Interview with the Translator: Hills of Silver Ruins, Star Wars II

Kate: As discussed in the prior post, Star Wars indirectly furthered classic archetypes in the science-fiction community. Did 1977 Star Wars accomplish anything else behind the scenes?

Eugene: Star Wars also helped to win mainstream acceptance for science fiction in general.

Hayao Miyazaki's first feature film was The Castle of Cagliostro in 1979. Now considered a minor classic, it barely broke even at the box office. Observing that science fiction was all the rage, his producer, Toshio Suzuki, suggested that he try his hand at the genre. Miyazaki's next film was the post-apocalyptic Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind in 1984. Its success financed the founding of Studio Ghibli a year later.

Miyazaki would later turn to science fiction and fantasy tropes more specific to Japan in films such as Spirited Away and Princess Monoke. While Hollywood has its own versions of what I call "spirit world warriors," starting with Van Helsing and epitomized by Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Constantine, Shinto (along with the Chinese wuxia genre), provides a rich menagerie of monsters and otherworldly beings.

Demon Slayer and Jujutsu Kaisen demonstrate that a mix of Shinto and Buddhist pop theology has no problem finding an international audience. And this leads to my theory about why Japanese science fiction does cyberpunk so much better than Hollywood, despite the US actually being more "wired" than Japan.

In Shinto, the "ghost in the machine" is a "real" ghost. Just as tsukumogami are not inherently good or bad, the same holds for technology and AI in all its forms. That's why Purin in Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045 getting resurrected as a sentient android is not an "Oh, no!" moment. It's just the same old Purin in a different container.

This is what Hollywood constantly gets wrong and why the Hollywood version of Ghost in the Shell completely misses the point. While manga and anime have done their fair share of mainframe-as-antagonist stories (Appleseed: Ex Machina), they have managed to not turn every production into The Matrix or The Terminator, the unfortunate fate of the otherwise excellent Person of Interest.