even though not much of cyborgs are featured in it.

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