Techno Fantasies of East and West

Abstract

In this chapter, the science fiction anime that takes its source from Masamune Shirow's manga with the same name, Kōkaku Kidōtai (攻殻機動隊, Ghost in the Shell), is examined and compared with the U.S. adaptation film Ghost in the Shell (2017) within the framework of techno-orientalism. The study aims a comparative critique through anime and film, which both allow explaining the transformative potential-effects of technology in a socio-cultural context in the east-west axis, through dissociations, convergences, and integration. It is to review the representations of traditional Western-centered thought that is deconstructed with the narrative which maintains focus on technology axis; it is aimed to reveal with the analysis that takes the 2017 film to the center. In this way, Ghost in the Shell offers possibilities of representation in the axis of futuristic Eastern culture with the female-cyborg character that presents the cyber-society environment, the deconstruction of the idea that puts focus on anthropocentrism, especially the ‘Western man'.