Last week a photo was published online that showed Scarlett Johansson as the lead character for the live action adaptation of the Ghost in the Shell series. There were many who expressed disappointment when the photo made its way online, especially since many had initially hoped for an Asian actress to be cast.Many then claimed that Hollywood had once again “whitewashed” characters/movies that were meant to be depicted by other ethnic groups (think Gods Of Egypt and Exodus). That being said while the general public might be outaged, Ghost in the Shell’s original publisher Kodansha seemed to be pretty pleased with the casting of Johansson.
According to a report from The Hollywood Reporter, Sam Yoshiba, director of the international business division at Kodansha’s Tokyo headquarters was quoted as telling the publication, “Looking at her career so far, I think Scarlett Johansson is well cast. She has the cyberpunk feel. And we never imagined it would be a Japanese actress in the first place. This is a chance for a Japanese property to be seen around the world.”
Major Motoko Kusanagi is the character played by Johansson
Yoshiba adds that he was impressed by how much respect the movie had paid to the source material. In any case for all we know, the movie could end up being pretty good so we guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
Interestingly, Japanese Youtuber Yuta went on the street of Tokyo to discuss this with a few locals. It’s not statistically relevant, but some of the answers he got are interesting:
The JKN Youtube channel also has a pretty interesting discussion on the same topic, as seen from America:
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