Ghost in the Shell

Ghost in the Shell (攻殻機動隊, Kōkaku Kidōtai, Mobile Armoured Riot Police) is a Japanese science fiction manga created by Masamune Shirow. He followed it up by Ghost in the Shell 2: Man/Machine Interface and more recently by Ghost in the Shell 1.5: Human Error Processor. The manga is notable for the proliferation of footnotes and commentary by Shirow himself on both the technology and the socio-political background of the setting (in the complete, E... more

Ghost in the Shell (攻殻機動隊, Kōkaku Kidōtai, Mobile Armoured Riot Police) is a Japanese science fiction manga created by Masamune Shirow. He followed it up by Ghost in the Shell 2: Man/Machine Interface and more recently by Ghost in the Shell 1.5: Human Error Processor. The manga is notable for the proliferation of footnotes and commentary by Shirow himself on both the technology and the socio-political background of the setting (in the complete, English language graphic novel edition, these take up more than 30 pages). The overarching story of the manga is of Major Motoko Kusanagi's hunt for a cyber-criminal, The Puppeteer (known as The Puppet Master in the film), whose real identity is unknown. The Puppeteer commits a large number of crimes through a single modus operandi: "ghost hacking", that is, breaking into and taking control of human minds. As the agents of Public Security Section 9 start to unravel the mystery of the Puppeteer, it becomes clear that it is no ordinary criminal,... less