This is how that story was made! Scriptwriter Ubukata Tow talks about the secret story behind the production of "Ghost in the Shell: ARISE".

Ghost in the Shell ARISE" was shown in theaters in four parts from 2013 to 2014. This prequel-like work describes how the "Public Security Section 9" of Ghost in the Shell was formed, and this film, "Ghost in the Shell ARISE PYROPHORIC CULT," which was broadcast as a TV version, and "Ghost in the Shell ARISE/Shin Gekijoban," a list that connects to the "Ghost in the Shell New Movie" Blu-ray BOX will be released on December 22, 2017.

Prior to this, we interviewed the writer Ubukata Tow, who was in charge of the script and series composition of this series. We were able to ask him about many valuable aspects of the production of this series.

When I heard about ARISE, in many ways I thought, "I can't escape it, what am I going to do?

-- First of all, when was your first encounter with "Ghost in the Shell"?

Ubukata Tow (Ubukata): I first read the manga, and then saw the movie version of "Ghost in the Shell" (1995). It was a little before my debut as a writer, so I was impressed, but it was more of a learning experience. You could say it was one of the biggest textbooks during my writer's training. It's not that easy to digest (laughs).

-What did you do during your training period back then?

Ubukata: I was learning, gaining knowledge, acquiring skills, and then going through trial and error to see how I could demonstrate these skills according to my own sensibilities. If I didn't do that, I wouldn't be able to eat.

-- Ubukata: Did you originally like works with this kind of near-future science fiction setting?

Ubukata: Not in this genre in particular, but rather, I tried to somehow absorb the essence of the best works in each genre. I think that SF, detective, cyberpunk, and cyborg action are the first of these genres (laughs).

-- That's exactly right (laughs).

Ubukata: I mean, there's nothing else like it (laughs).

-- What were your first impressions at the time?

Ubukata: My first impression was, "They've gone this far! In both manga and anime, you can dig into a theme so deeply, you can draw the characters so delicately, and you can take an ultra-complex world and scatter it around like miniature paintings in the case of manga, and in the case of the film version, you can just extract the essence, and unify it with a very abstract imagination. I learned a lot from that.

-- Ubukata: I think it must have had a great influence on your subsequent creations?

Ubukata: Yes, quite a bit. I think my standards for information density have shifted more than other people's because of that work (laughs). Even when I'm writing in a normal mood, ordinary readers say that it's too dense (laughs). In terms of density, I am influenced by Masamune Shirow, whose works include "Ghost in the Shell.

-- The explanations of various things are written right in the margins of the pages.

Ubukata: In the case of novels, you can put a note at the end of the book, but people just say, "Don't do that in a novel" (laughs).

-- But they just say, "You shouldn't do that in a novel .

Ubukata: I think it's also an "art" to create something like that. We've arrived at that way of expression by making full use of our techniques. But if you ask me if it would look like a Shirow Masamune work if I wrote a lot of things outside of the columns, I'm surprised to find out that it doesn't (laughs).

-- So, Ubukata-san, what was going through your mind when you were asked to write the script for Ghost in the Shell ARISE (2013-2014)?

Ubukata: In many ways, I thought, "I can't escape this, what am I going to do? I felt like I had to accept it. I've always said "I love Ghost in the Shell", so there was no way I could say "No, I'm not interested in Ghost in the Shell". It was also a way of repaying the favor I had learned from them. Ghost in the Shell" is not a one-off work. Ghost in the Shell" itself has become a genre or a content, and I felt that it would continue to grow in the future. If someone does not pick up the baton and pass it on to the next person, the distance between the batons will become wider, and a gap will be created between the world of the work and the real world. Someone had to make sure that the baton was properly connected, and I was determined to do so. I heard later that there was a plan for a "Hollywood version" (ed. note: "Ghost in the Shell" (2017)), so I felt like I should have told them first (laughs).

-- ( laughs) -So you must have felt a sense of mission.

Ubukata: If you don't have a sense of mission, you can't do such a complicated work (laughs).

-- (laughs) - Yes, that's true, I did feel that way (laughs). But when we think of "Ghost in the Shell", we still have the strong impression that it's a work by Mamoru Oshii and Kenji Kamiyama, so did you have any ideas about how to give it your own unique personality, or how to season it?

Ubukata: Well, there were a lot of things, but we weren't in a situation where we could create something new and innovative. For example, at the time of the first theatrical version of GHOST IN THE SHELL, and when we started making S.A.C. (Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex: 2002-2003), almost nobody knew about it, and it wasn't selling that well, so we could do whatever we wanted (laughs). (Laughs.) When it became a big hit and became amazing, many things changed. The way the company interacts with you and so on. I said, "Let's go out with him," including all these things (laughs).

(Laughs.) "If we don't do it now, what will we not be able to do in the future? Then, I thought it would be the "past version".

-- When the project of"Ghost in the Shell ARISE" started, I think the fans and I already had a certain image of "Ghost in the Shell". I imagine that you had to break down that image first.

Ubukata That's right. And in another sense, it wasn't a one-shot, it was an omnibus series, with different directors for each of them, but they wanted us to make sure that the stories were connected. It's like, "What an idiot! (Laughs.) I wondered if they knew what they were talking about. I thought, "It can't be helped, I have to accept it (laughs). I felt that I had to accept all kinds of things, but it was a work worth doing, and I learned a lot just by making it. So, in the end, I am glad I did it.

-- Ubukata: I'm sure you probably had quite a bit of trouble right from the plotting stage, didn't you?

Ubukata: I've already forgotten about that (laughs).

-- Ubukata: "Ghost in the Shell ARISE" is a prequel to Shirow's original manga, "Ghost in the Shell: The Ghost in the Shell", chronologically speaking.

Ubukata: No, it was a lot of work to get to that point. In the beginning, it was a chaotic meeting, with a lot of different opinions flying around. I made a lot of suggestions for what we should do, and then we started asking ourselves, "If we don't do it now, what will we not be able to do in the future? We decided that the "past version" would be a good place to start. We thought that if we were going to write a sequel, Motoko (Kusanagi) might not exist any more, and that if we were going to write a sequel, it would have to be done now. So, we decided that if we were going to write it, it was now or never.

-- I see. And that's when the story first became connected to the first scene of "Ghost in the Shell".

Ubukata: We wanted to make a bridge between the original manga, GHOST IN THE SHELL, and S.A.C. for newcomers who had never heard of "Ghost in the Shell" before. For example, the end of "Ghost in the Shell" (2015) is connected to the beginning of the manga, and there is one homage episode in the film. As for the rest, since this is an omnibus format, each director will want to do what he or she wants to do, so we decided on a theme for each one. But since we didn't have much time, once we decided on a theme, we told the director not to do anything else (laughs).

( laughs ) -- So,did the communication with the directors for each episode go smoothly?

Ubukata: There were people who changed what they said every time we met (laughs), and there were people who we hadn't met even once, but somehow we understood everything they said. I learned a lot from them. For example, with "border:1" (directed by Masahiko Murata), he said, "I want to make a suspense film," and even though he is the director of "Naruto," he seemed to want to make something like that. Suspense is about the tension that is created when information is cut off in an isolated situation, and I wondered how an expert in electronic warfare could be isolated. I had a lot of trouble figuring out how an expert in electronic warfare could be isolated (laughs). (Laughs.) But as a result, we decided on how to handle "pseudo-memory. It's a good kind of content that brings out a lot of by-products when you worry about it (laughs).

-- So it doesn't seem like Ubukata wrote the whole plot from the very beginning?

Ubukata: At first, we were told to just write it all down, but when we opened the lid, we found that it wasn't like that at all, so we had to listen to each of you individually and formulate your opinions, and in the end, we had to fit it all into a bowl on the script. I guess it was a bit like a coordinating role.

-- Ithink I was also a bit like a coordinator .You were also working like a director, absorbing the opinions of the people on the spot and putting them all together.

Ubukata: I've always been rather good at putting together contradictory things (laughs). (laughs) So I just went along with it, like, "Oh well, I guess I'll just do it.

-- I was strangely convinced when you said that, but looking at the four parts from "border:1" to "border:4", it's clear that "border:3" (directed by Kazuya Kise) is a love story.

Ubukata That was a complete order. Kise-san said, "I want to do a love story," and the director looked at us with a pout (laughs). (Laughs.) As a result, we ended up having fun with various themes, such as the mermaid and the prosthetic body, the second life of the elderly, and what kind of love between a prosthetic body and an electric brain would be like.

-- In that sense, the variations in each of the four works were amazing. I wondered if the story as a whole was going to progress or not. Normally, I would think that there would be a little more of a back-and-forth connection, but there were parts in the middle that made me think, "What? (laughs).

Ubukata (laughs). But otherwise, the director of the previous episode and the director of the next episode would have to have a meeting, and they would have to say that this part and that part are connected, and they would have to say, "Please do it this way. Each director doesn't think about the next episode (laughs).

-- (laughs)-we didn't want to leave any weird loose ends (laughs).

Ubukata Yes, yes. We don't want them to be like, "You can't accept this, can you? We didn't want people to say, "We've inadvertently made this city collapse," or anything like that.