Ghost in the Shell is set in a future about a decade away from now. Humanity has embraced the digital age and now anyone can get a prosthetic body and dive on the net. Humanity has, in a sense, become fully customizable. This is true too of Major Motoko Kusanagi who works for Public Security Section 9. There, along with a team of fellow prosthetic body users, they investigate crimes and terrorists in order to maintain some form of peace. However, a strange series of events essentially connects the team with someone named “the Puppet master”; a master hacker and who’s causing havoc. As Motoko and her team start to investigate, things only get more and more complicated and the plot thickens as they get closer to the truth, only to learn how little they know.

More or less, without revealing too much, the stories of the original Ghost in the Shell and Rakuen Tsuihou are extremely similar if you cut out the philosophical dialogue from the first. Makoto and Angela are both strong-headed women who are leaders and work for the police. Both rely on a manufactured body to get around which is nothing like what everyday humans have. Both also, well moreso Ghost in the Shell, dance around the concept of what it means to be human while teasing that while technology can help us, it can also hinder us as well when we forget the past.

Note that this is about the movie, not the TV series, however, the TV series is certainly worth checking out! Set far into the future, Jomy lives in what appears to be a utopian society where the government ensures that everyone can live happily as long as you play by their rules. Disobey, and you will be suppressed. When Jomy learns of this and becomes an issue, suddenly he too becomes a target for suppression. There is another group though that is now after him, the Mu, an ancient race with powers who have been resisting against the government for decades. Can Jomy survive both and somehow figure out how he needs to survive?

Like in Rakuen Tsuihou, humanity has left Earth for the most part because they cannot live there any longer. Technology has made great leaps to allow humans luxury as long as they follow the rules. Disobey, and you are out which is something Angela learns when she stops listening. While Angela is racing to find answers, she is hotly pursued which is what happens to Jomy throughout the entire movie. If you love sci-fi movies with a chase, this is for you!

Originally, there were nine humans who were “upgraded” in order to be used as weapons. As one would expect, this is not how things play out, and eventually these cyborgs rebel against the order that created them. They want justice and peace and order, or so they say. Eventually, unchanged, time moves on, but nothing is as it seems when the ideals that they once stood for have take on many meanings.

009 RE:Cyborg is also set in the future in a full-blown dystopia and this is what Angela learns of her supposed “society” as well. Hackers are an important central theme and thus, that is why the main characters are dispatched. The central theme of asking the viewer to define humanity for themselves as well as question what they consider to be just, runs throughout both movies as well. If you are into picking out religious themes and undertones as well, then this is for you!

Rune Ballot is making all the right choices in life and is living every day to its fullest. Just kidding. Rune is actually a teen prostitute in Mardock City and is not doing the best. One day though, her luck switches and she gets picked up by a powerful man known as Shell. He gives her everything that she could ever want, but when she peeps to learn more about this kind man, she has gone too far and Shell has her killed by blowing up the car she is in. Rune is saved and brought back to life in a new body. Now, she lives to find out the truth and get her revenge. Preferably in that order.

Rakuen Tsuihou and Mardock Scramble have a lot more in common than most anime fans pick up on. Angela and Rune end up being very confident, strong female leads that march to the beat of their own drums to a certain extent. However, both have issues with their new physical bodies when they are first introduced to it and need to learn to once again how to think and act like a human. Thus, the theme of “being human” is revisited. Both are set in the future, but not too far into the future to give the reader the impression of a future impossible to be attained. Mardock Scramble is a bit more violent though, but that’s because you are trading the suspense aspect of Rakuen Tsuihou for the action and violence of Mardock Scramble.

Yuji Kaido gets ill one day and has only one choice since he cannot be medically treated, he needs to be cryogenically frozen. He undergoes the procedure and wakes up 20 years later. However, when he wakes up, the future is nothing like he expected it to be. Aliens that look like bugs and are called the Blue now roam and rule a desolate earth. Meanwhile, humans have retreated to space to try and make a new Earth for themselves in a spaceship known as Second Earth. He joins soldiers as they try to go back to Second Earth with him, but he learns rapidly that nothing is as he is being told.

More or less here, both movies are set up with humanity living somewhere away from a desolate and semi-deserted Earth. Angela and the humans of her world live online while the humans of Yuji’s story live in space. Both worlds are seconds away from disaster but the government silences all opposition. Both main characters also manage to invoke the viewer’s feelings with their moral compasses making the viewer want to go against what the governments are presenting as well. Ultimately, it becomes a final conversation between what is the supposed new world order and what the former world order was.

There is another layer superimposed on our own. The virtual world sits on top of our current one and information and technology are at an all time high. When Souma Toru, part of a group of hackers known as Steppen Wolf goes to pull off their final attack, they are caught. Not only that, but his best friend is killed. Now, Souma gets a second chance at life by getting a job working for the UN as a hacker, but Souma has one goal: find the monster who killed his friend and get revenge. However, working for a government organization is not as clear cut as Souma expects putting him in very prickly situations sometimes.

More or less, both Rakuen Tsuihou and Baldr Force start out the same. They both have people who more or less live in an online world. Something is triggered and their “so called” utopia comes crashing down around them. As Angela and Souma dig further and further, they find out things they are not supposed to, and now their former paradises turn out to be hollow lies. If you want more solid similarities, both are ripe in gratuitous fanservice, hacking, mecha, and the questioning of what reality is compared to humanity.