The Ghost in the Shell | 2nd teaser trailer

The manga isn't hypersexualised.

I mean, if there are a few things that Masamune Shirow is known for across all of his media, it's skin-tight bodysuits in compromising positions, nipple outlines, and panty shots. Why are so many of his male characters in regular clothes while the women are in their underpants? Shirow himself says it's because that's what he likes to draw.

GitS is definitely hyper-sexualized, among other things, but that doesn't necessarily mean that Shirow's mangas are bad or evil or anything of the sort. Instead, the aspect of overt sexuality plays an artistic role in the genre, i.e. it's part of the punk in cyberpunk, and look no further than the earlier Neuromancer for these same characterizations.

However, Shirow is an erotic artist and he has never denied this. On the contrary, eroticism is a core part of his philosophy and approach to his craft. Eroticism finds its way not only into the women he draws, but also and especially in the technology and the violence portrayed in his works.

Again, this isn't necessarily bad in and of itself; plenty of men and women like his style. If anything can be leveled against Shirow, it's that he is not as interested in story-telling as he is in aesthetics and world-building. Another distinctive aspect of his manga style are the copious notes to further explain his visions for the world and its tech, serving as constant tangents. His stories themselves tend to be a string of short pieces that center around action scenes as the narrative meanders about by the end. This isn't always the case, but its frequent enough.

I think @JCAPER, who is not the person you initially responded to, agrees that as far as Stand Alone Complex is concerned, misogyny is not necessarily part of Production I.G.'s intent (even though some of its earlier episodes capture some of the fan-service-y aspects of Shirow's manga). I might also posit that Masamune Shirow did want to write stories of heroines who best the men around them, and some of his opinions on that came out in Dominion. But at the end of the day, his art-style is intentionally erotic and that's how he likes to draw.

If you'll indulge my own tangent:

As far as misogyny is concerned, I think it can be argued that even Oshii is at best ambivalent about women's ability to escape objectification in post-modern society, and he explores this with his portrayal of Kusanagi's nudity. Oshii's coming from the perspective that technology does nothing to liberate future society from gender norms, even though he doesn't see a problem with gender norms, per se. Instead, he draws tension around the age-old problem of the male gaze by portraying Kusanagi as nude in non-sexual situations.

Certainly, for Shirow's Kusanagi, an aspect of her written personality is that she does not seem to find herself limited or threatened by the male gaze. Rather, she exploits that as their weaknesses. Production I.G. takes this idea and explores it further in S.A.C. by portraying Kusanagi as surrounding herself with men who do not exhibit this weakness. But in the films, this aspect is more implied than overt.

For Oshii's Kusanagi, her identity and mission is shown as being hindered by the limits of technology and the bureaucratic systems of the physical world, as well as her mastery over the physical body, which is ironically estranging it from her. Some of this comes across in scenes such as her ferry ride into town, where she looks up into the window and sees another person with the same general model of shell as hers. Even the side-by-side shots of 2501 next to Kusanagi in the warehouse accentuate how generic her infinitely customizable body has become for her. It's a Kafkaesque confrontation at the crossroads of physical and virtual identity, part of which I think also had to do with Oshii's post-divorce depression, but I digress.

Now, Oshii's not a feminist, but he is a philosophical artist. So when critics were quick to point out that his idealized portrayal of Kusanagi's shell likely furthered the issue of her objectification and therefore treatment as a serious character, he tried to push the envelope by removing her body entirely in Innocence. He somewhat agreed with Shirow that for Kusanagi, how men see her is not the crux of her identity problems, but Oshii did intend for it to serve as a way to incept the tension between ghost and shell into the viewer. Thus, he didn't disagree with the critiques, but readdressed his central argument with a hint in the form of the coroner, Dr. Haraway, who is based on real-life sociologist Donna Haraway. She is famous, among other things, for her 1985 feminist essay, A Cyborg Manifesto, in which she says "I would rather be a cyborg than a goddess."

In exploring the narrative of Kusanagi as ascending to virtual godhood, what Oshii is presenting is his cynicism towards the idea that becoming a cyborg would externally liberate a woman from male objectification, and in Innocence, the gynoids are a symbol of this outlook of further entrenched patriarchal control and commoditization of cyborgs in a future where utopia never arrives. However, it's worth noting that Oshii also sees gender as more essential and innate to one's identity than their body is. Thus, Project 2501 as an AI was a genderless ovum that became fertilized by the identity of the feminine Kusanagi. In Innocence, she no longer has a body to gaze upon, but she retains her gender in virtual form as a transformative victory of her identity, but also as part of a furtherance of Oshii's beliefs about the nature of identity.

However, certainly for Oshii and Production I.G., even though Kusanagi's gender is an essential aspect of her identity to the mythos of GitS, what makes her an ideal candidate for godhood is not her femininity, but her relentless dedication to Section 9's mission: public safety. What is often overlooked about the treatment of Kusanagi's character is her ideal heroism in protecting the common-folk by investigating and intervening in criminal and life-threatening situations. In some sense, being physical is a limitation to that goal of fostering public safety. Trespassing the bounds of singular presence is how she ultimately solves a lot of the limitations that, say, Batman faces.

The use of divinity as an examination of post-human identity is certainly an excellent and thought-provoking topic, but no matter who is writing an iteration of the tales, the identity of the Major is best served by the fans who enjoy her story. Like others in this thread, I think there's plenty of potential for next year's series to continue to explore these themes and ideas and a fun and thoughtful way.

Anyway, sorry for getting carried away with my own digression, lol!