Motoko Kusanagi: My Favorite Quotes

• Well, I guess cyborgs like myself have a tendency to be paranoid about our origins.

• Maybe someday your "maker" will come … haul you away, take you apart, and announce the recall of a defective product. What if all that's left of the "real you" is just a couple of lonely brain cells, huh?

• There are countless ingredients that make up the human body and mind, like all the components that make up me as an individual with my own personality. Sure, I have a face and voice to distinguish myself from others, but my thoughts and memories are unique only to me, and I carry a sense of my own destiny. Each of those things are just a small part of it. I collect information to use in my own way. All of that blends to create a mixture that forms me and gives rise to my conscience.

• If we all reacted the same way, we'd be predictable, and there's always more than one way to view a situation. What's true for the group is also true for the individual. It's simple: Overspecialize, and you breed in weakness. It's slow death.

• If a technological feat is possible, man will do it. Almost as if it's wired into the core of our being.

• What we really need, Togusa, is not sharpshooting skills, so much as the ability to get close enough to make sure the enemy can be killed. If you want to play at long-range sniping, you can always go shoot an elephant at 500 miles with a miniature cruise missile

• When I float weightless back to the surface, I'm imagining I'm becoming someone else.

• When I was a child, my speech, feelings, and thinking were all those of a child. Now that I am a man, I have no more use for childish ways.

• And where does the newborn go from here? The net is vast and infinite.

• Just a whisper. I hear it in my ghost.

Motoko Kusanagi and Batou

Batou is always around. For Major Motoko Kusanagi he is a kind of angel guardian, even though this perfect Amazon does not seem to need any angels or guardians. Still, whenever Motoko is naked, Batou covers her shoulders with his jacket. Masamune Shirow admitted that Batou is visually based on Steven Seagal. He is so plain, so straightforward. However, as for the feelings and views, Batou is a representation of Mamoru Oshii’s own inner universe. So Batou’s affection towards Motoko is a continuation of Oshii’s feelings towards her.

There is a mysterious object, which is somehow connected to the invisible ties that unite Motoko with Batou. It is Major Kusanagi’s watch. Why on earth a cyborg would need a watch? Chronometer is certainly present within Motoko’s cyberbrain. However, she is constantly shown to be attached to her watch, especially in scenes that tie her together with Batou. In episode 11 of the Stand Alone Complex we see Motoko Kusanagi look at her watch several times. At the end of the episode, when Motoko challenges Batou to single combat, she takes her watch off, and we realize that it is her treasured possession that she would never jeopardize in a combat. As you certainly remember, Batou preferred to punch himself into the face rather than hurt Motoko in any way. In episode 25 Batou finds Motoko’s secret apartment and recovers her watch. It is only in this scene that we have a chance to see all Major’s treasures on her bedside table. I interpret them to be her watch, contact lenses, deodorant and comb (feel free to express your own interpretations in the comments). The end of this episode is the only instance of Motoko’s intimacy with Batou. We clearly see their affection towards each other; but we also feel they will never be together. Batou will always remain Motoko Kusanagi’s angel guardian whom she values but whom she does not really need.

Motoko Kusanagi and Hideo Kuze

It was a plane crash. Those who survived died one after another, so that eventually only a boy and a girl, both aged 6, remained the only two who were still alive. The girl would later be known as Major Motoko Kusanagi, squad leader of Section 9, and the boy as Hideo Kuze, the only survivor among the Individual Eleven, full cyborg with motionless face, leader of a revolution. How they first met is told in episode 11 of the S. A. C. 2nd GIG (Kusanagi’s Labyrinth / Affection). Their true original names are veiled in obscurity. The girl had been in a coma since her arrival and the boy knew she would never recover. He learned to fold paper cranes with his left hand, his only functional body part. According to a Japanese belief, if a thousand origami cranes are folded, a wish will come true. One day the girl’s condition worsened dramatically, and she was moved to the operating room. Her ghost was transferred to a fully cyberized body. The boy did not know what happened; he thought the girl was dead. Doctors tried to convince him accepting full cyberization as a solution to his paralysis, but he declined.

When the girl came to him, he didn’t recognize her in her new shell. He asked if she would be able to fold a crane with her prosthetic fingers. She couldn’t and left, saying that she’d return when she’d learn to fold origami cranes. The boy underwent full cyberization. He guessed who was that girl and tried to find her. Years later he was able to find in a lab her child cybernetic body only.

That’s what we learn from episode 11. This story is a unique key to both Motoko’s and Hideo’s past. It explains the nature of their dramatic relationship full of frustration and tension. Before leaving the antique shop, Motoko Kusanagi says: “I’ll bet that even now that girl is still searching for the first boy she ever loved” and folds a crane with her left hand. In a later episode she does it again during a conversation with Batou in a helicopter transporting them to Dejima. In episode 5 of the S. A. C. 2nd GIG we see a paper crane in the cab of Hideo’s truck.

However, beside what is told directly, there are lots of things that can be perceived upon a consideration (like you realize why the license plate of Togusa’s Nissan in the Solid State Society is 3923, if you read it aloud: san-kyuu-ni-san). Do you remember the very first scene, which goes in the original Ghost in the Shell movie right after the introduction? Motoko Kusanagi wakes up in her flat. She gazes at her stretched hand, and then slightly bends her fingers. It is only in the S. A. C. 2nd GIG that we get the key to this. The same scene is repeated in the opening of each series, and then we have a revelation of what Motoko saw in her dream: a childish prosthetic hand that squeezes a doll so awkwardly that the doll actually breaks into pieces. There is no doubt that the period when Motoko Kusanagi was cyberized and learned how to live within a prosthetic body, left an open sore in her soul. Later she used her shell with amazing mastery, but she never forgot the time when she could not fold a paper crane for a paralyzed boy.

In the last episode of the S. A. C. 2nd GIG Motoko and Hideo are pictured as the first man, Adam, and the first woman, Eve. Motoko gives Hideo an apple, a fruit from the tree of knowledge. And he tastes it before he dies. There is a theme of death as atonement, since Batou literally saves Motoko and Hideo with a huge cross. We know that Hideo is alive in the net, even though his enemies thought they killed him. Yes, Motoko and Hideo are the first man and the first woman who are not human. It turns out that Hideo’s revolution is a way to lead people into the kingdom of the net heaven when there is a danger of atomic bombing.

Every man and woman in Japan see the story of Motoko and Hideo in the context of what happened to Sadako Sasaki. If you never heard about her, search for her name in the net. Truly, the net is vast and infinite...

Motoko Kusanagi, A Cyborg

How does life feel when you’re full cyborg? The shell you inhabit is amazingly similar to a human body, but it is not a body. It analyzes pressure, temperature, color and so on. It analyzes reality and it sends data to your brain, which is a cyberbrain but still has some gray matter, which is your own. You can’t drink alcohol and get drunk the same way you would if you were human. When you touch the skin of someone you love, you don’t get the sensation you’d get if you were human. You don’t shiver. You don’t fall ill. At least, the way human beings do: but you get cyberbrain sclerosis or cyberbrain autism (closed shell syndrome).

What happens to a personality of a woman who lost her human body as a 6 year old child, who became a woman when she got a shell of a mature woman? Glimpses of inner self of Motoko Kusanagi are seen here and there, like in episode 5 of the Stand Alone Complex, when she says to Batou: “It’s that time of the month” (translated “Must be a loose wire” in the American release). Yes, Major sounds a bit cynical. That’s her defense reaction to what she has to go through. So strong. So fragile. This combination has always been driving me mad in women.

One may feel uncomfortable seeing someone in exactly the same dress as oneself. In the original Ghost in the Shell anime movie Motoko sees someone who has exactly the same shell. In the last episode of the Stand Alone Complex, when Togusa rides on a bus, he sees someone who looks exactly like the Major, but it’s someone else. What would you feel if you realized that you actually were serial? She knew that inside, unlike usual cyborgs, she was empowered by secret military technologies; she knew that she was actually unique and that her ghost was unique, but still...

In the last episode of the S. A. C. 2nd GIG Motoko Kusanagi confesses that she can’t even remember her real name. The key to Motoko’s fears is given in chapter 5 of the original Masamune Shirow’s manga: “Sometimes I wonder if I’ve really already died, and what I think of as ‘me’ isn’t really just an artificial personality comprised of a prosthetic body and a cyberbrain.” And further: “What if all that’s left of the ‘real you’ is a couple of lonely brain cells?”

Stand Alone Complex — References to Salinger

The Catcher in the Rye is quoted profusely in the central Laughing Man storyline of the Stand Alone Complex. The Laughing Man logo designed by Paul Nicholson features the following words: “I thought what I’d do was, I’d pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes”. In the original the phrase goes on to say: “That way I wouldn’t have to have any goddamn stupid useless conversations with anybody”. In Episode 20 Togusa suggests that the Laughing Man logo indicates a connection with the Sunflower Society, but the Laughing Man himself says it was inspired by the Starchild Coffee (kind of parody of the Starbucks chain).

In episode 22 Motoko Kusanagi, in a conversation with the Laughing Man, quotes Wilhelm Steckel, who, in turn, is quoted by Salinger in The Catcher in the Rye as saying: “The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one”. In the last, 26th, episode, when Major Kusanagi visits the unused library, where the Laughing Man took shelter, we see the words “F*** you” on the railing. In The Catcher in the Rye Holden says: “You can't ever find a place that’s nice and peaceful, because there isn't any. You may think there is, but once you get there, when you're not looking, somebody’ll sneak up and write ‘F*** you’ right under your nose”. Like Holden, the Laughing Man can’t stand phonies (Holden’s word), that is, in his case, corrupt politicians. Another direct quotation from The Catcher in the Rye was on the left-handed baseball mitt that the Laughing Man kept for some time: “You know what I'd like to be? I mean, if I had my goddamn choice, I’d just be a catcher in the rye and all”. Holden’s is also the red hunting cap that the Laughing Man wears backwards.

The very pseudonym of the arch-hacker (whose real name is Aoi) is based on Salinger’s short story The Laughing Man (I read it last night). The story’s protagonist is named Chief by the children who admire him. Chief is also the name given by children to the Laughing Man in the Stand Alone Complex. The baseball cap on the Laughing Man’s logo may refer to the Comanche Club, an after school organization. The Chief often took the Comanche to Central Park for baseball games.

Episode 12, a wonderful, all-sufficient story that deserves a separate post, has interesting parallels with Salinger. In this episode the little girl tells the Tachikoma a story about a “Secret Goldfish”. It is based on the short story The Secret Goldfish written by Holden’s elder brother in The Catcher in the Rye. Later in the episode we see a poster that reads: “Go See Bananafish”. This must be a reference to A Perfect Day for Bananafish, another Salinger short story (I haven’t read it as yet; but I will, I promise). Towards the end of the same episode Batou says he likes Marx Brothers films. Salinger is known to be a fan of Marx Brothers, too.

Major Motoko Kusanagi's Sexuality

Full cyborg, thoroughly hot, mildly psychotic, bisexual: meet Major Motoko Kusanagi. Yes, she could look like Jameson, an ugly box-like outdated shell inhabited by Iwasaki who seems to have sold his organs out of greed, but she doesn’t look like that. Motoko is an altogether different type of cyborg. Sensual. Deathly. Lonely. Full of enhanced parts illegal for sale to ordinary people who do not work for the government.

When you're full prosthetic, can you still have sex? That’s the question that the street kid in episode 17 of S. A. C. 2nd GIG (Mother and Child / Red Data) asks Motoko Kusanagi when he has a chance to spend a night with her in the same bed. Major turned toward him and held the sheet open: “You care to find out?” The kid was clearly not prepared for that. “Some other time,” he said.

Yes, she can. However, it’s not something people usually have. It’s brainsex. Actually, we can see her participating in a lesbian cyber-threesome in the original Masamune Shirow’s manga (chapter 3, Junk Jungle). So pornographic that it was cut from the original American release (the second 2004 edition has it unedited). Later in the manga Motoko Kusanagi also dates a guy from Section 1 for seven months, which is considered to be her “new record”.

Mamoru Oshii’s 1995 anime film is rather chaste as for sexual overtones, even though Batou’s affection towards Motoko is clearly emphasized. The two girls, Kurutan and Ran-chan, appear again in Motoko’s bed in the Stand Alone Complex, episode 5 (The Inviting Bird Will Chant / Decoy), even though Motoko came to see Kurutan in order to use her external memory device as part of her investigation of the Laughing Man case, and not to have sex with her friend. Kurutan’s appearance in episode 22 (Corporate Graft / Scandal), where Motoko has to perform body swap and invites her friend as a witness, refers to the manga’s chapter 5 (Megatech Machine 2: The Making of a Cyborg), where we learn that Kurutan is a nurse who is accustomed to work with cyborgs. Kurutan the nurse also appears in episode 8 (The Fortunate Ones / Missing Hearts), which gives several important keys as for Motoko’s past. Kurutan’s comment that Motoko hasn’t even bothered to come over when she has asked her refers to chapter 3 of the manga.

My next two posts will be about Major Kusanagi’s sexuality as seen in her relationships with Batou and Hideo Kuze. In the meantime, I’d suggest you to read Haruki Murakami’s On seeing the 100% perfect girl one beautiful April morning, if you have it at hand. It will help a lot to understand the last episode of the S. A. C. 2nd GIG. The Book of Genesis will, too.

The Laughing Man and Glico-Morinaga Case

Now it’s time to talk about the first season of the TV series, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. Each of the 26 episodes is marked as C or SA, which means that it is either Complex or Stand Alone episode. The SA episodes develop various storylines that are not connected to the main plot, while C episodes center on the Laughing Man story.

Like the Individual Eleven affair of the second season, the Laughing Man episodes were published as an OVA with minor alterations as for the plot timeline. Again, the voice cast is different in the United States and Canada release of 2007.

Told briefly, the essence of the Laughing Man case is as follows. Cyberbrain, which became a very ordinary thing in the reality of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, was soon affected by various malfunctions, including those caused by the so-called cyberbrain sclerosis. A genius hacker finds an internal memo stating that a tuberculosis vaccine is very effective in curing it. However, expensive therapy using micro-machines is lobbied by powerful corporations who want to profit from it. The hacker kidnaps the CEO of Serano Genomix and on line TV threatens him with a gun in order to force him to admit ineffectiveness of the micro-machines. All the electronic devices are simultaneously hacked so that the face of the Laughing Man is covered with a logo featuring Salinger quotation. Serano Genomix CEO refuses to tell the truth even at gunpoint and the Laughing Man has to retreat. Information about the tuberculosis vaccine remains secret.

Soon corporate terrorism and blackmail attacks follow, all of which use the Laughing Man logo. However, these are not carried by the same person. Quite on the contrary, they are part of a stock manipulation scheme, which aims at forcing the government to rescue the targeted micro-machine corporations. Investigation of the case led by Section 9 ends with the downfall of the Prime Minister.

The events of the Laughing Man saga within the Stand Alone Complex can be fully grasped and correctly interpreted only in the light of the so-called Glico-Morinaga case, which shocked Japan in the eighties. In March 1984 Katshuhisa Ezaki, the president of Glico, was kidnapped by armed men wearing caps. The criminals held Ezaki in a warehouse and issued a ransom demand for 1 billion yen and 100 kilograms in gold bullion. A few days later, Ezaki managed to escape. However, this event unchained a whole series of extortion attempts by the group calling itself “The Monster with 21 Faces”. Soon they attempted to rob the House Foods Corporation and blackmailed Morinaga, Marudai Ham and Fujiya. Police believed to follow the leader of the group on his heels. The chief suspect was nicknamed Fox-Eyed Man. The failure to capture him led the police superintendent of the Shiga prefecture Yamamoto to the suicide by self-immolation. Until now, the case remains unresolved.

To be sure, the Laughing Man storyline within the Stand Alone Complex plot is an attempt to make sense of the shocking Glico-Morinaga experience, which dispelled the image of crime-free Japan. However, it is also deeply impregnated with allusions to Salinger’s work. However, I’ll write about it in detail some time later.

S. A. C. 2nd GIG — Trivia

I look through my Moleskine, where I have been taking notes on S. A. C. 2nd GIG and feel like I have to write another post about it. The point is that the series has a lot of trivia, which constitute important background for the storyline but seem meaningless or unimportant for us westerners. In episode 19 (Chain Reaction of Symmetry) the refugees move away from Japan to Dejima. They want to proclaim it autonomous region. They need to have a place that would belong to them, a home that they could call their own.

Actually, Dejima, where much of the ensuing action develops, is a very interesting place. Just imagine, it’s a fan-shaped artificial island, built in 1634 in the bay of Nagasaki (the city that would later survive the second world’s atomic bomb attack). The office of Nagasaki Magistrate was on the adjacent hill, and the fan-shape was considered best to allow visual inspection of the island directly from the office. Why the island was built, is even more interesting. During the Edo period, Japan accepted the policy of Sakoku, self-imposed isolation that lasted from 1641 to 1853. The first inhabitants of Dejima were Portugese relocated there in order to stop their missionary efforts. In 1641 the inhabitants of the Dutch trading posts in Hirama were also resettled to Dejima. For the next two centuries, the fan-shaped island was the only gate of Japan to the wide world.

In episode 20 (Confusion at the North End / Fabricate Fog) Section 9 is dispatched to the Etorofu island. Etorofu is the Japanese name of Iturup, the largest of the South Kuril Islands. Since the end of the World War II these islands belong to Russia, but Japan refuses to admit that the occupation of Iturup and other South Kuril Islands by the Soviet Army in 1945 corresponds to World War II agreements. In S. A. C. 2nd GIG Etorofu is pictured as belonging to Japan. Moreover, there is a scene where people in the street kill a Russian shouting: “Death to the occupants!” A grim picture, really.

S. A. C. 2nd GIG — Allusions

Quite obviously, S. A. C. stands for the Stand Alone Complex. As for 2nd GIG (Sekando Gigu in Japanese), there are two interpretations: it may be the American word gig meaning job, or else may stand for Global Information Grid, communications network in the United States Department of Defense.

I’ve just seen the whole series and have made quite a lot of observations in the process. First of all, I noticed that Kenji Kamiyama, Mamoru Oshii and their team of staff writers delight in paying tribute to their favorite movies, places, artwork and so on. In this post I will talk about a few allusions that I was able to notice.

First of all, episode 18, Angel’s Poem, finely entitled in English Trans Parent, does homage to one of my favorite films, Wim Wenders’ 1987 Wings of Desire (original title Himmel über Berlin or The Sky over Berlin). Batou instantly reminded me of Damiel, standing atop of an angel guardian statue, watching over Berlin. He is unseen for everyone except little children who stare at him. I almost heard Peter Handke’s poem so beautifully quoted in Wenders’ film: When a child was a child, it walked with its arms swinging...

Episode 2, Well-Fed Me (Night Cruise) is a tribute to Martin Scorsese 1976 film Taxi Driver with Robert De Niro as Travis Bickle. Wish to save a prostitute from the boss, the gun-play in front of the mirror, obsession with the image of Motoko, all this is enhanced by the New York City architecture in some scenes, including the Flatiron Building.

In Episode 13, Face (Make Up), the idea of an artificial face and Pazu’s quote “I never sleep with the same woman twice” refer to Vanilla Sky, a remake of the Spanish movie Abre los ojos (Open Your Eyes), the screenplay for which was written by Alejandro Amenábar. I also couldn’t help thinking about Kōbō Abe’s 1964 novel The Face of Another.

Paintings in the episode 11, Kusanagi’s Labyrinth (Affection) are by Alphonse Mucha, Czech Art Nouveau painter.

Finally, the “Jewish author”, quoted in the 2nd episode, is none other than Franz Kafka.

Individual Eleven

Events associated with Motoko Kusanagi confronting the terrorist group Individual or Particularist Eleven are central in Ghost in the Shell: S. A. C. 2nd GIG. In December 2007 Manga Video released in the United States and Canada a 160 minutes OVA. This feature-length recut of the second season summarizes the main plot of the original episodes. A good choice if one would like to see the 2nd GIG again, but not all the 9 hours. Keep in mind, however, that character voices are alternate here. Motoko is by Alison Matthews, wile in the full version of the series she is dubbed by Mary Elizabeth McGlynn.

The Individual Eleven is the title of the mysterious essay that stands behind the actions of the group with the same name. Its (fictional) author, Patrick Sylvestre, wrote a book just prior to his death. Ten essays of the book dealt with the nature of revolution. The eleventh essay, entitled The Individual Eleven, remained unpublished. It was about May 15th Incident in Japan, which the author was unable to classify as a revolution and did not allow for a wide circulation of his work.

This supposed eleventh essay by Sylvestre is actually implanted with a virus that infects all who read it. When and if a person reads ten other essays, the program forces them to commit suicide and become martyrs. Only virgins who underwent cyberization are affected. The members of the Individual Eleven, under the influence of the virus, kill each other with katanas in a bloody mass suicide shown on TV. The logo of the Individual Eleven, from top to bottom, reads 9, 10, 11. Another meaning, as kanji, is Vengeance, Infinity, Samurai.

May 15th Incident took place in 1932. At the period, Japan experienced a strong social movement toward militarism and ultra-nationalism. Many thought that democracy had to be destroyed and all the power had to be in the Emperor’s hands. On May 15th, 1932 eleven young officers of the Imperial Japanese Navy killed Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi in his residence. According to their philosophy, assassinating well-known political figures and celebrities would eventually lead to elimination of a democratic government in favor of the military control. They knew they would be severely punished, but were prepared for a self-sacrifice for the sake of the nation.

Charlie Chaplin happened to visit Japan at the same time. It is known that the original plan included his murder. During the attempted coup d’état, Chaplin was present at a sumo wrestling show together with Inukai Takeru, son to the Prime Minister. As it seems, this saved their lives.

The eleven officers were court-martialed, but 350,000 signatures in blood under a petition that pleaded for a lenient sentence testified general sympathy. Eleven youths in Niigata even sent their eleven severed fingers to the court, with a petition to execute them in place of the Navy officers.

The officers were sentenced to 15 years imprisonment. The wave of public sympathy accelerated the slide from democracy to militarism. May 15th Incident may be called an early presage of the 1941 decision to attack Pearl Harbor.

The suicide of the Individual Eleven is also reminiscent of the tragic death of a talented Japanese author Yukio Mishima. In November 1970 Mishima and his friends attempted a coup d’état in order to restore the powers of the emperor. When Mishima’s address to the soldiers in the Ichigaya military camp proved unsuccessful, Mishima committed seppuku. According to the tradition, his friend beheaded him at the end of the ritual.
Mishima's book Kindai Nohgaku Shu (Modern Noh Collection) is also considered to be the model for Patrick Sylvetre's collection of essays.