Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence | translation by necroboi based on transripts by Meiko/Nebu


Allusions and references:

Innocence begins with a quotation from Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam's Tomorrow's Eve (1886):

    "If our Gods and our hopes are nothing but scientific phenomena,
    then let us admit it must be said that our love is scientific as well."

The movie is filled with references to fantasy, philosophy and Zen and addresses aesthetic and moral questions.
The numerous quotations come from Buddha, Confucius, Descartes, the Old Testament, Saito Ryokuu, Richard Dawkins,
Max Weber, Jacob Grimm, Plato, John Milton, Zeami, the Tridentine Mass, Villiers de L'Isle-Adam and La Mettrie,
author of "Man a Machine" (1748).

The characters and character names contain many allusions to earlier works. For example, the "Hadaly" model robots
refer to Tomorrow's Eve, the first book to use the word android, and which features a human-like robot named Hadaly.
The police forensic specialist, Haraway, is most likely named for Donna Haraway, author of the Cyborg Manifesto.
Haraway's character is most likely based on Susan Calvin from Asimov's Robot series. The Robot series is also
referenced in that the androids in the movie comply with a modified version of Asimov's Third Law of Robotics.

Dolls are an important motif in Innocence; many beings have a "spirit" of some sort, but at the same time are not
quite human. The female dolls are based on the art of Hans Bellmer, who is the pioneer of ball-jointed dolls.
Bellmer's name briefly appears in one scene on a book cover. As Oshii comments, "They want to become fully human 
but they can't. That dilemma becomes unbearable for them. The humans who made them are to blame. They try to make
a doll that is as human as possible  but they don't think of the consequences." Even the human or partly human
characters move in doll-like ways, grants Oshii. Oshii also planned an exhibition to commemorate the film. The
exhibition showcased several Japanese artists' work of ball jointed dolls.

The parade sequence is based on a religious procession and a temple in Taiwan.


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*** Because of space and time constraints most of the quotation references in the original transcript
were removed. I included here the original translation notes of the fansub and their corresponding
timestamps.


Translation notes:

00:01:08,201	The kanji means "Look"

00:02:23,409	Denkei is short for DENnon KEIsatsu which means "Al police".

00:10:19,719	a reference to Motoko Kusanagi

00:11:11,203	The kanji means "Police"

00:12:50,035	"What's the point of blaming the mirror if you don't like what you see."
		- Nikolai Vasilevich Gogol

00:12:54,540	"The mirror is not a tool for realizing the truth, but for obscuring it."
		- Ryokuu Saitou

00:14:59,265	"Protect your own existence as long as such protection does not harm humans."
		- reference to Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics

00:20:54,019	"Spring day. Taking the carriage back and forth between this world and hereafter."
		- a Haiku by Sonoko Nakamura

00:22:07,893	Bouryokudan is the Japanese mafia.

00:23:41,520	Old man = Aramaki, the boss.

00:30:16,948	Koujinkai is a kind of Bouryokudan.

00:32:04,289	"One need not have been Caesar in order to understand Caesar."
		- Max Weber

00:32:14,599	"Most people are neither as happy nor as unhappy as they imagine." and
00:32:18,970	"What's important is not to get fed up with living and lose hope"
		- Max Weber

00:32:32,483	"Let one live alone doing no evil, care-free, like an elephant in the elephant forest."
		- Buddha

00:40:11,909	The Kanji on the door is "Happy" written upside down. It's traditional for Chinese stores
		to have their Kanjis written upside down on the entrances.

00:47:12,396	"What the individual creates is an expression of the individual, just as the individual
		is an expression of its genes."
		- paraphrasing Richard Dawkins.

00:53:18,662	"I don't have to remember because I never forget,"
		- Takao Dayuu

00:54:00,604	"Life and death come and goes, (Like that of) A puppet in front of a stage,
		When the string breaks, (The puppet) falls apart."
		- Zeami

00:55:36,933	"If an ass goes travelling he will not come home a horse."`
		- Thomas Fuller

00:57:04,521	"Aemaeth" means "Truth" in Hebrew.

00:59:29,666	"When you sleep alone, you never look miserable like dead body."
		- Confucius

00:59:32,001	The '-sama' is supposed to be sarcastic.

01:00:34,931	He's supposed to sound sarcastic.

01:01:57,914	a reference to Percy Shelley's poem "To a Sky-Lark"

01:02:44,460	"We usually do not suffer death by choice, but rather by stupidity and custom."
		- La Rochefoucauld

01:04:31,434	"Maeth" means "Death" in Hebrew.

01:06:39,996	"The human body is a machine which winds its own springs. It is the living image
		of perpetual movement."
		- Julien Offray de La Mettrie

01:07:27,343	"God... ever... geometrizes..."
		- Plato

01:10:57,486	"I hear a whisper... in my Ghost."
		- Motoko Kusanagi (see Ghost In The Shell 1)

01:14:33,635	"He is my disciple no more. Beat the drum, my little ones, and attack him: you have my permission."
		- Confucius

01:14:45,514	The Mateba is the revolver that Togusa uses.

01:14:51,650	"Birds hide up high in the sky, and fish hide deep in the water."
		- Ryokuu Saitou

01:15:42,704	a reference to Motoko Kusanagi (see Ghost In The Shell 1)

01:20:12,507	This is a repetition of the "Puppet" poem by Zeami.

01:24:10,378	"Some look into a mirror and don't look evil." and
01:24:14,249	"It doesn't reflect evil, but create it." and
01:24:21,423	"Namely, you should look down on mirrors; don't look into it."
		- Ryokuu Saitou

01:31:50,271	"Let one live alone doing no evil, care-free,"
		- Buddha

01:31:56,544	"like an elephant in the elephant forest."
		- Buddha


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