by SARAH ROWLAND

This manga-based masterpiece steams ahead on so many levels and with so much depth, detail and mind-bending imagery that your brain barely has time to catch up with itself. When director Mamoru Oshii isn't blowing you away with some of the most stunning anime ever to grace a silver screen, he's dropping these spiky little Confucius bombs on you. And while you're still reeling through all the spiritual shrapnel embedded in your grey matter, you look back up and an unbelievably beautiful parade of futuristic gold elephants is marching across the screen. To boot, underneath all the philosophical musings and visual bliss lies a seriously kick-ass sci-fi story.

Although Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence is a follow-up to his hugely successful 1995 Japanese anime, which is credited for inspiring The Matrix franchise, Oshii puts his former central character Major Motoko Kusanagi on the backburner. Instead he opts to replace Kusanagi - who was last seen abandoning her mechanized body "shell" to roam cyberspace a homeless soul "ghost" - with her former colleague Detective Batou on an unrelated case. The culprit this time is a splinter terrorist group, which has hacked into a network that controls technically advanced sex dolls. As a result, the green-eyed fuckbots in deceivingly soft kimonos have started butchering their masters.

On its own, it's a simple enough plot, but Oshii uses it to illustrate how man and machine are becoming so blurred that we no longer know what defines a human. Just what is the value of a soul, when you can buy a replica at the flea market? Before he buries you in too much heavy meditation, Oshii offers one of his signature pauses, where he slows things down, like when Batou methodically feeds his lumbering hound. It's an accessible depiction of a lonely cyborg and his dog and Oshii allows you to savour every detail. Cherish this time, you'll need it to reboot before the next electrical storm of stimuli.

The other option is to watch Oshii's opus more than once. Guaranteed, you'll get something different every time. But one thing you'll never get is bored. You may even leave the theatre with a few new neural pathways.

Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence opens Friday, Oct. 29

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