Be Excellent To Each Other

I reckon she been cast as they're shooting it as an American movie for American people who have never heard of the manga rather than a japanese movie for a japanese audience who have heard of the manga.

Y'know, like Sarah Michael Geller in The Ring remake.

Ghost in the Shell fans can get dressed up at Uniqlo at the moment:

http://www.uniqlo.com/uk/store/feature/uq/ut/ghost-in-the-shell/

There's also a new TV series - sort of. I'm not sure I entirely understand what it is, but it looks to be a remake / re-edit of the four border films, along with some extra stuff. Maybe. Dunno.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_in_the_Shell:_Arise

I've watched Arise 1+2 and they were very good. But thus far 3 won't play with subtitles on Netflix. Which is annoying.

Gold. GOLD. Shark jumping GOLD

Here's a nice video about the art of the first film.

OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG

Well, here she is, folks.

Oh dear. It's a shame there are no Asian actors available.

Racist.

Doesn't most manga make a deliberate point of making characters not look Asian? I thought that was very much a known thing

People who cry that they haven't chose an asian for the main character are either stupid or incredibly naive. A movie is made for profit and having a recognizable actor as the lead is a very big factor in it. What where they expecting?

Oh dear.

Reverse-racism doesn't exist.

You're right, Motogo Kusanagi is a very non-Asian name.

It's almost like you have become a parody tribute act

I don't see why this isn't a problem - unless you're colourblind because you just don't see race. *rolls eyes to infinity*

Anyway, I don't particularly care about the film in of itself, I'm just interested in it from a 'whitewashing' angle. See also Gods of Egypt.

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/scarlett ... 35cb6f2e70?

It's a Japanese character in a Japanese story. If you want to remake it for a western audience then fine, but they haven't done that. They're talking about using technology to make Johansson look more Asian, which is gross.

And I have nothing against ScarJo, I'm sure she'll be fine. Just shouldn't have been cast.

Appearance, not names. Manga art styles deliberately remove identifiably Asian features.

I feel you're being deliberately obtuse here. Why are they using technology to make her look more Asian then?

Here's an article about the problem by an actual Asian.

https://mediadiversified.org/2016/04/17 ... ut-asians/

Cras is quite right. A western appearance is considered more attractive, apparently, so Anime characters are often made to look less Japanese.

I don't think Cras was supporting the casting, though.

Hello!

The one in that article seemed to miss the original GitS announcement last year. S/he should hang round here.

Don't disagree in the least Myp - making her look more Asian is crass and offensive. However, find me a single picture of Kusanagi where she looks Asian - good luck with that. Manga art styles deliberately create characters, especially female characters, that are as white as possible, large breasted, and completely lacking in typical Asian features. Now that's a potentially deep-seated racial issue among Japanese people - God it's not like Geisha's aren't powerfully fucking offensive - but at the same time if you're catering to an audience who's coming because they like Manga, what do you do? Cast Japanese people in a role that is representative of a comic character who's deliberately made to look non-Japanese?

It's a powerful clusterfuck and if the studio didn't see the backlash coming, they're idiots - but I've no idea what the properly sensitive approach would actually have been.

*cough* Anime != Manga.

Although GitS is a Manga film.

Devon Aoki is pretty hot

For those that don't know, here is a picture of Kusunagi from the recent PC game.

So she's not Asian because her eyes are big, despite her name and where she lives. Ok

Of course, I've not said she's not Asian. I've said that every representation of her, including primarily the actual source material, portrays her as not looking Asian. So picking someone not Asian to play the role isn't exactly as wild a leap as it appears on the face of it. I'm not saying it's the right choice, but on the face of it I don't think a japanese actress who looks Japanese would be right either.

This isn't as clear cut as you're making it out to be. There's no textual source material, only artwork - so going by any efforts to be faithful to the source you wouldn't pic an actress who looks Japanese.

As I said, I've no real idea about the rights and wrongs of this (though making an actress 'look more Asian' is certainly pretty offensive). I don't know what they should have done instead. Pick a Japanese person with the most caucasian features they can find? Is that any better? Or ignore the fact that Kusanagi is meant to look caucasian - but isn't that in itself pretty offensive to a genre of Japanese creativity? I have no idea.

She's also pretty much all robot, so I don't think she's meant to have much in the way of facial expressions either.

Not that that's anything to do the rest of the conversation.

To be fair, they don't really target looking like humans.

Speciesist.

Who gives a shit about Kusanagi, are Togusa and most importantly the Tachikomas in it?

No mention of Togusa or the Tachikomas yet. I'd be surprised it the weren't, though.

Book adaptations have been 'anglo-saxonified' ever since the dawn of times, but why is this now such a big deal?

I know, because it involves something nerds like, and if the internet taught us anything these last few years is that nerds are the absolute worst. Except me.

All sorts of things didn't used to be a "big deal", it's called progress.

I'm not convinced that's actually true

Also, this isn't a question of a book adaptation - words to screen is very different to pictures to screen. We already know what Kusanagi is supposed to look like.

Is this a thing I should know about? What's the best way into it?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ghost-Shell-Ats ... ag=beex-21

Avoid anything with "2.0" in the title.

If you like that, it's time to watch the two series, and then the sequels, the the four-part movie sort-of thing.

[edit]Less than £2 here: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Ghost-in-the- ... SwBLlVepYh

Be careful not to spoil the ending for yourself though.

You're not convinced because you're on the right side of the fence on this one. Do you read that many novels that weren't originally written in english?

Besides, if you're using what the character looks like originally, she doesn't look asian at all.

...I know. I've been saying that for the last page. I'm just saying here that this isn't a case of a book being 'anglo-saxonised'.

I can see them being dropped as they aren't 'gritty' enough.

I only just watched the original film for the first time recently. It is mind blowingly good. Make sure to use a good hifi or headphones, the music is a huge part of it.

I.. though Kusanagi is basically a brain in a robot body, so does it matter who plays her?

Ooh, you know what, the uni library almost certainly has that.

Ta.

You might like this: viewtopic.php?style=19&p=874758#p874758

Yes, the part of the film that this video refers to quite overwhelmed me, and I had no idea anything like that was coming. In fact, I knew practically nothing about the film beforehand other than that it was science fiction and animation.

Well, golly gee! That DVD was delivered quickly!

Ahem.

Movie trailer!

https://youtu.be/wUtG93BebJ4

Not embedded as it's borderline NSFW. The scene in the water! Yaaaaaaassssssssssssss!

Bit unsure about Batou from the brief glimpse of him... Fingers crossed it's good.

Yeah, he's not really as hulking as he needs to be.

Still, I'm not sure any human is.