Ghost in the Shell is an anime movie adapted from Masamune Shirow's manga. Before writing this paper I watched Ghost in the Shell three times to get a full understanding of the movie. The first time I saw it was with my group for my presentation. There were many of us crowded around a small laptop screen in very uncomfortable chairs. This made the movie viewing very unpleasant. People asking questions and others trying to explain answers were very distracting. We sat straining to hear and to figure out the confusing scenes. The second time I watched it I was alone and I really picked up on a lot of things I missed. The final time I was with a few friends outside of the class and it was the best because I was explaining it to them. I felt like I had a much better understanding and I really enjoyed it.
The movie is based on a continual theme of what it is to be human. The main character, Major Kusanagi is a cyborg that is entirely synthetic except for her brain. Even that ( her brain ) has modifications. She can access computers as well as other people's brains very easily. In the beginning, a garbage man is hacked into by a mastermind criminal hacker. He recalls memories that he thinks are true about his family and his life. What has actually happened is a program called a Simex erasure. All of his real memories from his life have been wiped out totally and he was used as a pawn in a hacker's plan. We are told that all the information in a human's memory is just one little drop in the sea of information. Major Kusanagi feels distraught because she does not know if she really is human or if she has these fake implanted memories like the garbage man. She has no proof of being human except for the occasional whispers she hears in her "ghost".
I think that the most intriguing part of the movie is the title. At first I really did not see the connection so I did what I always do, checked the dictionary, the American Heritage Dictionary.