Crossover With Non-anime Series Fan Fiction ❯ Terdwilicker's Anime Reviews ❯ Ghost In The Shell ( Chapter 4 )

Cyberpunk dates back to the early 1980's, with the Mirrorshade Group, a consortium of authors of post-modern science fiction interested in writing about technology and its dehumanizing effects. Neuromancer is the most famous novel from that period. The most famous movie is Ghost In The Shell, which was heavily influential to The Matrix movie half a decade later. Ghost In The Shell takes place in Hong Kong, but the anime series from 2000 is in a very modern Japan. Mostly in Tokyo, but also various prefectures across that country. While the original manga the anime is based on is a much more human Motoko Kusanagi, the anime makes her more of an android, often without emotion, and more of a soldier. The more recent anime series of prequels called ARISE offers a look at her ending her career in the army and becoming a detective and counter-intelligence officer. There are several things worth understand in the GITS series. The section 9 is a direct reference to Section 9 of the Japanese constitution which prevents use of military forces outside the islands, instead relying on its self defense forces to DEFEND only. Projection of power is through agreements and treaties with the USA since WW2 ended. So Section 9 is a semi-militant reference to that. The next point is that the actual Japanese government in GITS has a rebellion problem because they are fascists and deserve a rebellion over their behavior. Section 9 are enforcers of the fascist rule, oppressing dissent, which increases their militant escalation rather than resolve the cause of the problems like inherent Japanese racism and poor treatment of war refugees despite the nation falling apart while they trap their refugees on rusting oil derricks at sea, etc. This is a metaphor for Japan's actual treatment of foreigners in the real world. Both are equally racist and backwards. 

So in summary, Section 9 are villains, or working as enforcers for villains. They don't realize it because they don't question their missions or outcomes properly, and so keep doing the wrong things and making things worse. Sort of like American Foreign Policy, the National Debt, and inflation. Japan has those problems too, in the real world and in GITS. There are lot of parables and references to real world Japan and where it is going wrong in the series.