6

On episode 14 - YE$, at 6:21 in this episode, we see the crew being debriefed by Aramaki. The chief remarks that she is wearing "some get-up", inquiring whether she is searching for a specific kind of attention. She replies, somewhat... despairingly(?), with "...; I just... don't have a choice."

The scene prior to this ended with her being ejected from a building through a window and landing on a pile of trash. She is noticeably soiled by "garbage-type fluids" and, presumably, needs to get cleaned up.

It is not explicit, but it seems that only a few hours, at most, have passed between the incident and the debriefing.

Aside from being her usual hot-gun-toting-super-hacker-ninja self, I have missed the implication as to why this particular outfit is "mandatory". Is there a specific clue I missed or was it just to imply that she may have had other, personal, obligations for which she was still dressed? Her outfit was definitely extreme for being at "the office", even for her.

Aki Tanaka
  • 12,592
  • 8
  • 51
  • 107
Jon
  • 276
  • 2
  • 9

1 Answers1

3

(Upon review I've determined that the source provided is insufficient to support my answer. I'm currently investigating sources to come up with a more appropriate answer.)

Her body is a mass production "pleasure model" so that she blends into (I assume 'shady') environments in the city. That's why she wears sexy clothes so often, to fit her cover.

Source: Masamune Shirow via Joseph Christopher Schaub

http://schaublog.com/Writing/KusanagisBody.pdf (pg.94) [last retrieved 10/24/17]

For his part, Shirow provides a very practical explanation for Kusanagi's body in the author's notes which accompany his manga. He writes:

Major Kusanagi is deliberately designed to look like a mass-production model so she won't be too conspicuous. In reality, her electrical and mechanical system is made of ultra-sophisticated materials unobtainable on the civilian market. If she appeared too expensive, she might be suddenly waylaid on a dark street some night, hacked up, and hauled off to be sold. (1995: 103)

His mention of Kusanagi's body as 'a mass-production model' no doubt provides the seeds for Oshii's foregrounding of her commodity status in the film, but the critique is certainly amped up a notch by Oshii.

I've also included the author's citation:

For all references to Shirow's version of Ghost in the Shell, the source I follow is the graphic novel. Masamune Shirow, Ghost in the Shell, trans. Frederik Schodt and Toren Smith, (Milwaukie, OR: Dark Horse Comics, 1995)

Diio
  • 31
  • 6