Ghost in the Shell 2 in Theaters Late This Summer

Peter Williams writes "Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence is due out in theaters late summer 2004. The english website can be reached here."

Comments

Re:surprised

[amacedo]

The anime market is very different from the western animation market. Mainly because in the West there isn't really a matured interest in animation films since they're geared towards the infant market.

In Japan this kind of film usually has great results in both cinema and DVD releases.

Ghost on my mind

[Wellmont]

Compared with Armitage (along with others) and it's subsiquent sequels the creators of Ghost in the Shell really outdid themselves with it's production. Rarely does an Anime movie mix great plot, action, and camera angles with good "art". The entire Si Fi genre in Anime has suffered from serials that continue far beyond their disturbingly bad pilots. I for one am looking forward to this new sequel, from what i've heard it's not going to be a direct interpretation of the original movie's lines and characters. And if anyone has seen the original movie you can attest to the fact that it steps beyond the common "anime" genre and out-performs most of it's field and regular "live-action" movies as well.

Spirtuallity and Philosphy are the keys

[Midnight Thunder]

In order to appreciate films like this and Final Fantasy, you definetly need a better understanding of spirtual beliefs. The ghost, is the spirit or soul of the machine, in the same way a ghost is the bodyless soul of a person.

Final Fantasy, lends itself to the Gaia Theory, and taking it further to suggest that planets are living enties with their own soul.

Japanese animation has plenty of philosphy in them (not all of them admitedly), and can be very deep, so it takes more to appreciate them than your average american cartoon, which in contrast are very shallow.

MTV attention spans

[SuperBanana]

That said, I saw Ghost in the Shell 1 and never was as bored in all my life.
[snip]
And I got halfway through the film and still hadn't figured out what the hell they meant by a 'ghost.'

Ghost in the Shell does not pander to MTV attention spans, and like the Patlabor movies, there's a complex plot. And a "ghost", while a vague concept, is quite obviously(if you pay attention) "what makes a person a person and not a machine". It's your personality, memories, etc. Part of it is that nobody seems to quite be able to put their finger on what a 'ghost' really is; hence the scene where Motoko wonders with Batou whether or not she's really human anymore. Are her memories manufactured, she wonders?

Watch Cowboy Bebop instead. It's a lot more fun, the animated cityscapes are stunning, and it doesn't take itself very seriously.

Cowboy Bebop is one of the all-time greats, but there are those of us who do enjoy serious anime.

There were a lot of complaints about Ghost In the Shell: Stand Alone Complex too- a lot of immature people complained there wasn't enough "action" and there was "too much talking". Well, guess what- that's -exactly- what GITS has always been about, right down to the manga, which sometimes has -paragraphs- of narration.

If you don't like philosophical anime, fine- go watch mindless shit like [shivers] Dragon Ball Z, [gets sick] Naruto, or [throws up] One Piece. But don't try to make every anime fit your tastes and complain when something doesn't.

The slashdot crowd might really enjoy PlanetES, about a young girl full of ideals who goes into space to work in a debris collection department- and finds space isn't quite as romantic, and astronauts not quite as valiant- as she thought.

Last Exile is about two kids serve as couriers, piloting a flying machine in the midst of a war and hoping to some day find their father(s) who were lost delivering a vital message.

Read or Die(watch the OVA first) is a fun series about three detective-sisters(named after martial arts starts, incidentally- Anita, Maggie, Michelle; there's also a Lee, a dove named Woo, etc :-) who are "paper-users" like the famous bibliomaniac Yoriko "The Paper" Readman, who worked for (heh) the British Library Special Forces. The OVA is particularly strange in a fun way. Kinda girly and -very- moving towards the end.

Oh, and lastly, Spirited Away is fantastic. Not nearly as preachy as Ghibli's earlier stuff(which is also excellent, but extremely heavy-handed in environmentalist ways. Princess Mononoke, Nausicca Valley of the Wind, etc).

Re:Time To Check Yourself Dude

[cK-Gunslinger]

Grow up, dude. Not all nudity implies "stroke yourself while watching this." Nudity can be used as an essential plot device, to help character development, or to invoke specific feelings (shame, modesty, sexuality, empowerment, etc.)

Some of us adults understand this, some do not. You seem to belong in the latter group. Feel free go back to your Smurfs and Rugrats, and leave the interesting movies to the grown-ups. The ones who can grasp the concept that "cartoons" aren't just for Saturday morning kids.

Re:Looks Good...

[Destoo]

Speaking of the matrix...

Watch the original Ghost in the Shell.
Then Watch the first Matrix.

Compare.

Of course, the Wachowski brothers did say they were trying to do a "live-action japanese animation movie".
We just didn't know they just wanted to do a 1-to-1 conversion of a specific movie.

Re:Warning...

[aardvarkjoe]

Simply put, designers are going to want a method of presenting their material in a non-browser determined environment similar to print.

Tell you what -- I think I'll stay in the early nineties, when we actually thought there was more to the web than being a glorified print advertising medium, and that content was more important than style -- especially when that style is achieved at the expense of usability.