On Sept. 17, a 4K remaster of Mamoru Oshii’s 1995 animated masterpiece “Ghost in the Shell” is set to hit Imax theaters in Japan and around the world. Despite having seen the film well over a hundred times, I’ll be there on Day One.
There’s something endlessly fascinating about this sci-fi classic, which took cues from “Blade Runner” and later inspired “The Matrix” as well as dozens of other, lesser titles in both Japan and Hollywood, including a superfluous 2017 live-action adaptation.
Despite plenty of follow-ups — “Ghost in the Shell” is now a veritable franchise — it also remains the best adaptation of the original manga by Masamune Shirow. That manga, which ran from 1989 to 1991, introduced a post-World War III Japan filled with cyborgs, hackers, corrupt politicians and the counter-cyberterrorism unit Section 9, led by the cybernetic Maj. Motoko Kusanagi (Atsuko Tanaka).
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