Director's Dreamscape

Written by: Carl Gustav-Horn

"When I was twenty-six," Oshii says, when asked how he got into animation at a panel discussion during his tenure as a guest at a U.S. anime convention, "I was out of work, just walking the streets, when I bumped into a telephone pole and saw an ad, 'animators wanted.'" Oddly enough, as an anime director, Oshii made history relative early in his career, with the first of the OAVs — 1983's Dallos ^[1] — and through directing episodes of the Urusei Yatsura TV series, but really made a name for himself through distinctive motion pictures, such as the Urusei Yatsura movie, Beautiful Dreamer (1984). Although it strayed rather far from Rumiko Takahashi's own vision of her characters, the vivid, hallucinogenic experience that is the Oshii UY nonetheless placed on many "Top Ten" anime film lists in the 1980's. ^[2]

Angel's Egg (1985) was another early artistic success, about which the 1986 edition of Genkosha's Animation Video Collectors Guide commented, "This is animated art rather than story. It could be brought to a Soho gallery theater." A good example of the level of experimentation in the then-young OAV format, Angel's Egg is a cryptic visual feast, featuring delicate and fantastical designs by Yoshitaka Amano (Vampire Hunter D, Final Fantasy RPG designer). The story follows the meanderings of a fragile waif and her "egg," which she believes contains an angel. She is met during her travels by a soldier carrying a crucifix-like weapon on his back, and the two travel the blasted landscape until the frustrated soldier tires of the mystery and breaks open the girl's egg, which is then shown to contain nothing. Though Angel's Egg has almost no dialogue, the film's complex allegorical symbolism — the end of the film featured, among other things, angels rising from the sea into heaven — had nearly everyone who had ever seen it scratching their heads in confusion.

These works already exhibited the elements that would preoccupy Oshii in his career: the symbolic language of dreams, the emergence of reality amidst dreaming, and an epigrammatic use of the Bible.

"I'm not a Christian, but I've been reading the Bible since my student days," Oshii says. "I use it as a prototype for my stories; not for religious reasons, but for ideology and literary inspiration." Oshii's "auteur" reputation no doubt had something to do with mecha and character designer Yutaka Izubuchi (Patlabor, Record of Lodoss War) being initially reluctant to take on the unusual Oshii as director for his nascent Patlabor project in 1988; reluctance was quickly left behind, however, as Patlabor became a success as two OAV series, a TV show, and as two theatrical features. ^[3] In fact, it was Oshii's detailed and intense signature style in 1993's theatrical Patlabor 2 which led to his being tapped to direct the anime adaptation of Masamune Shirow's cyberpunk manga Ghost in the Shell.

But shortly before Patlabor 2 and Ghost, Oshii also produced one of his more obscure works — Talking Head, a live-action video which also contains brief spurts of anime footage à la anime mockumentary Otaku no Video, featuring character designs by none other than Macross' Haruhiko Mikimoto. The story of an animation studio torn apart by a murder mystery, the film is a kind of dark art, and confirms that if Mamoru Oshii were not an animation director, he would surely be Japan's analog to David Lynch.

"I really liked the original story of the Ghost," Oshii says simply, when asked to explain why he chose to direct the Ghost movie, "—but most of all, when I was directing the Patlabor films, they possessed a common theme, and I wanted to do more stories of the kind, and when the subject matter of Ghost came up, it was perfect."

Reminiscent of the recent slew of futuristic "hacker" movies such as Johnny Mnemonic and Strange Days, ^[4] Ghost in the Shell depicts a near-future world where computerization has revolutionized society into a cybernetic dreamscape, in which augmented humans live in virtual environments watched over by VR agents; law enforcers are able to download themselves to catch cyber criminals; and the ultimate secret agent of the future is not human, but a virtual reality being, secretly created by the government. Known as "The Puppet Master," it has no physical body, and can freely travel the information highways of the world, hacking and manipulating as required... until the prototype agent decides that it has the right to live a physical life. It appears and makes a demand for asylum— when it is refused, it just as quickly disappears. But how do you capture a being that is nothing more than a ghost...?

Like Appleseed, another techno-fetishistic series by Shirow, the Ghost in the Shell manga teems with brain-numbing new technology and addresses a similar theme — that the very tools it creates is forcing mankind to evolve into a new kind of being capable of living in the kind of world it has itself produced. The main character, Major Motoko Kusanagi, is a cybernetic being, almost completely artificial, who can "jack" herself into machines and other cyborgs in order to ferret out crimes. This continual out-of-body experience is the theme of the title itself — that the human mind is the "ghost," and that the host body, even that not your own, is but a "shell." Despite critical concern that Oshii's cerebral sensibilities could only serve to further obfuscate Shirow's notorious lack of narrative clarity, others seem to feel that the creative talents of the two made for a perfect match.

Oshii's approach to the Ghost material was to gleefully cut whatever did not apply to that desired theme — the pod-like personal robots or "fuchikoma" mecha that Shirow so enjoys drawing in the manga (his illustration book Intron Depot is chockablock with lithe girls jacked into similarly designed robots), for instance, are not present in the anime — and instead, to develop a strong allegory about man and his spiritual relationship to the environment in which he's forced to live. The resultant animation, combining state-of-the-art computer animation, superlative cel work, and Oshii's own blend of reality and dreams, made for one of the most talked-about anime features in recent memory.

Even though the subject matter of his films tends toward the realm of the fantastic, Oshii, as a director, dreams not only in the service of fantasy, but also in the "real world" — witness the overt political themes in the Patlabor films. He uses the medium as the Expressionists did painting, not in the photo-realistic copying of reality of the live-action camera eye, but in the tone and line of painting that showed aspects of reality the obviousness of the camera could not, such as the stains of color that reveal hidden details. Oshii loves cities — his camera eye wanders slowly through them in the Patlabor films and Ghost, moving by day and night, by summer and winter, his eye slowing down their frantic pace, to suggest that what is perceived by their inhabitants as the vital bustle of reality is, in fact, life on the terms of a dream. ^[5] Oshii himself constructs these scenes before they're ever put on acetate, walking down the rainy streets of Hong Kong and riding flat boats along Tokyo's Sumida River, camera in hand, contemplating. Reality, in his films, is often symbolized by what looms above the track of dreaming: a shattered bridge, a blimp, a tall building which has been planned for a secret purpose. Below, we move through the streets like a slow motorcade. One more turn, and we will be blown into reality; one more turn, and we will realize that if Oshii dreams awake, he dreams wide-awake.

Interview

Animerica: First, some of my immediate impressions of Ghost in the Shell. One scene that particularly caught my eye was the climactic museum shoot-out, where the machine-gun fire rakes up the medieval "Tree of Life" painting (stopping just before hominis, "mankind").

Oshii: The museum was based on the Crystal Palace [a huge glass hall built for the Victorian Great Exhibition of 1851 in London, and architectural precursor to the modern skyscraper, accidentally destroyed by fire in 1936 —Ed.]. The "Tree" was not from the Palace, but from another European museum which I unfortunately can't recall.

Animerica: I notice such things because they seem to be part of your distinctive art direction — for example, the fish-eye shots used in the Patlabor movies. Do they represent a sense of unreality?

Oshii: That is part of it, but I also wished to describe the world from another viewpoint.

Animerica: I had a question about the way the characters appear in Ghost in the Shell. It seems to me that they appear more "Western" than is usual in anime. Was this done intentionally?

Oshii: It wasn't intentional. What I wanted to do was to have characters that looked more like a realistic human being, as opposed to your regular anime characters. So, perhaps as a result, they unintentionally came to appear more "Western."

Animerica: How did you first become involved with the film project for Ghost in the Shell?

Oshii: About six months after I finished Patlabor 2, I got a call from Bandai Visual, and that's when they offered me the director's position.

Animerica: Were you previously familiar with Masamune Shirow's manga of Ghost?

Oshii: Yes, and I liked it.

Animerica: What sort of involvement did Shirow have with the film?

Oshii: He had none — it was my project alone.

Animerica: What was it that interested you in directing the film?

Oshii: Well, first of all, I really liked the original story of the comic — but most of all, when I was directing the Patlabor films, they possessed a common theme, and I wanted to do more stories of the kind, and when the subject matter of Ghost came up, it was perfect.

Animerica: So Ghost in the Shell was continuing a theme that was in the Patlabor movies? How would you describe this theme?

Oshii: How humanity will change as it deals with new technology.

Animerica: That is perhaps the most basic question of science fiction, isn't it?

Oshii: Well, I'm not so sure.

Animerica: Masamune Shirow is known, even in America, as one of the most distinctive manga artists. But you are also known as one of the most distinctive anime directors. How does Shirow's vision turn into your vision?

Oshii: When I decided to direct the film, I went to see Shirow — and Shirow is very famous for not going out to meet his public [Just as "Motoko Kusanagi" is a pseudonym for the main character of Ghost, "Masamune Shirow" is the enigmatic manga artist's pen name —Ed.]. I asked him to please, let me direct the film in my own style, with my own ideas — and he agreed, so I was able to proceed. I had the freedom to put Ghost into my world, without having to further ask his approval.

Animerica: So Shirow said it was okay for you to take your own approach?

Oshii: Yeah. "Do as you want," he said.

Animerica: Once you had the okay to take your own approach to filming the manga, what process of adaptation did you follow?

Oshii: First I considered the film's setting, its world.

Animerica: Why should that come first?

Oshii: For me, the actual town, or city environment of the story, is the most important thing — I must set that up before the rest can proceed.

Animerica: Back in 1985, when the OAV genre was new, you made Angel's Egg...

Oshii: A decade ago! It had the elements that intrigued me as a film....

Animerica: And they are...?

Oshii: Ruins; I like ruins; I like museums; I like fish; I like birds; I like water... and I like girls (laughs).

Animerica: Many of your films have quotes from the Bible, and discussions of philosophies from the Bible. Why is that, do you think?

Oshii: I really liked the Bible as a little boy. While a student, I planned to enter a seminary at one point, but didn't. Even now, though, I still read the Bible sometimes.

Animerica: Are you a Christian, or do you just like the Bible for its philosophy?

Oshii: For its philosophy.

Animerica: What was your very first anime movie directing project?

Oshii: It was Urusei Yatsura: Only You.

Animerica: ...The first Urusei Yatsura movie, yet you also directed the second (Beautiful Dreamer), which I think is the one that really made American anime fans begin to notice your distinctive style. Are you interested in dreams?

Oshii: Yes.

Animerica: The elements of your movies — fish, ruins, water — do you dream of these?

Oshii: Ruins arise often in my dreams.

Animerica: Are your films your way of analyzing your dreams?

Oshii: I would say that's about half of it.

Animerica: You've also done live-action films, yet here in the U.S. you're only known for you anime. Can you tell us a little about your live-action work, such as Talking Head?

Oshii: It's a mystery set in an anime studio. All of a sudden the director disappears in the middle of a film. Another director gets hired, with two missions: complete the anime production and find the missing director.

Animerica: When did it come out?

Oshii: About five years ago? Four years? I can't remember (laughs).

Animerica: What was your reason for making Talking Head?

Oshii: Back then, I was working on a big anime project, and all of a sudden, Bandai canceled it. I was so upset that I asked Bandai if I could direct something else, and they said, "Do whatever you want."

Animerica: What project was that?

Oshii: (laughs) It's a secret.

Animerica: Secret? Does that mean we'll see it someday?

Oshii: I can't really say, you know.

Animerica: Someone who works in the industry, a studio head, once told me that Talking Head exposes what it's really like to be an animator.

Oshii: All of the people in the film are modeled after people I actually know, people I've worked with in the industry. I killed them all (laughs). ^[6]

Animerica: How is live-action different from animation?

Oshii: Directing anime is much more stressful. With live-action, every (shooting) day is different, and I can work out my stress through the work. And after it's done, the saké tastes better, too. [Laughs]

Animerica: What about some of your other live-action films, such as Akai Megane [aka Red Spectacles, which told the story of combat action in a socially collapsed Tokyo —Ed.]...?

Oshii: That was made ten years ago, and I made a sequel, Kerberos, based on the manga, or as it's called in English, Panzer Cops, about five years ago. [The full title is Hellhounds: Panzer Cops —Ed.] However, the story in Kerberos actually takes place earlier than that of Akai Megane. It's like Star Wars — the third film will put everything in order.

Animerica: Getting back to anime, you said that when you make a movie, you consider first the city environment it is set in — and I've noticed that in the Patlabor movies, Tokyo is itself an actor — the first one is set in the summer and the second one is set in winter. Each film involves an investigation, but the season lends a real mood, a sensation to it.

Oshii: Yes, of course. It is meant to achieve a psychological effect.

Animerica: Most Americans, I think, will be surprised to see some anime film as political as Patlabor 2. The idea that an anime film could be about such real-world, military, and political issues is still a strange one here. Since in Patlabor 2 there is a secret conspiracy between members of the Japanese and American militaries, did you ever wonder how Americans might look at the film when they saw it?

Oshii: I think it may be difficult for Americans to understand. The story is really based on political programs that exist in Japan, so it has quite a few deep meanings within it. In Patlabor 2, I wanted to describe the Cold War for Japan. It was a war, but a silent war. When the Cold War existed between the U.S. and Russia, the "stance" of Japan was not to be directly involved. Even though Japan was involved, it kept insisting for fifty years that it wasn't. I wanted to describe that fake peace.

Animerica: Do you think another military takeover, as in the 1930s, is possible for Japan today, or was that merely something dramatic for the story?

Oshii: I don't think that it's very possible.

Animerica: When I look at that film, which was made in 1993, nowadays, and I see scenes such as those where the blimp comes down, and gas comes out and starts filling the streets of Tokyo... it's something we're seeing happen now in reality. Did you ever think that kind of thing would happen so soon?

Oshii: I never thought it would happen. When the Tokyo subway was gassed, I immediately thought how glad I was that the film was released before the attack happened (laughs). ^[7]

Animerica: But in light of such terrorism actually happening in Tokyo, don't you think that people might be more inclined to take Patlabor 2 more seriously — not just entertainment, but as an actual warning?

Oshii: Not quite. If people were really capable of realizing those dangers, I wouldn't have to make my films.

Animerica: Does that mean you think people still aren't waking up to reality?

Oshii: That's correct.

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Footnotes

• [1] With the Japanese economy booming in the 1980s there was a great deal more money to invest in anime. One of the results of this was the birth of the "OVA" (original video animation), a high quality, direct-to-video release that was cheaper to produce than a theatrical film, but of higher quality than a typical television episode. Dallos, a four episode science fiction series released in 1983, is generally considered to be the first OVA. Though the Japanese term is "OVA" Viz, the publishers of Animerica, often used "OAV" (original animation video) in their 1990s era marketing. They no longer use that terminology, but you will see it used in this interview.
• [2] Readers are often curious about Takahashi's feelings about Mamoru Oshii's work on Beautiful Dreamer, and his adapatation of Urusei Yatsura. "The Time We Spoke Endlessly About the Things We Loved" and "Three-Way Interview" are two articles that are recommended so that readers can make up their own minds about her feelings in her own words. Additionally in her 35th anniversary interview with Comics Natalie she expresses her enjoyment of Oshii's work, though by contrast in her Italian interview she gave a vague answer that was more negative (though she did not name Oshii or Beautiful Dreamer explicitly).
• [3] For more on Patlabor please see "Masami Yuki VS Rumiko Takahashi - Part 1" featuring an interview between Rumiko Takahashi and Patlabor mangaka Masami Yuki.
• [4] All released in 1995, Johnny Mnemonic is based on the short story by cyberpunk author William Gibson and directed by artist Robert Longo. The film started Keanu Reeves and Dolph Lundgren and featured clips from the anime Demon City Shinjuku. Strange Days was directed by Academy Award winner Kathryn Bigelow and started Ralph Finnes and Angela Bassett.
• [5] Stefen Riekeles' 2020 book Anime Architecture: Imagined Worlds and Endless Megacities is recommended reading for those interested in similar topics.
• [6] Talking Head stars Shigeru Chiba (Megane from Urusei Yatsura, Yotsuya from Maison Ikkoku, Sasuke from Ranma 1/2 and Mr. Fujinami in the 2022 Urusei Yatsura remake) as the director within the film. Characters within the film are named after animators such as Ichiro Itano and Yasuo Otsuka as well as Oshii's frequent musical collaborator Kenji Kawai.
• [7] This is referring to the sarin gas attack that was carried out in the Tokyo subway on March 20, 1995 by the religious cult Aum Shinrikyo. In the attack 14 people died but thousands were seriously sickened. A year earlier, on June 27, 1994, the cult had killed eight people in Matsumoto using a truck that disbursed sarin gas during the night outside of a three story apartment building.

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