Earlier this year, a major Hollywood studio announced that it was planning to produce a live-action remake of the Japanese manga and anime "Ghost in the Shell." The backlash from cultural critics in the United States and Europe was swift. They deemed that casting Scarlett Johansson in the role of cyborg policewoman Major Motoko Kusanagi was a form of "whitewashing" — where white actors are cast in non-white roles to appease Western audiences. What's more, her character's original Japanese name has been removed from the script; she will only be referred to only as "the Major."

There is one limitation with the whitewashing argument: the story of "Ghost in the Shell" — and manga as a whole — may not be as Japanese as it first appears.

In the postwar era, long-form comics became ubiquitous in Japan, but during the past 30 years manga has moved beyond Japan. There are now tens of millions of copies of popular manga series — and more if you count fan-made translations — circulating in dozens of languages worldwide.