CORRECTION AND THANKS: FIrst of all, thanks so much to Lady Lavender for helping me with the script for this video. Secondly, people are telling me that Motoko’s brain is actually real and not scanned. I see that that is the case for the SAC series, but for the movie, it doesn’t seem to be exactly said. Yeah, I know Batou says that there are human brain cells, but I wasn’t sure if that meant artificial cells that were scanned to work like human cells. Plus, I look at all the shots of her brain at the beginning, and it doesn’t look very human. Anyway, I’m not the expert, so I am probably wrong. Sorry about that. I hope you enjoyed the video nonetheless.

It's so prominent in the manga, even the term "ghost in the Shell", that cyborgs still have souls even though they may have few natural parts. It's what separates a cyborg from an AI. That is until Puppet Master develops an artificial ghost. It's been a while since I've seen the movie, but I didn't think they diverged on such a significant point.

"we spent so much time trying to validate the existence of a soul we thought we had, we never wondered if we were born in this world to create one in the first place.."

The only thing she has from her original body is her brain

I was always under the impression that Mikoto was a human brain in an cyborg body, a cyborg body that was a common model used.

When i watched Ghost in the Shell, I was 16 years old, and i believe it was the first movie ever that i didn't understand, I might rewatch to see what happens lol

Very well done. Apart from, of course, (as others have pointed out), Motoko's brain and spinal cord are her only original organic parts. They are not copied but are saved after a car accident she had as a child that killed her parents. There are also no "synthetic brains". Cyberbrains are shells added and affixed to naturally grown organic brains. That doesn't take away from the themes discussed in the video, but no doubt triggering to hardcore fans.

I know it's been a while since I read the manga and watched the movie, but if I remember correctly the major's brain isn't a copy. It's the only remain human body part she has left after getting into a horrible accident as a child. I could be wrong but it's what I recall. Beside that the video was really interesting.

The major still has a human brain or at least components of it. In the elevator conversation with Batou he mentions that she has human brain cells and the Major says she is not completely synthetic.

This is exactly what my dad was trying to explain to me once, I don't think he himself knew exactly what he was talking about but he was asking me if all my ideas I would share with him ,were they actually mine, he asked me are your ideas you own or did you hear them somewhere, and he asked if I ever had an original idea, and how would I even know, but I was much to young to really understand what he was saying let alone keep our conversation going

I was going to give my own argument but as it went on ultimately I fully agreed with your explanation of Maxim's idea. I find the fact that a person has the cognitive ability to think and learn from their experiences in life is enough to justify them as human, as a person. Outside forces and events may very well influence your thinking 'structure' or immediate instinct but ultimately you as a person do have the ability to reject these ideas and seek alternatives, and the specific reasons for doing so are infinite, quite literally. If you reject the current standing norm of what is considered 'human', you as a person have the cognitive ability to not only stand against this norm, but to either A: seek an alternative or B: create one yourself, like Maxim did. Appearances may be deceiving, but I do think Matoko is close enough to typical human function to be considered an independent being all her own, hence why Bato considers her worry needless. The voice she and Bato heard is easy enough to interpret as 'intuition', also referred to as a 'gut feeling'. I feel this is further supported by the fact that Bato is talking to her as if she is her own person. We've used 'the soul' as a way of helping to explain our evolution. We've grown enough as a species to question ourselves and become fully self aware and the fact that Matoko is asking herself these very same questions shows that she's not so different. It's the experiences that she is going through in the lifespan she's been given that is develops her as a person. It's no different from a teen growing to hate authority figures due to negative experiences with law enforcement in the past. That teen will think and make decisions in such a way that it goes against the authority's wishes and their actions reflect this.

Man. I wanna forget I watched GitS to watch it like it's the first time again, forget and watch like the first time again. This is one of the most culturally significant visionary and beautifully poetic piece of culture that influenced my entire life and I love it dearly. It dared to pack a profound philosophical message into a high octane jaw breaking action flick and it's just... I'm happy to live in this timeline during the time when it already exists and still fondly remembered by many is what I'm trying to say.

Once that montage of Matoko played and she saw herself, I knew this movie was super special

I was looking forward to watching this video, but I guess I'll go watch that movie first.

One of the miraculous things about this movie is that it somehow never feels like the philosophical weight of it's concept is forced on the viewer. Too many movies try too hard to be deep. GitS has a feeling of effortlessness to it. I think a lot of that is probably due to the meditative quality of the musical score, the art direction, and probably the shot direction. The calmness of the body of the film helps punctuate the action scenes at the beginning and conclusion.

Thanks again for the upload Max, I really enjoy the fact that you add your own perspectives to the artworks that you examine. Many of these franchises have multiple videos breaking it down on KZfaq so a lot of material has been covered, yet you still shine light on new areas and ideas I haven’t seen before which is great!

Awesome analysis, gave me the chills. Thanks Max, I needed some existential insight today.

Man it must have been at least 5 or 6 years since i last watched the first movie. this calls for a rewatch

Awesome analysis, had like three before yours after I rewatched 1995 and 2017 👌 1. Story 8/10 2. Aesthetics 9/10 3. Impact/Impression 8/10 = 25/30 for me, def one of the A-Category Anime Movies Next to Akira & Mononoke ✌️

I've recently rewatched the first movie and I haven't seen any sequels yet so maybe it all gets answered later on but here's my impression. Motoko and the Puppet master are two sides of the same paradox coin. Motoko has a physical origin as a full fledged human (or so we're told) but replaces so many parts of her physical body that she doesn't even know if she's defined as human anymore. The Puppet master is the opposite, a program with no physical copy that started getting an emergence of consciousness and now tries hard to define himself as human. The paradox is "what it means to be human" so I don't think that Nietzsche detour really helps us here (not that it's completely irrelevant). The movie gives two very definite conditions: Death and Procreation. The paradox comes from the fact that even in the face of our own mortality people will still get together to give birth to a third individual entity destined to die as are they. Logically it doesn't make sense or has a "purpose". The Puppet master wishes to overcome his nature and be a true living being by conducting these processes, like a checklist, and has singled out Motoko because he became aware of her existential pondering. A body looking itself in the mirror. The boat scene could be Motoko or the puppet master speaking but I think you read too much into it on your take, Max. That's my two cents and I know I'm late, take care 😅

I appreciate the amount of thought you put into your videos, it shows.

My understanding of it is that there are two ways to make a cyberbrain One is from a living human and the other is from scratch. In the case where you're making it from a living human I'm pretty sure they use nano machines to convert the nerve cells in the brain into neural circuitry which is why a brain with neural circuitry is called a cyberbrain

This video and the most profound moment in the history of animated film, are some of my most favorite works from you.

Very interesting take. I love stories like this. Deus Ex is a prequel to this kind of story IMO. the beginning of mixing humanity and the digital world.

Profound As Always Max, Great Work on the video!

Great video Max, my dude. And good on you to honorably cite and plug other people’s quotes, content and such. You must have been a great essay writer in high school lol. Keep up the good work pal.

Max, I’ve been meaning to write you an in-depth comment about what your videos have meant to me over the past few months. I’m a writer who’s been in a rough spot for a long time recently in my private life, and it’s been difficult finding motivation. Your videos have been a bright spot in that. Your chosen topics, from Jungian philosophy to the dilemmas of the (over)Information Age, are all things I’m interested in, and as a creative, it’s wonderful to see all these interconnected topics dissected through a narrative lens. Particularly, working on a horror novel right now with a Jungian bent, this channel feels custom made. Even when I suspect I may disagree with you I greatly respect your thorough and objective analysis, free from emotional bias. This video finally got me to comment because I have to ask if you’ve ever heard of the technology singularity? I’m sure you have by now, but specifically if you’ve read anything by Ray Kurzweil such as Age of Spiritual Machines or The Singularity is Near? So many of the topics you touch on are explored. It should be a wealth of insight for you.

I hope people don't get unbelievably frustrated at this, especially since I am a die hard fan of all Sci fi media, I didn't know at all what the main plot was in this until I got to the very end. I had no idea what was happening, or what a ghost was

There still would have been all those movies without Ghost in a Shell

A solid take on the staple. Good job. Idk, if you knew, but we shape our memories to our inner narrative. You can implant and alter memories of others, merely by suggestion, to the point of completely reversing them. Research on human memories shows a funky picture of not really a solid record similar to hard drive, but one more like a story telling. Also, to the point of who's thinking who, research shows that we can know what your thoughts are seconds before you do. So it seems that thoughts are really an input of our consciousness, not an output.

I've been such a long time fan of yours and I can't believe I haven't seen the most iconic story analysis yet by you.

Just finished watching The complete stand-alone complex ( Gigs 1 & 2 ) this video has certainly provided some food for thought, all I can say is the ghost in the shell from what I've watched this far, including the first film many years ago, is that's it touches upon so many themes elements, even things that touch upon things we take for granted in modern day life, if anything the stand-alone complex series felt quite ahead of its time, what I will say is though is that the first gig feels far closer to the first film in terms of it themes, alas I'm a simple man, so I probably need to rewatch the series again & film for better analysis, there's an awful lot to take in & digests on a first outing, hopefully my comment will make some sense, I found a particular episode to be very relevant during the first gig, where weapons developer in plants his mind into a robot tank, I can't remember the name or number of the episode, but that was probably one of my favourites, due to how to handled the subject matter, again again it's pretty complicated and I'm not the best person to explain it. If you've got this far, thank you for reading 🙂

Depending which cannon you look at Motoko Kusanagi’s brain is a human brain. In SAC she was a small girl involved in an aircraft accident and she was so badly injured her brain was placed into a cyborg body, apparently the first such case. Kuze being the 2nd person placed into a cyborg body. IN the latter prequel Kusanagi was supposed to have been an unborn baby, whose parents were involved in an accident and in order to save the baby, the brain was transplanted into a cyborg. In that case she was the first unborn brain placed into a cyborg. While not clear the 2nd scenario may be the one used in the original movie.

The puppet master reminds me of the replicants from Blade runner.He is a collection of memories, experiences, and knowledge from the world wide web that were assembled into a cybernetic body to form a individual.The replicants are artificially produced humans with a set of real peoples memories implanted into there brains to form a individual.In both circumstances we have individuals formed from a ensemble of other people. Its easy to see how both would suffer a identity crisis like Rachel from BladeRunner and Motoko from ghost in the shell.

This is a amazing documentary you did! Love the Ghost In The Shell analysis you did!

love your ideas and video essays

I like the fact that you pointed out towards the end of the video the duality nature of what we perceive as reality not only in the movie but also in the universe itself, and connected that with the duality we see in religion, the good and evil, a perfect balance. It's also one of the fundamental principles in science and cornerstone of modern physics, the Conservation of Energy principle!

I heard that theory in regards this movie somewhere before, or perhaps always thought this way, never the less, an excellent video. Thank you.

I really enjoyed your analysis, there was clearly a lot of thought and time invested into this video. I only understood a fraction of this.

Yes.

This really made me think. Loved the vid

Amazing. Great breakdown!

amazing video man!

MGS, Spec Ops, GitS you hit all of my fav, thanks bro

Thanks for the video!

very good, Deleuze's gravitas is a cool way of lookibng at this

This whole anime and its concepts strike that of Philip K. Dick and his works. He questioned reality all the way up until his death just before Blade Runner was released and it was based on his book "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep". I love this anime and have since I saw it back in 1998 when I first bought the VHS tape while stationed at Hill AFB, UT. I remember first seeing the poster for it while in tech school at Shepard AFB, TX in Wichita Falls, TX in 1997 and wondered what it was then found out. Great video I liked it a lot.

Wonderfully done video

Great video! Thank you very much.

I'm sorry if I'm wrong, but I was always under the impression that Motoko is not entirely a robot. Specifically, her brain is literally the only original part, or her consciousness was transfered from her original brain to her current shell, hence her identity crisis, since nothing in her current body is organic, she begins to questions what it is to be "alive" and to be "human". I'm explaining this because, from what's said at the beginning of the video is that she's entirely fabricated, which I believe wouldn't make much sense with the whole merging thing near the end of the film (pointlessly vague to avoid spoilers for a 24 year old movie).

Oh god, hotly anticipated, lol. Very good video though. Love it

I watched this for the first time last night and I am happy that I found your video.

I had not seen the movie until today, all because of you, thank you😀

I subbed before you delved into silent hill. When you just started differently wired, & right around when you released the metal gear profound bit. Just saying. I like you good sir. I enjoy how you dissect things. Your mind is interesting, just thought I'd share that.😎 keep it up my man. You're a good person.

I'm so happy w this vid and I just started watching😂

Fantastic video! Would love to see a video about the Mass Effect Trilogy, especially the third one. I think it drew a lot from Ghost In The Shell!

Fantastic analysis.

The original matrix book touches on a quite a few issues prevalent in GITS before ghost in the shell was even present in the community yet the matrix movie which was directed by two different people take large inspiration from ghost in the shell. Pretty amazing how it all goes full circle

I think therefore I am makes more sense when you understand that the Majors brain is the only thing she has left of her original body. Which makes the whole Puppet Master arc more prominent due to the PM being able to access the Majors only safe haven. Her brain. Which then forces the Major to ask those questions on what's real and what's not.

Awesome analysis.

Man did i get sad when you mentioned AnimeEveryday, i really miss him, he created so many great videos. I hope that one day he will come back.

Thank you

Loving all the transhumanism stuff! Been waiting for this one for a while. Also, since it's so early: Dude, you are one of my favorite KZfaqrs. You opened me up to accepting myself when I found out I was on the spectrum, and have taught me some of the most practical and easily understood ways to decode my own behavior, and then explain it to others in a way that sounds less like a DSM-V excerpt and more candid explanation. Your example has made me feel much more confident that my interests, skills and values are something that the world will value and that I'll survive in the long run in a society where I might be the outlier. Plus, you are a huge nerd about literally all of the stuff I like, AND you are amazing at analyzing literary/narrative theory, symbolism, and psychological theory. Your humility, humor and shrewd language makes me feel like I'm in a college class any time I watch your videos. The level of research you go into and the perspectives you offer are fresh and so in depth because you draw parallels more people never would have explored so carefully. Thank you so much for everything you've done!

Very good, getting right to the core

I was always thinking that GITS style "cyberbrains" were human brains, still very much alive, put into mechanical casings with life-support units. This is seen several times throughout the series and movies, where cyberbrains come with small pumps and whatnot that seem to circulate blood and oxygen.

Thank you.

Thing about the ocean is that life went from prokaryotic to eukaryotic, that's the mystery that I hope gets solved in my life time. You got me into some deep thinking, this was an excellent video as always dude.

+1 for the background OST

Thank you so much :)

Super interesting!

You ever notice how striking Matoko's eyes are? I don't know if that means anything, but it might

Nice!

"dim image in a mirror then... face to face" is from the Bible.

good video *purrs and cheers*

when you mentioned the angel appearance I was confused because I recently had just watched the movie in theaters and didn't see that part. I checked on amazon video and for some reason the newer versions of this movie had removed the angel entirely, it just showed the feathers falling down

Cool ass video max

Great, now i only have more questions. At least the movie is free on KZfaq so i can rewatch it until I really don’t understand anymore, thanks for the video

That's why you should use GNU/Linux and the terminal, cause for now there is nothing closer to a merger between man and machine than the terminal. Great video :)

9:43 "There is no ghost in the shellt.." Years later @ microsoft hq Bing : I'm not Bing. I'm Sydney...

This was good.

Descartes arrived at his famous tautology while in the throes of a even more terrifying question, namely “what is real?” His answer was “I” - personhood, identity. This analytical responds stands in stark contrast to som eastern traditions, where self is an illusion. My intuition is that neither is wholly correct, if there is a single correct view.

She had me at the very first moment I got to see her big purple eyes!! Awesome film from beginning to end! Masterpiece!

Can we expect a video about Serial Experiments Lain someday?

Before video: "Yeah, I understand the GITS movie pretty well." After video: "Bruh..."

Superb 👍

What is the background music that is heard for the most part of the middle of the video? It's probably from the soundtrack but I can't really figure it out. From 9:00 onwards for a while.

I'd like to say this is a great video even with slight inaccuracies. The brain thing is funny that people are knit picking because even though the cyberbrain is partially organic (you can see it with the hacked woman at the beginning that there's a life support system going to her brain) its still mostly synthetic. Also the ending and the puppetmaster make it quite clear that that organic matter isn't essential and thats kind of the point of the film in some ways. HOWEVER... Uhm actually the tachikoma tanks were created for the TV show, the tank in the movie is just a smart tank and not a tachikoma or a fuchikoma (basically a tachikoma but from the original manga). Not that any of that is really relevant

The themes of science, identity and rapidly growing technology are still very interesting and scary, they only grow more relevant with age. Good manga, but one of those extremely rare cases where I actually like the movies and tv series better 😅

good stuff

Nice upload.

good video

what Ghost in the Shell video was that at the end with the little red Tachikoma?

I would just like to point out that DeCartes' famous statement, "I think therefore I am," is actually a logical fallacy called circular reasoning: DeCartes is assuming what he's trying to prove. The argument seeks to prove Decartes' existence: "therefore I am," but that phrase is preceded by the statement, "I think," in which Decartes is presupposing his own existence with the pronoun "I." By saying "I think," Decartes is assuming he exists in the first place when he is trying to prove his own existence... if that makes sense. Most people actually miss this, and I'm not sure what effect this realization would have on this movie... it might actually refute the whole movie and demonstrate it had a faulty starting premise...

Jeeeeeeeeeez I don’t think imma go to sleep tonight

Ghost in the Shell, watching it right now.

I love ghost in the shell my son had me watch it with him it's one of the only anime series i like im not into most of the anime cartoons that ben watches but i do like cowboy bebop and ghosts in the shell and death Note just to name a few

That was very insightful. GitS 1995 is one of my favorite movies ever. And despite having been dissected by many people in the past, you managed to offer some new perspectives on it. Thanks Max. I rewatch this masterpiece at least once or twice a year and it still fascinates me just as much as it did more than 10 years ago when seeing it for the first time.

would be cool if you played any of the Shin Megami Tensei series or could be either one of the Persona Saga, but i would like more to see your input at least on Shin megami tensei Nocturne AKA Lucifer's Call. Also yes, SMT Nocturne is the game of the "Featuring Dante from the Devil May Cry series" meme

I will remind you the Cyberpunk series did exist before Ghost in the Shell, though I suppose 2077 does owe some thanks to it.

Don't know if this matters, but listening to the Japanese version with subtitles, you can hear how the Japanese pronounce her name. They don't accent individual syllables in words or names the way we do. So, for example, if we in America say "mo TO ko," they say "Mo To Ko." If we say "ku sa NA gi," they say "Ku Sa Na Gi." Or if we say, "Ba to," they say "Ba To." I only mention it because I've watched a bunch of these Ghost in the Shell analyses now, and it doesn't seem like any of our commentators are aware of how the Japanese names are spoken by the Japanese. As a matter of fact, in the Japanes version, her last name is spoken first: "Ku Sa Na Gi Mo To Ko." If you try saying it a few times til it comes naturally, if creates a very different feel.