Amazon Primeで配信されている「The Man in the High Castle / 高い城の男」は，歴史改変SFで，第二次世界大戦で連合国がナチス・ドイツと大日本帝国に敗れた1960年代のアメリカが舞台となっています．ただし設定や人物名など多くがフィリップ・K・ディックの原作とは異なり，原作にない内容が大幅に追加されています．今後，何回になるのかわかりませんが，自分用のメモとして記事を投稿していく予定です．ちなみに，現行の原作小説の装丁はこんな感じ↓です．
1-1 The New World / 新世界 1962年，連合国が枢軸国に敗れた世界のアメリカで，ドイツの傀儡国家である大ナチス帝国の親衛隊大将ジョン・スミスの下で働くスパイであるジョー・ブレイクは．禁制のニュース・フィルムを調査するよう命じられる．日本の傀儡国家である日本太平洋合衆国のサンフランシスコに住み，合気道を学ぶジュリアナ・クレインは、ユダヤ人の出自を隠す宝石デザイナーのフランク・フリンクと同棲している．貿易大臣の田上信輔はベルリンからやってきたナチ将校のルドルフ・ウェゲナーに会う，ジュリアナの目の前で妹のトゥルーディ・クレインが憲兵隊に殺されるが，その直前に，ジュリアナはトゥルーディから連合国が勝った歴史を映すフィルムを受け取り，ジュリアナは妹がレジスタンスであったことを知る．ジュリアナは妹の遺志を継いで，妹から受け取ったメモにあった場所を目指してフィルムを中立地帯に運ぶが，途中で荷物が盗まれてしまう．ジュリアナとジョーは中立地帯で出会う．フランクはフィルムを追う木戸武憲兵隊大尉に逮捕され，大ナチス帝国に送還されて処刑されそうになる．
草薙素子が制服を着て，男に午後には帰れると思うと，男に言っています．彼氏ができたようです．その時に呼び鈴が鳴り，草薙素子の頭には画像が浮かび，4階の錆田三田と言います．草薙素子の電脳はマンションの警備システムと繋がっているようです．草薙素子が玄関のドアを開けようとしたところ．ショットガンのような銃で玄関がぶち抜かれます．ショットガンの装填音に反応した草薙素子は即座に銃を抜いて打ち返します．相手を倒したかと覗き込んだところ，相手の腹にはC4爆弾が巻かれていて，その後に爆発します． オペレーターから草薙素子のベッドで爆発があったことがオペレーターから荒巻に告げられ，バトーは病院へ，イシカワは現場へ急行します． 病室を出ていく彼氏と，草薙素子は付き合い始めてから7ヶ月のようで，そのことを揶揄ったバトーは草薙素子に殴られています．頭を殴られたバトーは痛がっていて，自分も全身サイボーグ化するかな...などと言っています．バトーの目は義体化されていることは間違いありませんが，どのくらい義体化されているのでしょうか．映画の GHOST IN THE SHELL では，最後のあたりで狙撃される草薙素子を義体化されている腕で庇いますが，漫画とは設定が異なるのか（もしかすると漫画の中でもバトーの腕は義体化されている可能性もありますが）もしれません．
P.170(Kindle版 p. 174) バトーのフチコマが「糸のブレーキオイルが凍って」と言って、ブレーキが効かずにズッコケている様子があります．これは，バトーが自身の専用フチコマに天然オイルォ入れていることが原因です．p.150 で天然オイルを入れて欲しいとフチコマが草薙素子におねだりするものの「アリやカビや凍結でトラブりたいのか」と言われて却下されていることの回収です．
Following my previous post on Ghost in the Shell, this time I would like to share my impressions after revisiting INNOCENCE (2004). INNOCENCE is the sequel to GHOST IN THE SHELL / Ghost in the Shell (1996), directed by Mamoru Oshii, and was released in 2004. The story of INNOCENCE is set three years after the ending of the previous film, in which Motoko Kusanagi disappears, and takes place in the year 2032.
A series of incidents occurs in which the Type 2052 Hadaly (HADALY), a girl-type pet gynoid sold by the mega-corporation Locus Solus, suddenly goes berserk for unknown reasons and brutally murders its owners. Incidentally, the prosthetic bodies used by Motoko Kusanagi and others are manufactured by Megatech Body, a supplier closely tied to the government, suggesting that multiple companies exist in this world that produce cyborg bodies. For reasons that are never fully explained, settlements between the victims’ families and the manufacturer are reached with unusual speed. Furthermore, some of the victims are former politicians or retired public security officials, raising the possibility of robot-based terrorism. As a result, Public Security Section 9 is assigned to the case, and Batou and Togusa begin their investigation. -------------------------------------------------------
*A gynoid is an android designed in the form of a woman. The word is a coined term combining “gyno,” derived from the Greek word meaning “woman,” and “android,” meaning a humanoid form. The gynoids in Innocence were also developed with highly detailed settings during production, and the reference materials created for them look like the examples shown below. Some of the illustrations—particularly those in which the facial covering has been removed—are genuinely unsettling.
------------------------------------------------------- According to Haraway, a forensic officer with the prefectural police, the Hadaly units are designed so that an information-leak prevention program automatically activates when they are damaged or rendered inoperable. It is also revealed that the Hadaly units involved in these incidents had been modified with a special “sexaroid” function, added according to the preferences of their owners. These facts explain why the victims’ families did not file lawsuits against Locus Solus, and why compensation and legal settlements were concluded quickly and without dispute: the families did not want it to become public knowledge that the victims had owned such gynoids. Haraway goes on to discuss with Togusa a series of philosophical questions—what exactly dolls (robots or androids) are, where the boundary between humans and dolls lies, and whether robots might someday develop emotions. It is unclear how extensively Haraway himself has been cyberized—there is a scene in which his eyes open to connect what appears to be equipment used for forensic analysis, suggesting a significant degree of prosthetic enhancement—but he smokes hand-rolled cigarettes. It is not clear how smoking affects a cyberized body, but the deliberate choice to smoke cigarettes feels like an act of reaffirming his own humanity. Likewise, the cars driven by Batou and the others have a classical design and appear to be manually operated rather than autonomous. This, too, feels similar to the act of smoking—a desire to confirm one’s own humanity. Before Batou and Togusa arrive to meet Haraway, they discuss something Motoko Kusanagi had once said: that the only things truly belonging to her are her brain and her ghost, while her body and even her memories (data) are government property, leading her to question what her true self really is—or whether such a self even exists. I felt that this dialogue expresses the anxieties of people living in a cyberized society where the boundary between humans and machines has become extremely blurred. As the possibility of terrorism is deemed extremely low, the case is reassigned to Batou and Togusa as a dedicated investigation. While they are pursuing leads, the head of shipping inspection at Locus Solus is brutally murdered. It soon becomes clear that the prime suspects are members of the Yakuza organization Kōjinkai, whose boss had previously been killed by a rampaging Hadaly unit. After completing the on-site investigation, Batou and Togusa raid the Kōjinkai office. Batou and Togusa surmise that the inspection chief had likely been handed over to the Kōjinkai by Locus Solus as a target for retaliation. There is a line stating that for a Yakuza group whose boss has been killed, carrying out revenge is essential in order to consolidate the organization under a new leadership. The emphasis on this old-fashioned code of honor feels, to me, like another way the film portrays the importance of remembering one’s humanity in a cyberized society. (That said, I am aware that I may be pushing my own interpretation too far—seeing INNOCENCE as a work that continually asks what it means to be human through contrasts between humans and machines.) Although Batou and Togusa fail to obtain any decisive information from the raid, a remark by one of the gang members—claiming ignorance about what the former boss and Locus Solus had been involved in—nevertheless suggests that some kind of relationship existed between the Kōjinkai and Locus Solus. Batou reasons that if Locus Solus were hiding something, they would likely attempt to obstruct the investigation. This intuition proves correct. On his way home after the raid, Batou stops at a grocery store and is ghost-hacked**, causing him to go on a shooting rampage. Just as he is about to fire at the shop owner, Ishikawa intervenes by accessing Batou’s cyberbrain, which has entered a runaway state, and manages to stop him. Acting on orders from “the old man” (Aramaki, the head of Section 9), Ishikawa had been monitoring Batou by using Togusa as a “screen”***. Before the ghost-hacking occurs, someone Batou passes inside the store mutters, “You’ve stepped into the kill zone.” As for who this voice belongs to—well, it is probably not hard to guess, and it will be revealed later.
------------------------------------------------------- ** Because a cyberbrain connects the human brain directly to the network, if it is subjected to unauthorized access and its defenses are breached, one’s ghost can be taken over—this is known as a ghost hack. Furthermore, if the intruder possesses the target’s ghost access key, it is possible to take control of that person without hacking at all. In this respect, the mechanism is essentially the same as modern computer security. Defining what exactly a “ghost” is can be difficult, but in this context it seems closest to meaning “the person themselves.” If we accept “ghost = the person as such,” then in a cyberized society humans may be positioned almost like accounts of some sort. Here again, the film appears to be depicting the ambiguity of the boundary between humans and machines in a cyberized world. *** There is no explicit explanation of what it means to use someone as a “screen,” but it seems likely that Ishikawa hacked Togusa’s visual feed and monitored Batou by seeing exactly what Togusa was seeing through his eyes. -------------------------------------------------------
In order to get closer to the core of the case, Batou and Togusa head for the Etorofu Special Economic Zone, where Locus Solus is located. They travel there by a propeller-driven aircraft, and the view from above presents a decadent near-future landscape. This scenery, along with the dusty, polluted atmosphere, closely resembles what is depicted in Blade Runner 2049. Since Blade Runner 2049 was released in 2017, it is unclear whether Innocence had any direct influence on it, but it does not seem impossible. As in many other near-future settings, the architecture remains strongly Chinese in flavor—Chinese poetry is even written on buildings—which may simply reflect a long-standing cyberpunk tradition. Snatches of what sounds like Chinese (or perhaps Chinese-like, rather than actual Chinese) can also be heard throughout. Is it overthinking things to wonder whether the film is suggesting a future in which Chinese culture comes to dominate the world? As their first step, the two visit the mansion of Kim, a suspect in the ghost-hacking of Batou. Kim’s residence is Western in style, yet inside the building there are inscriptions resembling Chinese poetry. From Kim, Batou and Togusa extract information about Locus Solus. The corporation expanded its business through the production of high-end gynoids and was rumored to have close ties with politicians, senior bureaucrats, and criminal organizations. To avoid scrutiny by the authorities, its manufacturing lines were reportedly relocated to offshore plant ships, where it attempted to create artificial humans by “breathing souls” into dolls. The two are soon lured into a maze of cyberbrain-generated pseudo-reality. However, Batou notices a clue—words written near the feet of a doll that he had seen when they first entered the mansion—and manages to break free of the loop, rescuing Togusa as well. Who provided this hint remains unclear at this point, though it is not difficult to guess; this, too, is revealed later. Incidentally, when I first watched this sequence, I found the looping pseudo-reality confusing and kept wondering what exactly was happening. I felt as though I myself had been drawn into the labyrinth along with Batou and Togusa. Convinced that Locus Solus had hired Kim to obstruct the investigation, just as he had anticipated, Batou secures Kim and proceeds, together with Togusa, to board Locus Solus’s gynoid manufacturing plant ship. Using Kim’s brain case, Togusa supports Batou by sharing his visual feed—presumably via the same “screen” technique mentioned earlier. However, the ship’s security system activates, Kim’s brain is burned out, and he dies. Batou avoids the same fate by forcibly pulling out the cable he had connected directly to his own cyberbrain. Kim had planted a virus within the plant ship that was triggered by his death. As a result, all of the Hadaly units awaiting shipment begin to run amok, slaughtering the Locus Solus security personnel aboard the vessel. Batou himself becomes a target, and as he makes his way toward the ship’s core, he is forced to fight the rampaging Hadalys. At that moment, a single Hadaly descends from the sky to support Batou. This unit turns out to be one into which Motoko Kusanagi had downloaded a part of herself from a satellite. It was Motoko who had warned Batou at the grocery store, and it was also she who provided the hint that allowed him to escape Kim’s loop. In the present day, hacking typically allows intrusion only into computers, but in the cyberized society depicted in Innocence, where brains are directly connected to the network, the idea that hacking could allow one to manipulate a person—their ghost—feels easy enough to imagine. In Ghost in the Shell, the Puppet Master employed precisely this method to control ghosts. This can be seen as a warning about the dangers of direct neural connection to the network. At the same time, one might also argue that since the network already exists just beyond our physical boundaries—at our fingertips, for example—even without full cyberization we are living in an environment that is not so different, with both its advantages and its risks. The rampaging Hadalys, their whispered pleas for help, and their apparent acquisition of emotion all seem to gesture toward the idea of a singularity. Compared to Ghost in the Shell, however, the treatment of this theme feels less pronounced. Perhaps this is because the earlier film already explored the concept so thoroughly, and Innocence assumes its existence as a given. When I first watched Innocence, I did not think about these issues very much and was instead overwhelmed by the sheer visual power of its world. This time around, however, I found myself reflecting on many different aspects. With the plant ship subdued through Motoko Kusanagi’s intervention, Batou resumes the investigation. In the ship’s core, rows of ghost-dubbing devices designed to copy ghosts into gynoids are revealed. The truth behind the Hadalys is that they were created by dubbing the ghosts of young girls smuggled in by the Kōjinkai. Because the Hadalys were dolls endowed with ghosts—living dolls possessing ghosts extremely close to those of humans—they gained their reputation. The series of brutal murder incidents ultimately stemmed from the inspection chief, who, unable to bear the weight of his conscience, deliberately tampered with the Hadaly program. He did so in the hope that a police investigation would uncover the truth about the Hadalys. As Batou escapes, Motoko Kusanagi leaves him with the words, “Whenever you access the network, I will always be by your side,” and then withdraws from the Hadaly—presumably deleting the data related to herself. In a cyberized society, given sufficient technology, it does indeed seem possible for someone to remain constantly at another’s side even without a visible form—or, depending on the circumstances, to take control or deliberately guide another’s actions. After the case is resolved, Batou goes to retrieve his dog, Gabriel, whom he had left in Togusa’s care. In the final scene, Togusa’s daughter, cradled in his arms, gazes at the doll she has been given as a present, while Gabriel, held by Batou, looks back at her. The two quietly meet each other’s eyes. Is this meant to suggest that a soul is beginning to dwell within the doll?
I am not particularly knowledgeable about anime as a medium, but I do feel that this work achieves an exceptionally high level of quality. The story is well constructed, with many moments that invite reflection, and the visuals are undeniably beautiful. Next, I would like to read the original manga by Masamune Shirow, which served as the source material for these films.
現代では，ハッキングによって侵入できるのは，コンピュータの中までですが，イノセンス INNOCENCEの舞台である，脳をネットに直接接続する電脳社会において，ハッキングによってその人（ゴースト）を操ったりすることができるようになるというのは，何となく想像しやすいイメージです．前作のGHOST IN THE SHELL / 攻殻機動隊（1996)においても「人形使い」はその手法によってゴーストを操っていました．電脳化して脳をネットに直接接続することの危険性を示唆しているとも考えられますが，一方で，ネットは（指先などの）人間の物理的境界のすぐ先に存在しているので，電脳化していなくても，ほぼそれと同じような環境下にある（メリットもデメリットもある）のではないかと思ったりもしました．
