Sean Hartlieb's Blog
January 5, 2017
Blade Runner, Subliminals, and Numbers in Innocence
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While Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner served as an influence for the first Ghost in the Shell film, even more influence seemed invested into its sequel Innocence. In particular, Oshii seems to have taken inspiration from the use of eyes in Blade Runner and Roy Batty’s quest for longevity (and perhaps immortality), both channeling a possible religious subtext regarding the Buddhist’s path to Enlightenment. Although the question mainly still debated by Blade Runner fans is whether Deckard is a r...
September 25, 2016
Nazis and Nietzsche in Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence
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As noted with the Kerberos Panzer Cop series, Gosenzosama Banbanzai, and The Sky Crawlers, Oshii occasionally references German history and aesthetics. And in Innocence, there are a number of references to Germanic culture, all of them strangely interrelating with the Nazi party’s attempts at cultivating a “Hitler Youth” during World War II. Considering what Frédéric Clément theorized that Oshii perhaps took inspiration from the horror film The Exorcist in thematically invoking the nature...
August 8, 2016
On the Character Muroto Bunmei
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As evidenced from the lack of accessibility for the series on DVD, but which can still be found on Youtube with English subtitles, Gosenzosama Banbanzai is somewhat of an overlooked piece in Oshii’s body of work. Although it touches on themes Oshii has visited in his films leading up to and following the series’ creation, probably the most significant connection Gosenzosama has to Oshii’s films is the character Muroto Bunmei. In the series, Bunmei is a time traveler who intervenes in the Y...
July 18, 2016
Family Strife in Gosenzosama Banbanzai
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As a rather short lived series with a televised run of only six episodes, Gosenzosama Banbanzai (or “Glory to the Ancestors”) is for Mamoru Oshii to what Paranoia Agent was for Satoshi Kon. Not only do these works seem to result from both directors having accumulated leftover ideas and material they originally conceived for other films in the past, but which never actually made it into the final cut, they are also dark satires on the cultural shifts in Japanese society due to western influe...
July 10, 2016
Anti-Transhumanist Themes in Innocence
Amidst the various philosophies and ideologies Oshii invokes in Innocence, the one which he seems to take some subtle opposition to is secular Transhumanism. The term having originally been coined in 1957 by Julian Huxley, the brother of Aldous Huxley (author of Brave New World (1932)), Transhumanism is a doctrine of thought that argues man’s evolutionary objective is to excel beyond his physical and psychological limitations with the use of his technology. Of course, whether or not Oshii h...
July 4, 2016
Oshii’s Self-Inclusion in Innocence
One interpretation of Innocence I was the most reluctant in making centered on Oshii investing his more autobiographical sentiments into the character Batou. Typically, one should be especially cautious when making claims or assumptions as to the private life, or even psychology, of the artist in relation to what they communicate in their work. However, in order to better understand the filmmaker’s work, one has to take into consideration what might have been occurring in their personal lif...
June 26, 2016
The Floor Decor in Innocence
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In the store where Batou has his vision hacked, and the dolls’ dinner table in Kim’s manor, one might discern the black and white tiled flooring in both scenes. This checkerboard floor pattern can also be found in Angel’s Egg, especially when the “soldier” stands on the open field in the beginning as if he was a small chess piece, a bishop himself. The sole interpretation I provide in my book is the checkered flooring derives from Solomon’s Temple and hints to a relig...
June 16, 2016
The Many Reflections in Innocence
In Innocence, there are multiple scenes and several minor details Oshii seems to have set to deliberately echo against each other. Most of these are mainly distinguished in Kim’s manor, since it serves as a mirror for the film itself. However, Oshii uses these visual parallels throughout Innocence. Having written about this in my book, I felt this visual method in the film warranted a short dissection of some key sequences in order to better show the intricate use of mirror images Oshii co...
