Welcome to Mona Lisa Overpod, the show that asks the question "What is cyberpunk?" On each episode, hosts Ka1iban and author Lyda Morehouse dive into the genre that helped define sci-fi fiction in '80s and they break down its themes which remain relevant to our lives in the 21st century. Pull on your mirrorshades, jack into the matrix, and start your run with us today!

It's one of the most recognizable properties in cyberpunk media, a franchise that blew down the doors between Japan and America and helped popularize manga and anime in the West. It presents a world of cyborg agents using future technology to fight against villains both foreign and domestic, but it also explores the existential issues raised by the interchangeability of data and the mind. And in 1995, director Mamoru Oshii directed the franchise's first ground-breaking feature film, Ghost in the Shell.

In this episode, we discuss the phenomenon of Ghost in the shell as a franchise, the instant-classic status of Oshii's film, the role of the mind in identity, the personhood of cyborgs and AI, the cyborg spectre of Cartesian doubt, the film's religious symbolism, its Bergmanesque trappings, its innate appeal to American audiences, and what it will take for GITS to evolve as a franchise. We also talk about Snow Crash parody apologism, explosions plus philosophy times boobs, telepathy powers, the film's preponderance of high beams, getting express consent before merging, trans-humanism, going weird, and Surf Draculas!

What are the two helicopters?

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