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The 2002 and 2004 anime series Ghost in the Beat: Stand up Lone Complex portrays a world where the vast majority of human beings have been transformed into things more like machines.1 Yet peradventure the most remarkable thing virtually this brave new world is how much it seems like our own. Although their bodies are enhanced and their brains networked, they still appoint in human activities. They notwithstanding read newspapers, books, and magazines, even though the written discussion has largely been replaced by digital barcodes. They sleep, fifty-fifty though they appear to have no demand to. They exercise, entirely out of habit information technology would seem, every bit they no longer take muscles to develop. They drink, no matter that they appear incapable of getting drunkard. They fifty-fifty smoke, although it is not readily credible that they even have lungs to harm by doing so.

Ane wonders for whose benefit they do such things. Is it to make them appear less strange to the remaining, nonenhanced humans? Or do they feel the need to engage in these symbolic acts to convince themselves that they are still homo? Perhaps they do it for our sake? Their simulation of homo beliefs allows us to identify with these characters even though we really accept lilliputian in common with them.

A major Hollywood film inspired by Ghost in the Shell is scheduled to be released in spring 2017. Even without this latest contribution, the universe of Ghost in the Shell is all-encompassing. It includes the original manga (Kōkaku Kidōtai), written by Shirō Masamune, and the films Ghost in the Vanquish and Ghost in the Shell: Innocence, directed by Oshii Mamoru.two The series, which was directed past Kamiyama Kenji, is readily available on either DVD or Blu-ray through Amazon.com, and the series manga (available in English) can be found in the graphic novels section of major booksellers or comic volume stores.3

Unlike other science fiction or fantasy worlds, such every bit Star Trek or Star Wars, the universe of Ghost in the Shell often lacks internal consistency. The 2 movies feature many of the same characters as the series, but the setting and action of the films are asunder from the events of the series. It is set in the Japan of 2030, although fifty-fifty in the series in that location are unexplained discontinuities between seasons 1 and ii. As the result of the Fourth World War, the population, and the political and economical center of gravity of Nippon, has shifted well to the south. In flavour 1, the new uppercase of Japan appears to be somewhere around Osaka, notwithstanding in season ii, information technology shifts to somewhere around Nagasaki for no credible reason. Exactly what became of Tokyo is never explained, but the sight of Shinjuku submerged under several hundred feet of water provides a brilliant spur to the viewer'due south imagination.

A notable thing about this rather dire-seeming future is that the setting is not overtly postapocalyptic. We see wide swathes of major urban areas that are run downwardly or abandoned. There has likewise been a large influx of "Asian" refugees into Nippon, including the vast squatter city of Dejima, which exists in view of the capital (flavour 2). Withal, the Japan portrayed in Ghost in the Beat out: Stand Lone Complex (SAC, for curt) is the familiar urban Japan of the 1990s, hypermodern but under the firm command of a triad of bureaucrats, corporate flacks, and tame politicians.4

Information technology is the Japanese themselves who are most changed in this future Japan. Having taken their penchant for early adoption of technology to extremes, we are left to ponder what they have get. SAC posits a future where human brains can exist cyberized, fitted with computer processors that allow them to network, wirelessly or otherwise, just as computers exercise. This allows for human beings to store not merely their photos and music but bodily memories in the cloud and to interact with other online consciences in a virtual universe. At the same fourth dimension, homo bodies can be partially or entirely cyborged, replaced by mechanical prosthetics giving them advanced strength, speed visual acuity, or any number of other enhancements.

Meanwhile, the development of artificial intelligence (AI) has avant-garde to the phase where computer programs have go capable of functioning entirely apart and can mimic human thought and emotions. This software can be placed in a wide assortment of robotic machines. They can take human being form, as androids and gynoids, but they can as well appear every bit autonomous drones or tanks. And it doesn't cease there. The society of SAC is a veritable smorgasbord of new technologies, including nanotech "micro-machines" and artificially generated human organs.

Perhaps the most remarkable affair of all most SAC is the entirely unproblematic style it portrays this guild populated by its mix of wired and nonwired, augmented and nonaugmented humanity living side by side with autonomous machines and robots ofttimes duplicate from humans. The serial allows usa to see what happens to a guild when the line between homo and car, already quite vague in Japan, is non so much crossed as information technology is completely obliterated.v

Precisely because of the mode it raises questions about how engineering tin transform society and ourselves without answering them, the series serves equally an excellent classroom text on the effects of technology on the human feel. And while students may respond to information technology equally an example of cutting-border anime, one of the show'due south great virtues is that it need non be confined to classes focused on Japan. The concerns it raises, the dilemmas it highlights, and the discussions it provokes can take identify in courses on philosophy, organized religion, law, politics, engineering science, and more. The 2 serial taken together contain fifty-two episodes, which is obviously too much for classroom utilize. Notwithstanding, individual episodes of the show, which are nigh xx-3 minutes long if you skip the opening and endmost credits, can be used to stimulate debate, provide physical examples of theoretical dilemmas, or simply as a "what'south incorrect with this picture" practise for students. As with all Japanese anime, information technology is embedded with cultural assumptions virtually appropriate levels of sex and violence. The content is generally not a trouble for college-level audiences, and much of it tin be used in loftier schools if selected with care.

The hero of the evidence is Major Kusanagi Motoko, who inhabits an entirely prosthetic body and has done so since she was six. She works for Public Security Department Nine, a minor, paramilitary police system designed to proactively seek out and eliminate potential threats to state security. Kusanagi's team includes former military such equally the ex-regular army ranger Batou, former police force such equally the investigator Togusa, and a wide array of talented estimator specialists (AKA hackers) such as Ishikawa. Section Ix is headed by the wily but upright Chief Aramaki. All the members of the unit have cyberized brains just vary in their other enhancements, from the almost wholly human Togusa to the fully cyborged Batou.

I have used portions of episodes vii and 24 from flavor two as material for lectures in Japanese history merely also in a colleague's political science class. The power of regime bureaucrats and the incessant infighting that takes place between rival agencies are well-demonstrated in the first of these episodes. Maneuvers betwixt political factions inside the ruling party are nicely highlighted in the latter episode. Both provide vivid examples of two bones characteristics of the Japanese political economy in bodily practise. In these clips and others, Aramaki is portrayed every bit someone very concerned most upholding justice. But the vision of justice he fights for is entirely his own. It is an abstruse ideal; it does not lie within any regime regulations, any safeguards on the abuse of regime power, or in any properly constituted potency. This, too, is representative of bones attitudes regarding the powers and privileges of many who serve in government in Japan.

Major Motoko Kusanagi, the primary protagonist of Ghost in the Vanquish: Stand Alone Complex. Produced past Production I.Thousand. Source: Just Good Vibe at http://tinyurl.com/z3llxhn.

But there is material in the series that can exist of service to more than than merely historians or political scientists. Philosophers, anthropologists, sociologists, mechanical and software engineers, calculator scientists, and teacher practitioners from other academic disciplines tin make equal apply of the textile to generate idea experiments and in-class discussions on the implications of the applied science portrayed here.6 Almost anywhere y'all choose to dip into the series, you're probable to find more than than ample grist for conversations regarding legal, ethical, moral, or ontological problems. Ii quick examples are episodes viii and 15 from season one.

Episode viii starts with Kusanagi getting current of air of a black market in 18-carat human organs. This can certainly leap-starting time a chat most the ideals of transplant surgery and the differing views on information technology in Japan and the West. Notwithstanding, the master upshot raised by the episode is the basic existential ane of what it means to be human. Now completely digitized, man consciousness tin can be loaded into whatever mechanical device with sufficient retentiveness to hold it. In the episode, we meet an extreme instance of this in the form of the president of an organ wholesaling visitor. He has entirely abandoned his trunk for a crude robot that resembles a modest refrigerator with stick artillery and legs. Confusing the matter even more is the fact that the president's principal assistant is a human-form android running an democratic AI.

The carve up between humans and nonhumans therefore is no longer determined by physical characteristics. Instead, the split up is established along spiritual lines. Humans possess "ghosts." Exactly what constitutes one's ghost is never actually explained. It doesn't seem exactly to mean soul, but it does include consciousness, identity, memory, and idea. Meanwhile, other mechanical devices possess AIs, which may have consciousness, identity, memory, and thought of their ain. So what separates the president from his robotic assistant, and Kusanagi from the "AI ladies" she works with and superficially resembles, is that one has a ghost while the others have software.

Main characters in Ghost in the Beat out: Stand Lone Complex. Left to right: Pazu, Saito, Batou, Major Matoko Kusanagi, Borma, Togusa, Chief Aramaki, and Ishikawa.
Source: Kotaku website at http://tinyurl.com/q4wpkmx

Episode 15 of the commencement series indicates that the question might exist even more complicated than information technology first appears. Kusanagi's other primal coworkers at Department Nine are the tachikomas, small robot tanks with their ain AIs. They are theoretically identical in terms of their software and continuously share "experience points" with their fellows past syncing their memories. Despite this, the half dozen tachikomas seem to evolve their own capacity for individual identity and sense of cocky. Kusanagi is initially alarmed by this development and has them booted out of the unit of measurement. Only in the final crisis of flavor 1 (episodes 24 to 26), they demonstrate a chapters for initiative, as well equally loyalty to the group and willingness to sacrifice themselves—which convinces her they should be role of the team again.

In the end then, what the show leaves us are distinctions between machines with AIs and machines with ghosts that make no meaningful difference. It provides an equally confused picture of the nature of individual identity in such a society. If your brain constantly syncs with the experiences and memories of others, which are yours, and how practise they make you, "you"? If your brain can be swapped, cloned, backed upwards, or downloaded into multiple copies, is in that location an individual left at all or just variations on a theme? The concept of the stand up lonely complex referred to in the show revolves around the challenge of maintaining a truly original thought in what has become substantially a wired hive mind.

The series also manages to treat the transformation of Japan's population into i divided betwixt augmented and nonaugmented humans in an equally simple style. Beginning, it is notable that the only people who appear to object to either the cyberization or augmentation of human beings are portrayed equally marginalized extremists or prejudiced cranks. Episode 10 of season two is adept on that betoken. The consequences of a population split by a mechanical divide between ordinary, unmodified humans and cyborgs with enhanced physical abilities, strength, endurance, ability to read digital material, etc., are raised at many points (episode six of season ii, for example) merely never seriously examined.

For me, one of the most hitting issues presented throughout the series, which cries out for critical examination without ever receiving it, is the basic issue of privacy. In an age that is not simply digital, only interconnected at the near basic and personal level, this would seem to be a paramount business concern. And withal, no one seems peculiarly upset by the routine violations of privacy that occur frequently throughout the show. If cypher else, one of the virtues of the series from my perspective is to go far very plain that turning the human being brain into a large hard drive with a loftier-speed Internet connection is simply a terrible idea. Such wired human being beings go simply as vulnerable to hacking every bit a computer. An outsider can access data or strength them to perform acts that they would non do otherwise. Instances of people being subject to just that take place almost every episode.

Obviously, criminals accept no scruples in this regard, just neither practice the authorities. The concept that something like a warrant might exist necessary or desirable before invading an private's brain—especially without any sort of informed consent—simply doesn't enter into the picture. Indeed, this issue is far more disturbing than a mere question of systematic ceremonious rights violations by the state. This sort of unwanted, intimate penetration of the individual without consent might well be conceived as a new course of rape. Episode 4 of season 1 provides another example of violations of privacy. Nano-technology "micro-machines" are being used illegally to ship literally everything the suspect sees to the authorities. For Americans, this can spark a discussion of Fourth Amendment concerns over illegal search and surveillance.

If you're still struggling to find an issue that might heighten questions for your students, try episode xi from season one. It takes places in a facility for victims of "cyberbrain airtight shell syndrome." These children have had adverse reactions to the implant of their cyberbrains. For all intents and purposes, they have grown incapable of, or just disinterested in, interacting with other humans. Instead, they retreat into their own virtual worlds or spend practically all their time inhabiting the web.7 The fact that such applied science might have agin consequences is certainly worthy of word. What is liable to get your students downright angry is the way such children are exploited past their caretakers for their savantlike capacity to programme data security firewalls and other estimator applications.

The best thing nearly this is that you tin can show this episode to students in a philosophy course, a medical ethics course, a computer technology course, a sociology course, or a number of other courses. It can generate stimulating, fruitful, and still wildly divergent discussions applicative to the various disciplines or appropriate for interdisciplinary reflection. All this highlights the utility of Ghost in the Shell as a critical text that we tin utilise to drive a chat on the nowadays and hereafter implications of these technologies. Information technology speaks to cultural differences between Nihon and the West. Information technology speaks to the diverse issues raised by the being of such a gild every bit depicted in the series. Most of all, it provides opportunities to stimulate inquiry into the implications of current trends in the development of technologies like artificial intelligence, human form robotics, and human enhancement. It allows us to take a conversation about the transforming furnishings of these technologies earlier they have the chance to transform usa.

NOTES i. Ghost in the Shell: Stand up Lone Circuitous, DVD, vii vols., directed past Kamiyama Kenji (Los Angeles: Manga Video, 2005), Ghost in the Vanquish: Stand Lone Circuitous, second Gig, DVD, 7 vols., directed past Kamiyama Kenji (Los Angeles: Manga Video, 2006).

2. Ghost in the Beat, DVD, directed by Oshii Mamoru (Los Angeles: Manga Entertainment, 1998), Ghost in the Beat: Innocence, DVD directed by Oshii Mamoru (Go Fish Pictures 2004). In that location is also a follow-up to the TV series Ghost in the Beat: Solid State Gild, DVD, directed by Kamiyama Kenji (Tokyo: Bandai Visual, 2007), and a direct-to-video serial prequel Ghost in the Crush: Arise, Blu-ray, four vols., directed by Kise Kazuchika (Tokyo: Bandai Visual 2014).

three. Kinutani Yu, Ghost in the Crush: Stand Alone Complex, 26 vols. (Kodansha Comics, 2010).

4. For a basic primer on Nihon'southward postwar political economy, run across Paul Dunscomb, Nippon Since 1945 (Ann Arbor, MI: Association for Asian Studies, 2014), ane of the Key Issues in Asian Studies series.

5. Jennifer Robertson, "Human Rights five. Robot Rights: Forecasts From Nihon," Critical Asian Studies 46, no. 4 (2014): 571–598 provides an excellent overview of the cultural differences regarding attitudes toward robots in Japan and the West.

6. A good initial reference for those with little groundwork in Japan is James D. Babb, ed., The Sage Handbook of Mod Japanese Studies (London: Sage Publications Ltd., 2015). It covers everything from justice and policing to medical ethics and more than.

seven. In this they resemble hikikomori, immature Japanese who have withdrawn to their rooms or tiny individual apartments and interact with people only on the spider web. See Michael Zielenziger, Shutting Out the Sunday: How Nippon Created Its Own Lost Generation (New York: Vintage, 2006).

PAUL E. DUNSCOMB is Professor of East Asian History at the University of Alaska Anchorage. His specialty is in modern Japanese history. His book, Japan'south Siberian Intervention, 1918-1922: "A Great Disobedience Against the People" (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2011), is the beginning comprehensive narrative on the topic in English. He is also the author of several essays on Japanese popular culture, including "Dogs, Demons, and Dai-Guard: Preserving the Peace of Tokyo in 2030," East West Connections (2006) and "Images of What Never Was to Suggest What Might Be: Japanese Popular Culture and Japaneseness" in The Dynamics of Cultural Counterpoint in Asian Studies (Albany: SUNY Albany Printing, 2014). His current piece of work focuses on the early on Heisei Period.