Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (2004)

NOT SO INNOCENT An anime that blurs the line between man and machine

The title Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence is a brain banger. But as sci-fi nomenclature goes, it's easy to read—no twistier, certainly, than Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. And really, Mamoru Oshii's anime sequel to his 1995 Ghost in the Shell is not so far removed from Sky Captain's obsession with the shifting borders between humanity and machinery. We're all wired, this lavishly drawn, pop-savvy specialty act suggests (Ghost's animation house, Production I.G, also worked on Kill Bill -- Vol. 1). And we're all liable to blow our circuits -- as even a novice to animestyle philosophy can understand. Here it's 2032, and the time has come when it's not easy to distinguish 100 percent carbon-based life-forms from the androids and cyborgs who retain remnants -- ghosts -- of human selfhood in their systems. So the investigators sent to sort out the malfunctioning droids running amok are themselves hybrids: Batou is mostly cyborg, Togusa is mostly human. But since both are made with the DNA of the Tokyo-born Oshii, they're both gogglingly original.