Talk:Ghost in the Shell

Ghost_in_the_Shell:_Stand_Alone_Complex has been linked. Please review! :-)

Is Major Kusanagi's name related to the sword Kusanagi of Japanese mythology? I know so little of Japanese culture that I can't even tell if they're pronounced the same. --Andrew 05:15, Apr 14, 2004 (UTC)

They are pronounced the same but I don't know about any connection. As a matter of fact, Kusanagi is one of somehow common names in Japan. Kusanagi Tsuyoshi is for example a famous actor and singer. -- Taku 05:19, Apr 14, 2004 (UTC)

So it could be a coincidence, then. But somehow with this author I wonder; after all, he named himself after a sword and he writes page after page of footnote. Thanks, though, I didn't know it was a common name. --Andrew 10:20, Apr 14, 2004 (UTC)

the sword

you can compare the kanji

According to Japanese mythology the Kusanagi Sword was one of the treasures possessed by the imperial family of Japan. It is said that the warrior who brandished it could beat a whole army. --Neuromancien 00:14, 2004 May 25 (UTC)

copyright violation?

http://www.tvave.com/CartoonNetwork-G/Ghost_in_the_Shell.php

This website has large portions of this article on it without any sources citing Wikipedia. Isn't that against Wikipedia policy? MisterCheese 04:59, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I've seen things like this before. There are at least 2 sites I know of that reproduced the Pigs Is Pigs (1937) article I originally created here a year ago. -- Jason Palpatine 09:55, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

What do we do about it though? I'm a bit reluctant to send an e-mail like it says to do in case of this. MisterCheese 18:37, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

soundtrack

Well, it's a classical soundtrack, so that's not exactly everyday, I'm sure people notice that :-P You can't remove a bit of information just because you happen not to have noticed yourself of course. What you can do perhaps is rephrase and add "the soundtrack was in a classical style, and written by ..." etc. But really, NPOVing needn't be taken to extremes. :) Kim Bruning 07:15, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The information was duplicated below in the section on the anime; I didn't feel it needed to be in both spots, but will leave it. -- Ian Maxwell 16:16, 2004 Aug 12 (UTC)

reviews

I'm not sure these really belong on the page, precisely because they're uniformly positive. If someone could find a negative review, it should probably be included; otherwise they should probably all be removed. -- Ian Maxwell, 2004 Aug 14, 00:51 (UTC)

I agree. It is just wikipedia is not like other fun sites. Is there any convention in wikipedia regarding reviews? -- Taku 01:01, Aug 15, 2004 (UTC)

one negative aspect of this page is that it hails ghost in the shell as if it was a groundbreaking philosophical movie, in a generous way: it was, but in many other ways it was just another overly hyped anime (not saying that it was a bad movie here, but...). The movie suffers from many manga stereotypes, such as the introduction of a world of slutty women, starting with our slutty main character. In the world of manga, where every girl goes proudly to skimpy-skirts high school for the slutty student, it is not new to see yet another movie with these characteristics. Other things that it shared from several other animes was the violent aspect of it, almost pornographicly violent (yup, its a manga alright), whenever there was a slight chance for showing naked girls and/or violence, the movie felt the duty of exploiting it to the maximum, leave very little importance to whatever story there was in it. speaking of that, the story was clustered in one small drop, as it happends in many manga-to-anime movies (as in akira, where you had to re-watch the movie again for many aspects that where briefly explained, mainly because most of the movie time was spent on violent scenes rather than in triying to give any mayor importance to the plot, i recall several characters that were showned diying in gruesome violent ways at the end, and all i had was one question in my head "who the hell were they?"), and last, and very importantly, Ghost in the Shell was in no ways the first "philosophical" sci-fi movie, the first one was Blade Runner in questioning what it meant to be human (to some lesser degree, 2001 could be considered the very first, although from here to there, one must wonder if 2001 could be considered sci-fi). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 200.28.199.4 (talk • contribs) .

Philosophy

The article states that people in Gits have scientifically verified the existance of the soul. I question this. It seems to me that the term Ghost is always used rather vaguely. Is it possible that "Ghost" is a physical phenominum that they have named "ghost"?

jm: Ghost vs. Soul -- This is problematic in a translated work. I'll try to identify the key passages, and have a japanese friend of mine take a look at the original to see if my interpretation of the translation matches.

For example, a Ghost could be a neural network or digital simulation running a certain way? This would account for a "ghost hack", the detection of the "ghost" in the puppet master, and the fact that the Tachikomas in Stand Alone live but do not have a "Ghost"

By the end of Stand Alone's first season, doesn't Motoko state that the Tachikomas have begun to develop ghosts, or some sort of collective conscience? Kawa 18:44, 17 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I think ghost refers to the consciousness created by the neural network, not the neural network itself. Neural network is neural network. Computer can be a neural network too. It's a mystery still at this age, how our consciousness "occurs". Anyway in the book and the anime, the term is not well-defined so we don't really know what it is... In a way, ghost refers to the mystery of mind. Don't you ever wonder why you're yourself? --Nc622 16:57, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

jm: That was the central revelation of the manga: that the puppet master was the first AI to to have a ghost/soul -- making him a living organism, rather than just an elaborate construct.

Though its hard to grasp the matter, I think that the intention of the Stand Along Complex writers is to allow for the Ghost to be a completly physical phenominum with related spiritual beliefs. jm: I agree. Shirow is deliberately ambiguous. In other words, when they say Ghost, they mean both physical/ and or spiritual. They mean, potentially, more than 1 thing at the same time. I found a reference to this once on the Internet, I can search for this latter if anyone wants.

Question: Do we know Motoko's camuflage influenced the creation of real life ones, or is it cooincidence?68.42.24.89 22:42, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

GiTS is explicitly referenced by the scientists who made the "camouflage" (it's actually just a clever projector, and only works for 1 point of view, but still ;-) ). Kim Bruning 08:03, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Hi. Nice to meet you guys. About the term ghost, it was inspired by Arthur Koestler's book The Ghost in the Machine [1]. Here's a Japanese page; it says Shirow said he got the term from the book. [2] The concept of ghost was first used by a British philosopher, Gilbert Ryle, in his paper mocking the paradox of spirit-matter dualism. Shouldn't we add this to the text? --Nc622 18:26, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Excellent research. If you'd like to add that to the text just go ahead and do so. If it isn't perfect it'll be cleaned up quick enough! ;-) Have a nice day! Kim Bruning 23:26, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Thank you Kim. I'm working on the addition but it doesn't fit right after the current paragraph. I think the definition of "ghost" should be clarified first.--Nc622 16:57, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

How about:

Make a link to Ghost (Gilbert Ryle) ("redlink it"), and pretend it already existed. You can fill in the new article later :-)

Kim Bruning 18:15, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I kinda changed the paragraph to fit with mine. Didn't change the whole thing. There is a link to Gilbert Ryle, although it doesn't mention about ghost. Umm.. I don't think the addition is good enough; I believe it's got some useful material but the explanation needs rephrasing or improvement. --Nc622 14:13, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Excellent start! :-) Kim Bruning 14:36, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

In English we have several words for the loose collection of concepts clustered around the self. We make a stark divide between the MIND, the rational, abstract part of us with which we think, and the SOUL, a more metaphysical life essence with religious associations.

This distinction is does not continue across language barriers. In German, the word GEIST (ghost) can be used interchangeably for either of these concepts, and to Germans, the distinction made in English can seem somewhat unnatural.

Perhaps Koestler's term draws on the extension of the German term. He was after all, famously, a multi-linguist. This term GEIST, is probably more suitably vague than any of our words, MIND or SOUL, and it is probably the best assessment of the extension of the word GHOST in its usage in Ghost in the Shell.

An etymology of the term might be appropriate too. There is a lineage of terms, all of which feed into the terms we have today. In ancient greek we have NOUS (intellect or reason or mind, and, for plato, the rational part of the soul) and PSYCHE (animating breath, which is used often for a soul, or enduring essential spirit).In Latin, these two distinct concepts were covered by one word: MENS, and this word is used by Saint Augustine in his meditations, which is, incidentally, the work from which is drawn the uncited quote at the end of Ghost in the Shell. "When I was a child..."

With reference to the suggestion that Hegel's GEIST might be connected: Hegel's use of the term GEIST is different from the German vernacular usage. For Hegel, all of reality is GEIST, the word comes to represent the religious, artistic and philosophical reality of an entire culture, which evolves in stages. Commonly, GEIST, in Hegel's work, is translated as UNIVERSAL MIND, and stands for a collective consiousness, running through these three spheres of religion, art and philosophy. For Hegel, GEIST is everything, and is more OUT THERE, than IN HERE, which is what, I think, Ghost in the Shell's GEIST is all about. I would think that the vernacular use of the word is more relevant than Hegel's usage.

So I don't think Hegel's GEIST is related, but I do think GEIST is probably the most relevant origin of the GHOST in Ghost in the Shell.

-SABRETACHE

I have a question regarding the movie adaptation of Ghost in the Shell. It is explicitly stated in the making-of feature on my DVD release of Ghost in the Shell that the movie takes place in Hong Kong, which confuses me since I've always thought Project 2501 was developed by the nation of Japan and that both Section 6 and Section 9 originated from that same country. Could someone clarify this to me? --81.226.162.222 13:59, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

In the manga it's clear that Section 6 and Section 9 are part of the Japanese government. Shirow notes that this is inspired by the British system (e.g. MI5 and MI6) because Japan doesn't currently have any similar agencies. I'm don't see why they would change the setting to Hong Kong in the movie, given that HK is part of China, but I'd have to watch the movie again to make sure. - mako 15:13, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

In Ghost in the Shell, Major completely reproduces her stimulus of her entire organs including internal organs to maintain her ghost. In case of a technical transferring of a ghost from one body to another, the attempt normally results in failure since the ghost tends to deteriorate due to either the difference of system at the material level or the deficiency of the transferring protocol. The Puppet Master manages not to deteriorate its ghost when merging with Major because his system is the body of information itself, thereby avoiding a deterioration due to the deficiency at material level.

When in Ghost in the shell did she transfer her ghost from one body to another? In the series she never transfered her ghost to anyone. She did have multiple bodies but she transfered her cyber-brain case (holds brain and spinal cord) to another one of her bodies. She even remotely controlled a couple bodies. In the SAC series in episode 1 someone transfered to a different body using this method. I don't remember her ever transfering her ghost anywhere. We actually really never see the process but since thats the given method for transfering to different bodies I assume its the correct way.

Is it really neccessary to refer to ghost hacking as an of yet fictional activity? I found it distracting and pointless, it's assumed that fictional thing can become real eventually...

camouflage

Hello. I couldn't help but notice that Kusanagi's camouflage technology is called 'thermoptic'. This technology appears word-to-word in the PC game Deus Ex: an item called 'thermoptic camo' makes the player become invisible to the human eye as well as cameras and robots. I was just wondering if anybody's heard the term appear elsewhere (i.e. is it a common phrase in sci-fi/cyberpunk) or could it be listed as GITS's influence on Deus Ex?

As far as I know it's just 2 words combined to form a new one to describe the combination. Thermoptic camo seems to be just one of them. The original word originates from Japanese so it might come from whoever translated it. I Don't think it's worth any further mention though, with a succes like GitS ideas and words are bound to pop up in other works. --Jimius 15:29, 27 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
The character named Gunther Hermann has an eye augmentation that closely resembles Batou's: metallic ring with lens where the eye used to be. And there's a street thug whose design is very much like that of the thug at the beginning of the movie (the one Batou chases through the market). (Or maybe I'm just pushing it...)

Manga

The Ghost in the Shell template links to the manga article at Ghost in the Shell (manga), which previously was a red link, but which I've changed to redirect here. Should this page be moved to Ghost in the Shell (manga) instead? There are many pages that link to this article, Ghost in the Shell, but many (perhaps most) are supposed to be links to the article about the movie, Ghost in the Shell (film). Would it be better if Ghost in the Shell were a disambiguation page? Steve McKinney 08:17, 29 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the above, switching the two article titles. I was searching for the film article, and it was rather hard to find, and I got to this article, which I thought initially as an article on GITS in general. However, it's focused more on the manga itself and I thought it would be better if this article presented information common to all the adaptation of GITS such as recurring themes, and it would be better to move manga plotlines into the Ghost in the Shell (manga) article. What do you guys think? Boneheadmx 04:33, 4 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

This article is indeed shaping up as a "GitS general topics" sort of thing. I agree that it would be good to flesh out a Ghost in the Shell (manga) article and then change the focus of this main article to reflect its general nature. - mako 05:05, 4 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

In that case, I will add in a little blurb in the beginning of the article that goes something like this: "This article covers general topics in Ghost in the Shell. For the manga, go to Ghost in the Shell (manga). For the films, go to Ghost in the Shell (film) and Innocence: Ghost in the Shell...etc." Or I could direct people to the template which covers the different releases of GITS. In any case, I already made the manga article a stub, so people can start working on it. Boneheadmx 06:35, 4 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]