Open Society

Neurodivergent Co-Regulation Co-regulation is an embodied presence of togetherness; being with people in a meaningful way helps balance and recharge the sensory system and bodymind

Anime is philosophical in its very form. In this article, philosopher and novelist Mike Benett argues that anime’s distinctive visual style and narrative structure embody a phenomenological approach to experience, staging the instability of identity, memory, and the self. From Spirited Away to Neon Genesis Evangelion, viewers are drawn into shifting, subjective perspectives, inviting a mode of reflection more often found in philosophy than in popular culture, but far more in keeping with the modern age.  Anime has a strange new grasp on the world, not just in its surging global popularity, but in the surreal, stylized tropes that define its genres. From apocalyptic science fiction to quiet, introspective dramas, anime had often been dismissed in the West as a niche fandom. Yet beneath its surface lies a rich and sustained philosophical inquiry, one that directly engages with questions of identity, consciousness, memory, and selfhood. In its most ambitious works, anime doesn’t just reflect the world differently. As Christopher Bolton argues in Interpreting Anime (2018), it thinks differently.___The self is not a fixed point, but a shifting field of experiences shaped by longing, memory, and narrative.___Through giant mechs, cyborgs, and fragmented timelines, anime stages deep metaphysical questions: What constitutes a person? Is there a stable self beneath the mask? Can technology alter what it means to be human? These are not accidental themes, but ones embedded in the history of Japanese thought and its engagement with Western philosophy, especially phenomenology, poststructuralism, and Buddhist-inflected notions of impermanence and relational identity. The Cyborg Problem: Ghost in the Shell and Posthuman IdentityMamoru Oshii’s Ghost in the Shell (1995) remains one of the most philosophically complex anime films ever made. Set in a near-future world dominated by cybernetic enhancement and AI consciousness, the film follows Major Motoko Kusanagi, a fully cybernetic government agent haunted by doubts about the authenticity of her own self. Is her “ghost”, her consciousness, truly hers, or merely the illusion of agency in a networked, programmable body?The film invokes classic Cartesian dualism, René Descartes’ notion that mind and body are separate substances, with the mind as the seat of identity. But Oshii’s narrative dismantles that distinction. Kusanagi’s mind is hackable. Her memories can be altered. The boundary between human and machine collapses into what Donna Haraway famously called the cyborg, a hybrid figure that “blurs the boundaries between animal and machine, organism and technology” (A Cyborg Manifesto, 1985). In Ghost in the Shell, the self becomes a posthuman construction, fluid, dislocated, and embedded in systems larger than the individual. SUGGESTED READING Spirited Away with Heidegger By Edward McDougall This philosophical instability is reinforced by the film’s style. Long, atmospheric sequences of urban landscapes and data flows emphasize mediation over narrative, echoing Jean Baudrillard’s idea of the simulacrum, a world where representations no longer refer to any underlying reality (Simulacra and Simulation, 1981). What Ghost in the Shell offers is not simply a science fiction story, but a meditation on the collapse of essential identity in a technologically saturated world. Memory as Self: Millennium Actress and Phenomenological TimeWhere Ghost in the Shell questions the body and its boundaries, Satoshi Kon’s Millennium Actress (2001) explores the self through the lens of memory, performance, and time. The film tells the story of Chiyoko Fujiwara, a reclusive former film star who revisits her life story in an interview. But as her memories unfold, they seamlessly merge with scenes from her movies, creating a shifting narrative in which past, present, fiction, and reality become indistinguishable.This collapse of narrative boundaries mirrors the philosophical tradition of phenomenology, particularly Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s emphasis on perception and temporality as the grounding of selfhood (Phenomenology of Perception, 1945). For Merleau-Ponty, our experience of time is not linear but layered, constantly blending memory, sensation, and projection. Chiyoko’s identity is constituted not by facts or chronology, but by the affective resonance of her experiences, real or imagined.In this, Kon echoes the work of Nishida Kitarō, one of Japan’s most influential modern philosophers. Nishida’s idea of the pure experience posits that the self emerges from a dynamic interplay between inner and outer worlds, subject and object (An Inquiry into the Good, 1911). Millennium Actress visualizes this philosophy beautifully. The self is not a fixed point, but a shifting field of experiences shaped by longing, memory, and narrative. The Broken Mirror: Neon Genesis Evangelion and the Fragmented EgoNo discussion of anime and the self is complete without Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995–1996), Hideaki Anno’s psychologically fraught deconstruction of the mecha genre. At its core, Evangelion is not about giant robots or alien invasions, it is about interiority, alienation, and the inability to construct a coherent self in the face of trauma.As the series progresses, its narrative fragments. The final episodes abandon traditional storytelling altogether, replacing action with introspection, still images, and monologue. Shinji Ikari, the show’s protagonist, is confronted not with enemies, but with his own psychic defenses: fear of rejection, dependency, and an absence of stable identity. In Lacanian terms, Shinji is trapped in the mirror stage, unable to reconcile the image of himself projected by others with his internal sense of incoherence.___Anime makes ontology visible. Identity is fragmented, performative, unstable, and yet profoundly human.___In episode 26, Shinji is told, “You have to create your own meaning.” This radical existential turn mirrors the thought of Jean-Paul Sartre, who insisted that humans are “condemned to be free,” and must take responsibility for defining their own essence (Being and Nothingness, 1943). Yet Evangelion is also skeptical of such freedom. The Instrumentality Project, a plan to merge all human consciousness into a single collective being, tempts Shinji with a vision of unity and the erasure of individual pain. But he ultimately rejects it, choosing the uncertainty and isolation of separate selfhood.The philosophical weight of Evangelion lies in its refusal to offer clear answers. Instead, it stages the self as a constantly breaking and reforming structure, caught between the desire for connection and the fear of being seen. In doing so, it reflects not only postmodern anxieties, but also Buddhist notions of anattā, the idea that the self is an illusion arising from attachment and desire. Anime’s Cultural Framework: Self Without SalvationWhat unites these works is a refusal of traditional Western metaphysics. There is no soul, no divine logos, no Cartesian cogito. Instead, anime draws from a different set of philosophical assumptions, ones shaped by Japanese traditions that emphasize immanence, impermanence, and relational identity. In Buddhist and Shinto cosmologies, the self is not a fixed, isolated entity, but something that arises in context and is always in flux.Anime makes this ontology visible. Identity is fragmented, performative, unstable, and yet profoundly human. In doing so, it speaks powerfully to Western audiences increasingly alienated from inherited narratives of meaning. As Christopher Bolton writes, anime “places the viewer in a space between identification and distance, immersion and critical awareness” (Interpreting Anime). This double vision is not just stylistic, it’s philosophical. It teaches us to live with contradiction.Perhaps that is why anime resonates so deeply with a generation grappling with crisis, climate anxiety, social atomization, digital alienation. It offers no easy answers, but instead a space to think, feel, and reflect. In place of moral certainty, it gives ambiguity. In place of salvation, it gives experience. And in that experience, we find, if not ourselves, then at least the question of what it means to be one. Animation as Philosophical MediumFrom ghostly consciousness to cyborg bodies, from fractured memories to psychological implosions, anime offers more than spectacle, it offers a framework for thought. Its exaggerated forms and visual unreality create distance, while its emotional depth fosters intimacy. This interplay allows anime to stage philosophical questions not as abstract problems, but as lived dilemmas.In the end, anime does not tell us what the self is. Instead, it asks us to dwell in the uncertainty, between ghost and machine, memory and identity, fiction and reality. And in that space, we may glimpse a truth not about answers, but about the value of asking the question.

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I have recently published a review essay on the politics of neurodiversity in New Formations. The link to the published piece is here. Below is the preprint version for those who wish to read but do not have access to the journal.  Robert Chapman, Empire of Normality: Neurodiversity and Capitalism, London, Pluto, 2023, 204pp; £14.99 paperback. Nick […]

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Progressive education is a world-building project rooted in the radical hope that schools can become something fit for human beings. Published by Human Restoration Project, a 501(c)3 organization restoring humanity to education.

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