Title: Ghost in the Shell: What the live-action movie gets fundamentally wrong
Headings: What the live-action Ghost in the Shell movie gets fundamentally wrong about Ghost in the Shell
What the live-action Ghost in the Shell movie gets fundamentally wrong about Ghost in the Shell
The Major is mischaracterized, and the whitewashing is only the beginning.
Her team is unrecognizable as well.
Where the [bleep] is the AI?
Ghost in the Shell is not set in a post-racial world.

Content: Ghost in the Shell: What the live-action movie gets fundamentally wrong
What the live-action Ghost in the Shell movie gets fundamentally wrong about Ghost in the Shell
The live-action version of Ghost in the Shell is the latest rendition of the celebrated manga and anime franchise that has entertained audiences since 1989. Although the movie has many callbacks to the original, it lacks many of the themes and details that made the original so beloved among anime and sci-fi fans. This piece contains spoilers for the Ghost in the Shell live-action movie, as well as plot details from the various titles throughout the Ghost in the Shell franchise. These include the 1995 movie, the broadcast series Stand Alone Complex and the direct-to-DVD prequel series ARISE. The Major is mischaracterized, and the whitewashing is only the beginning. Zoom In
Let's get this out of the way first, so there's no doubt about the Major's identity: Major Motoko Kusanagi is a Japanese woman. She identifies herself as Japanese, she speaks the Japanese language, she was raised in Japan, she lives in Japan, and she works in Japan. Some have argued that Motoko's cyborg body is ethnically ambiguous, but this doesn't override Motoko self-identifying as Japanese.