Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence

Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence is 2004 a follow up to the anime movie Ghost in the Shell, but not primarily a sequel.

Innocence is a movie that explores inanimate objects and representative forms as artificial life. Two different English subtitled versions are available, one version is the director's cut.


 * Directed by Mamoru Oshii. Written by Mamoru Oshii (screenplay) and Masamune Shirow (original story).

Innocence is Life. (taglines)

Opening Quote

 * If our Gods and our hopes are nothing but scientific phenomena, then let us admit it must be said that our love is scientific as well. - Tomorrow's Eve

Batou

 * But no matter how far a jackass may travel, it will never return as a horse.
 * His downfall came when his reach exceeded his grasp.
 * When talking fails, it's time to break shit up.
 * A half-assed approach just won't cut it.
 * When there is no right or wrong it's time to beat the drums and attack.
 * Just as luck appears in three, so does misfortune. Because you don't want to see it, you don't see it coming. Even if you notice it, you don't say anything. Even if you're told, you don't listen. Then boom, the end comes!
 * If the essence of life is information carried in DNA, then society and civilization are just colossal memory systems, and a metropolis like this one, simply a sprawling external memory.

Major Motoko Kusanagi

 * We weep for the blood of a bird, but not for the blood of a fish. Blessed are those with a voice. If the dolls could speak, no doubt they'd scream, "I didn't want to become human."
 * We are saddened by a bird's cry, but not a fish's blood; Blessed are those with voices. If those dolls had voices, I bet each and everyone would scream "I don't want to be a human." (Alternate translation from one of the dubbed versions)
 * "Who can gaze into the mirror without becoming evil? The mirror does not reflect evil, but creates it." (Based on the Friedrich Nietzsche quote: "He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee.") Actually based on (based on the Saito Ryokuu quote: " There is something evil about several people holding mirrors, it is not that is exposes evil; rather, it helps create evil.")

Chief Aramaki

 * Let one walk alone, committing no sin, with few wishes, like elephants in the forest. (Based on a Buddhist Poem)
 * Understanding is in principle solely based on wishful thinking.

Togusa

 * [With his head between his hands, looking to the floor after a grenade explodes near him] All I could see... were my wife and daughter's faces.
 * [Quoting the writings on the wall] Life and death come and go like marionettes dancing on a table. Once their strings are cut, they easily crumble.

Dialogue

 * Togusa: How great is the sum of thy thoughts? If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand.
 * Batou: Psalms 139, Old Testament. The way you spout these spontaneous exotic references, I'd say your own external memory's pretty twisted.


 * Togusa: His legions, angel forms, who lay entranced. Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks.
 * Batou: Now you're quoting Milton, but we are not Satan.


 * Batou: What's up?
 * Togusa: Narrow, dark stairs. What's the plan?
 * Batou: We'll take turns, I'll lead.
 * Togusa: No, I'll lead. You're so damned big, I can't cover you! [walks up the stairs, thereby forcing the lead]


 * Batou: You sure have gotten informal, Lin. Since when do you skip the "Sir"?
 * Lin: I haven't forgotten the debt I owe you.
 * Batou: The less one forgets, the less one can remember?


 * Lin: We got loyalty even in my line.
 * Batou: There's loyalty that protects secrets and loyalty that protects the truth. You cannot serve both masters, so which loyalty is yours?
 * Lin: They say there's no truth without secrets.

Other

 * Section 9 Department Chief Aramaki: I ordered you to conduct an investigation. I never said skip the paperwork and act like vigilantes. I certainly don't recall ordering you to barge into any Yakuza office. This isn't the jungle and you're not Special Forces hit men.
 * [first title cards]: In a future time when most human thought has been accelerated by artificial intelligence and external memory can be shared on a universal matrix, Batou, an agent of the elite Section 9 Security Force and a being so artificially modified as to be essentially cyborg, is assigned, along with his mostly human partner, Togusa, to investigate a series of gruesome murders.

Taglines

 * Sore wa inotchi innosensu ('Innocence is Life')
 * When machines learn to feel, who decides what is human...

Original voiceovers

 * Atsuko Tanaka - Motoko Kusanagi
 * Akio Ōtsuka - Batou
 * Kōichi Yamadera - Togusa
 * Tamio Ōki - Daisuke Aramaki
 * Yutaka Nakano - Ishikawa
 * Naoto Takenaka - Kim
 * Yoshiko Sakakibara - Haraway
 * Hiroaki Hirata - Koga
 * Masaki Terasoma - Azuma

English dub

 * Mary Elizabeth McGlynn - Motoko Kusanagi
 * Richard Epcar - Batou
 * Crispin Freeman - Togusa
 * William Knight - Daisuke Aramaki
 * Garfield Morgan - Koga, Lin
 * Richard Cansino - Man, Security 1, Wakabayashi, Yakuza 1
 * Richard LeParmentier - Kim
 * Matthew Guinness - Azuma
 * Petar Buntic - Guard, Terrorist
 * Terry Richards - Detective, Security 4, Security 5
 * Sherry Lynn - Gynoid, Rescue Girl
 * Nicholas Smith - Ishikawa
 * Jeremy Young - Forensics Man, Forensics Staff, Section 9 Member, Security 3
 * Goldie - Crab Man, Cyborg Doctor, Underwater Cyborg, Yakuza 2
 * Stephanie Sheh - Dispatcher, Girl
 * Ellyn Stern - Haraway
 * Vic Armstrong - Yakuza 4