Although I don't watch much Japanese Anime anymore, one of my all time favourites is still Ghost in the Shell, which for me is the definitive cyber punk story. The first movie is set in the year 2029 in a dystopian Tokyo, Japan, where computers and technology have advanced to the point where human augmentation is fairly widespread. In particular, the use of brain implants and even complete electronic brain replacements have become commonplace.
The story focuses on a policewoman named Motoko, who works in a secret division of the police force known as Section 9, which specializes in cybernetic crime. Motoko is a lethal weapon produced by the government; her entire body is synthetic, so she is strong, fast, and capable connecting with computers making her a hacker of insurmountable skill. In the movie, Section 9 discovers that a highly skilled hacker is hacking the electronic brains of important business leaders and government officials. After thorough investigation, Motoko finds that the hacker is in fact not a hacker at all, but a computer program that has attained sentience through exposure to the immense data communications network of the time, an extrapolation of today's internet.
The movie puts the viewer face-to-face with a feasible near future, and poses uncomfortable questions about where our love of technology is taking us, and what exactly it means to be Human or even simply alive. These are familiar questions to those who are well read in Philosophy, but framed in a setting that makes us realize their imminent relevance in modern society. And perhaps of equal importance, the movie looks very, very cool. The movie looks great, but it is more of a cerebral experience than an action-packed one, so keep that in mind when you decide to watch it, but it's a movie I strongly recommend anyone to take a look at.
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