Mamoru Oshii’s Ghost in the Shell, Patlabor 1 and 2 - The Coup Trilogy - Anime Analysis
Loose Connections
(Major Spoilers Ahead!)
Mamoru Oshii’s definative style is unique in anime. The subjects of our relationship with technology, society’s eternal recycling and reinvention, beurocracy versus individual agenda, and the struggle between love and duty all woven into engaging cop stories with sympathetic villains add bottomless depth to a oftentimes shallow and saccharine genre. Oshii shares all these themes with the audience through a dreamy yet hyper-realistic form of filmmaking.
Progress is unstoppable in Oshii’s world. The heroes of his stories embrace the new technology while his villains are bad by-products of it. Noa loves Labors, Goto hides the labors from harm, and Motoko dives into the Puppet Master, while Ehoba leaves a virus in death, Tsuge destroys Japan’s communications, and the Puppet Master is a rogue program/lifeform born of the net. Technology and its struggle to advance without complication is paramount to the trilogy.
The future is hidden in the past. Oshii has a flare for giving destitute environments a metaphorical twist that throws them into the near-future. Newport City’s buried in old signs as in a sea of information that is the net, Tokyo is constantly tearing down and building up over the rubble, and South East Asia’s Buddha as a government that has abandoned those in need. The visuals are stunning and their contradictions give them as much personality and complexity as any character can possess.
Many of Oshii’s greatest battles are fought in board rooms. The protagonists are in a constant wrestling match with their superiors that must answer to the beurocracy. Asuma is suspended for rogue investigations, Goto and Nagumo both resign in the face of ignorant government officials, and the internal backstabbing between Sections 6 and 9 leaves Motoko no choice but to merge with the Puppet Master. The individual is always right and willing to gamble away everything as opposed to the safe, ineffective committee.
Though not always obvious the love story is central to all three films. Noa’s love for labors, Tsuge’s and Nagumo’s tragic affair and the fallout from it, and the crush the Puppet Master ahs on the Major. These love subplots are as irrational as real-life love. They all defy logic and the characters responsibilities to their friends and duty as an officer of the law. Love’s weird.
Oshii easily sucks us into his world with his artful visuals and keeps us there with his important messages and metaphor. The subtleties of emotion that he can orchestrate are unprescedented for a cartoon. The themes hinted at above will leave you thinking which doesn’t happen too often in cinema and especially anime.
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