Kenji Kamiyama is the director of the 2002 television series Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, which successfully popularized the darling of hardcore science fiction enthusiasts on mainstream living room TVs. Together with Shinji Aramaki, he also co-directed the latest series under the title and its first all-CG entry, Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045. It features a retuned “future” with adjustments to the characters, setting, and cases Public Security Section 9 investigates to make things easier for a modern audience to digest. Kamiyama’s ability to lead a challenging work to success lies in his understanding of the inherent appeal of Ghost in the Shell, which remains unshaken even with some changes to the setting. In this retrospective on Ghost in the Shell, we spoke with him about everything from when he first encountered the original manga to his focus in his first work as a director, as well as the hopes he had for the latest release.

――Could you tell us how you came to direct Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex?

 

Kenji Kamiyama (“Kamiyama” below): I had finished work on the theatrical release of JIN-ROH: The Wolf Brigade for Production I.G around that point and was doing smaller jobs. It was right at the time that work kicked off for director Mamoru Oshii’s project, the film Innocence. But it takes four years from kickoff to release for a film, so the circumstances in the background also involved a call for a TV series to build up hype for Ghost in the Shell over that time. But I guess that all of the prominent candidates they had approached to direct had refused, until they got to me. There were two reasons. First, it would be a huge struggle to make a TV series right alongside Oshii’s film, which he was pouring all of Production I.G’s resources into. And the other was that the great majority of people thought it was impossible to make “Ghost in the Shell” work as a TV series in the first place.

 

――Were the budget and schedule unrealistic?

 

Kamiyama: Yes, it was. The schedule was even more absurd than the budget. The schedule had no room for content changes since Innocence would come out in four years and the series needed to have started airing within three years at the latest. People typically treat the series as only having one original manga volume, and Oshii had already directed the first film based on it (1995’s Ghost in the Shell). So we also had no assurances that we could make a lot of new episodes. At the time, the standard for anime was running for two quarters for a total of 26 episodes, which set an even higher barrier to entry. I think that’s why nobody came forward and pushed to direct the project.

 

――But to you, it was the opportunity you had been waiting for.

 

Kamiyama: I had submitted a proposal for my own original anime with heavy influence from Ghost in the Shell four or five years before, and I also might have been the most familiar with the original manga of the candidates to direct. So when Production I.G representative Mitsuhisa Ishikawa spoke with me, I had a vague idea about how to do things. “Of course I’ll do it!　It’s Ghost in the Shell, I can make as many episodes as we need!” I said something like that.People originally thought they couldn’t make sequels to Star Wars, but in the end they did, and they have kept making them right to this day. You can do anything using their galaxy, and Ghost in the Shell is the same. Appleseed feels like it comes to a full conclusion with the story of the original manga, so I might have turned away a request for a TV series of it, too. But Ghost in the Shell presented a setting that could serve as a canvas for what a creator wanted to do, and I felt I had a chance of success with it.

 

――Even so, the pressure had to be intense to make a TV series in parallel to Mr. Oshii, who had already seen success with the film.

 

Kamiyama: I get that question a lot, but there really wasn’t any pressure. It was a fun setting for me, and I really enjoyed getting to make an anime series of Ghost in the Shell, so I was really just excited.

 

――Did the core concept for the series and the episode plots all firm up fairly quickly?

 

Kamiyama: About one or two weeks after the decisions were made and I was set to direct, I had given general directions to everyone concerned based on a concept for “Ghost in the Shell for the living room screen.” I said to make something that was enjoyable even for people who were frustrated and overwhelmed with the amount of information in the original manga. We worked out plots for all the episodes within about two weeks of that point. Of course, there were some harsher critics involved who said that this wasn’t Ghost in the Shell anymore when we shifted character behavior and speech to fit the adjusted setting.

 

――What changes were you most determined to make?

 

Kamiyama: Probably the cast’s primary motivations. Their reasons for working in public security. Shirow depicts Motoko and the rest as cynical people who might dress someone down after rescuing them as police officers. They aren’t shown as the type to provide moral instruction and lessons on social justice. But I wanted to depict them in a more human way in Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, or, you might say, I wanted to show their sense of justice more clearly and prominently as characters. At the time, I was thinking of having their justice stand in opposition to someone who was speaking out against society and its systems or major problems. There might have been some distance between that and the concept of justice as the original manga envisions it (fairness and impartiality). But naturally, I would fail if I just tried to imitate Shirow, and I also couldn’t copy Oshii. So I felt like I just had to brace for the worst and do what I wanted to do with the project.

 

――Did the series take off in popularity immediately once it started airing?

 

Kamiyama: We had a decent reception going by the time episode 2 “Runaway Evidence – TESTATION” aired, and the online posts about it had really gone wild by the time episode 4 “The Visual Device Will Laugh – INTERCEPTER” ended. The series was split between “standalone episodes” that told complete stories in themselves and “complex episodes” that relate to the “Laughing Man Incident.” And episode four was the first of the latter type of episode to air. And we did little things like change the colors of the title background (standalone episodes in green and complex episodes in blue). And I remember people online getting excited, like, “Did you notice this?” “They started a new story arc!”

 

――I heard it set viewer records across a range of demographics in the US. What changed for you after landing a big hit like that?

 

Kamiyama: One of the airport employees approached me about it when I visited New York for work after the show aired, and I saw people with Laughing Man stickers on their bags on the street there. I could feel that it had been quite influential. Things changed a lot for me after Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. It was definitely the turning point in my career. It was also my first experience getting that invested in a project. In the end, I rewrote almost everything myself, from the script to the storyboards. I spent most of each day thinking about S.A.C.. After thinking about it that heavily, each character starts to speak and move for themselves independently, and before I knew it, I could see the answer inside my head.

 

――How do you mean you could see it?

 

Kamiyama: It’s like the video plays inside my head. This optimal video that embodies all of my ideals. It doesn’t feel like I was inspired and thought of it; it’s like it comes to me from elsewhere. And I’d convey the idea to the production staff: “Our audience was in tears after seeing the footage of the final episode, so do exactly as I say on this.” That’s a bit insane from an objective viewpoint, but that was how single-mindedly fixated on it I was when making it.

 

Continued to　#03 Two discoveries hinted at by the original manga

 

 

KENJI KAMIYAMA

Born March 20, 1966. Native of Saitama Prefecture. Got involved in animation independently as a high school student. Hired at Studio Fuga in 1985. Worked on background projects for the anime films Akira and Kiki’s Delivery Service, among others. Took on the role of director for the first time for the 2002 film Mobile Police Patlabor Minimum. He is best known for the series Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Ultraman, and Eden of the East.