FAQ

Several details and approach differ from the original anime. The Ghost in the Shell franchise is based off of a manga (comic), and so the films and series and even video games have all taken creative license from the original source material.

Making a live action film made certain styles and approaches to the physical rendering of the world impractical resulting in many visual differences to the new film that imbue an 80's cyberpunk feel similar to that of Blade Runner.

Another difference is that the storyline is a blend of several of the existing series, and does not follow the same storyline as the original film. Characters and back story are predominantly drawn from Stand Alone Complex 2nd gig, Stand Alone Complex, Arise and the original film.

The degree of violence and swearing in the original film is on a completely different level from the live action film. Creative camera angles obscure the genitals of the characters, and very little swearing is present in the new film.

There is no question that this is a Ghost in the Shell story, but in many ways the philosophy is simplified and the pace is much faster than the original anime.

In the Ghost in the Shell stories, the Major has a completely prosthetic body. Although written and published in Japan, the original comic and some of the series show the Major in several bodies, and at times without a body entirely. It is believed by many that the artist's rendering of her prosthetic body was deliberately ambiguous in its ethnicity, while her "ghost" (the spirit that makes up her character) is also of obscure origin. It is assumed that as the stories largely circulate in the region of Japan and East Asia, that her original form was likely Japanese, though the Major speculates at times that she may be synthetic all-together; this is all a part of the philosophy discussed in the stories.

In the live action film, the Major is given a Japanese origin for her ghost.