Video — Consumed

1995 · Mamoru Oshii

Ghost in the Shell operates on multiple registers simultaneously. On the surface, it's a procedural about Section 9 tracking a ghost-hacking criminal. Beneath that, Oshii constructs a philosophical meditation on identity and consciousness that predates The Matrix by four years but asks far more interesting questions. The film's visual language—Kenji Kawai's haunting score layered over long, contemplative shots of a rain-soaked future Tokyo—creates space for genuine reflection rather than spectacle.

The animation holds up remarkably well, particularly in its treatment of the Major's thermoptic camouflage and the film's action sequences. But what makes it essential is how Oshii uses the medium to externalize internal questions. When the Major asks whether her ghost—her consciousness—is truly her own or simply programming, the film's hybrid of hand-drawn animation and early CG becomes the perfect vessel for that uncertainty. The final sequence, where human and AI merge into something new, remains one of anime's most compelling visual arguments about post-human evolution.

This is the film that proved anime could handle complex philosophical material without sacrificing its visual inventiveness. It influenced everything from The Matrix to Ex Machina, but none of its descendants have matched its patience or its willingness to sit with difficult questions about what makes us human.