Mamarou Oshii wasn't without his own little quirks, however. It's just that his were a lot more innocent, a lot sweeter, and a lot less reliant on the main character of a series that's supposed to be about high-tech crimes being solved in future Japan indulging in a menage et trois with some other robots on an imaginary boat for three pages. Oshii's vice is Basset hounds. Oshii has owned multiple such mutts over the years, and they appear in essentially every film he directs, but perhaps most prominently in Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence. Apparently in that film they're very important, to both the themes and the absence of humanity in a world that prizes technology over feeling. "This body you see before you is an empty shell. The dog represents my body. Human beings can be free only if they free themselves from their bodies. When I am playing around with my dog, I forget that I am a human being, and it's only then that I feel free." When you put it like that, Basset hounds better bloody appear in this Hollywood version.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
