Ghost In The Shell 2.0 (Kôkaku Kidôtai 2.0) Review

Considering the current ubiquity of mangas such as 'Pokémon', 'Dragonball Z' and 'Naruto', the acclaim heaped on the likes of director Hayao Miyazaki (Howl's Moving Castle, Spirited Away ) and the extensive availability of Japanese animation on DVD, it's hard to believe that in the 1970s and early 1980s anime only dribbled into the West in the form of things like 'Battle Of The Planets' and 'Ulysses 31'.

Things began changing in the late 1980s - specifically with the arrival on cinema screens of Katsuhiro Otomo's astonishing Akira, which reached UK audiences in 1991. The floodgates didn't exactly open, but little by little we began to have access to more quality anime. A second landmark feature anime to reach us was 1995's Ghost In The Shell.

Like Akira, Ghost In The Shell was a science fiction epic, visually stunning, and packed with ideas. This anime had its origins in a manga by Masamune Shirow, first serialised in 1989. Shirow had already seen his manga adapted into anime - Dominion: Tank Police and Appleseed - but Ghost In The Shell took things to another level.

The rights were picked up by Production I.G, a studio that had had successes with such manga adaptations as Patlabor - The Mobile Police. Mamoru Oshii, a sometime avant garde filmmaker and anime veteran, directed Patlabor for I.G and took on the Ghost In The Shell project, working with screenwriter Kazunori Itô to streamline Shirow's elaborate serial comic into an 80 minute film. The result was a masterpiece, innovative for both its visuals and its philosophical narrative.