Ghost in the Shell

(Dark Horse, 1995)
™ and ©1995 Studio Proteus

Not long from now, the world has become even more entrenched in technology and information access. Perhaps it was inevitable that human beings found their own bodies wedded to cybertechnology. Ultimately, “cyberbrain” technology allowed for the transplanting of human consciousness into mechanical bodies. Such beings became little more than human minds—“ghosts”—in mechanical shells.

Creator Matsamunu Shirow created a startling vision of the future with his movie Ghost in the Shell. Nominally, it’s a crime drama wherein a futuristic cyborg police officer searches for the killer of a prominent businessman. Below the surface, however, it’s a story of alienation and the search for identity in a world where technology strips the individual of the very things which make them human.

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