30 Animated Movies That Are Not for Children

The original and the best: director Mamoru Oshii’s Ghost in the Shell feature film adapted Masamune Shirow’s manga for the big screen, fully embracing the tech noir/cyberpunk aesthetic and creating a cornerstone work in the anime canon in the process.

Set in a version of 2029 it looks unlikely we’ll be seeing in real life, the movie picks up in fictional New Port City, Japan, and follows female cyborg Major Motoko Kusanagi, a public security agent (a kind of futuristic po-po) who is caught in a game of cat and mouse with shadowy hacker the Puppet Master. But, in doing so, she uncovers a plot that runs right through the Public Security Section she works for.

Through a combination of hand-drawn and CGI animation, the film is a real benchmark for Japanese animation and has a production value that similar features can only dream of. This includes being set to a soundtrack by Kenji Kawai that interpolates traditional Japanese music into a tribal-sounding score with large choral vocals and acoustic handpan instruments, rather than the throbbing techno we might expect. Of course, though, the biggest draw of Ghost in the Shell is its philosophical underpinning, with themes that look at the challenges of self and identity in a world where technology has, in many cases, superseded conventional markers of personhood – and it becomes more relevant by the day.