Detective Batou partners with rookie Togusa (right) in Public Security Section 9’s investigation of murderous gynoids.

AWM: Are there any plans for further sequels, either immediately or in the distant future? I am thinking of the way the third Patlabor movie was made 10 years after the first two.

MO: That depends on the studio president's decision, but basically I don't think there will be any. Of course, I can't firmly say "no" to any sequels to Ghost in the Shell 2, especially what may happen years from now, but I am not intending to direct any myself. A sequel usually works well if it is a Part 2, but a sequel to a Part 2, a Part 3, does not. I personally think we should not make another one at all.

AWM: Ghost in the Shell hints at the transfer of the "ghost," the human consciousness, from biological bodies into a vast electronic network. Have you considered (or do you know if Shirow has considered) a story set 100 or 200 years or more further in this society, showing how it may evolve further?"

MO: Making a story set 100 or 200 years from now is not all that difficult, but it is always easier to set it just 30 or 40 years from now because not many things will change vastly. I have a feeling that 100 or 200 years from now, things will have changed very much. But whether it takes place 30 years or 100 years, whenever I write a story that takes place in the future, I am not really trying to write a realistic story about the future. It's the future of an imaginary world."

AWM: Both Innocence and Stand Alone Complex seem designed for more intellectual viewers than the usual movie and TV sci-fi market. Was this a financial gamble for Production I.G?

Detective Togusa connects his internal hard drive to the worldwide net in order to find clues to stop the gynoids.

MO: I think that Stand Alone Complex has been a good success, or they would not have gone ahead to make the second TV series. It did not really have a philosophical plot. It has more of a realistic plot. All of the problems that the modern world is having or is facing right now are being explained or talked about. Innocence has a philosophical plot, but the Stand Alone Complex is closer to actual events that are happening. So these kinds of stories can be more easily accepted by the TV audience than a complete fantasy or science-fictional story, which has no association to the real world. So in that sense, Stand Alone Complex is a huge success in Japan.

As for Innocence, whether a production is marketable does not depend only on how well it did at the theaters. Movies are not evaluated by how many people showed up at the theaters at its first release. It can be enjoyed even three or five years afterwards. In order to be able to have a memorable and long run, a movie must have a heavy theme. If it is too simple and easily understood, then you will not remember it and want to see it again.

People say that Innocence has a very philosophical plot. I tried to make the story as simple as possible, but maybe if people do not understand it the first time they see it, they will still have liked it enough to want to see it again and again to understand it completely. What is important in a movie is not really the plot, but how beautiful it is and how well that quality of beauty is maintained throughout the movie.

AWM: What are your next projects?

MO: Right now, I am exhausted and not thinking about anything at all. Certainly not another movie yet. Maybe I might write a novel.

Fred Patten has written on anime for fan and professional magazines since the late 1970s. He wrote the liner notes for Rhino Entertainment's The Best of Anime music CD (1998), and was a contributor to The World Encyclopedia of Cartoons, 2nd Edition, ed. by Maurice Horn (1999) and Animation in Asia and the Pacific, ed. by John A. Lent (2001).