Science SARU’s The Ghost in the Shell anime, which adapts Masamune Shirow’s acclaimed sci-fi series, started airing on July 7. The first episode has already garnered much praise for its faithful adaptation of the original manga’s tone and humor, offering a very different take on the series compared to famous past entries like Mamoru Oshii’s 1995 theatrical film.
In a recent interview with WIRED Japan, the new anime’s director Mokochan – who happens to be debuting as a director with The Ghost in the Shell – talked about how he approached the adaptation, including the somewhat unusual ways he interacted with the source material over the course of roughly a year and a half.
Mokochan says both Shirow and Oshii’s Ghost in The Shell “pried open” something inside him and “fundamentally altered his perspective on the world” when he first encountered them in his youth. Being such a big fan of the series himself, and well aware of peoples’ incredibly high expectations of the new project, he knew that if he did a bad job, he’d “get torn apart.”
Describing the approach he ultimately decided on for the adaptation, Mokochan says, “If I had to sum it up in one word, I’d call it itako art.” Itako refers to trained female mediums, traditionally blind, said to be able to communicate with spirits and Shinto divinities. Mokochan is, of course, exaggerating with this term, but he explains it as “trying to achieve spiritual communion with the original creator” and stepping outside of the territory of reason.
While Mokochan has never actually met Shirow in person, he says that through reading the original Ghost in The Shell manga over and over, he gradually formed an image of the author in his mind.
“I would pray to this imaginary version of Shirow that emerged from my reading of the manga. Then, after about three days, the answer would just quietly appear. At that point, it no longer mattered whether the answer came from my own inner thoughts or from my interpretation of the source material. That’s what I mean by spiritual communion.”
On the other hand, the production was supported in a more analytical and intellectual manner by scenario writer EnJoe Toh, whom Mokochan describes as having profound knowledge of Ghost in The Shell’s world and technology.
Together, they treated the original manga as “scripture” as they worked to faithfully adapt it. “EnJoe said the original manga is the kind of book that reveals new discoveries every time you revisit it as you get older, and I completely agree,” Mokochan says. “Just because I don’t understand something now, at 33, doesn’t mean I can just casually say, ‘Do we really need this part?’ I refuse to treat anything depicted in the original as if it never happened. Even if something doesn’t appear on screen due to practical constraints like runtime, I ensure it still ‘exists’ somewhere outside the frame.”
Following this reasoning, Mokochan decided that his take on The Ghost in The Shell would allow adjustments and embellishments specific to the anime medium, but would not allow events originally depicted in the story to be altered.
The Ghost in The Shell anime is airing now via Prime Video.
