6) New Port City
With the casting of ScarJo in the lead, it hadn’t previously been completely clear if the movie would embrace the original Japanese setting of the anime. This trailer addresses that immediately though by showing us the cyberpunk Japanese cityscape. In case that’s not obvious enough, we also see a group of creepy robot geishas attacking their clients. Yep, this is definitely set in Japan.
Visually, the setting is a striking one, with bright holographic advertisements and avatars signs littering the rooftops of the crowded skyscrapers. It’s definitely inspired by the city from the original anime, but it’s most obvious precursor is the famous urban setting of Blade Runner, with its images of Asian women on the side of buildings. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, as it’s hard to depict a futuristic sci-fi city without borrowing from that seminal movie.
In the original manga, the fictional city is called Niihama, or New Port City – the new capital of Japan (now a major superpower) since Tokyo and other sizeable population centres were destroyed in a global nuclear war. We’re not yet sure whether the film will share this backstory, but it’s probably most likely that these details will be edited out in order to streamline the plot.
