Majo R-Domo!

After more than two decades, the manga/anime classic Ghost in the S hell finally arrives as a big-budget Hollywood adaptation , starring SCARLETT JOHANSSON as a cyborg cop with identity issues. But will the whitewashing accusations dampenits box-office prospects?

Scarlett Johansson is no stranger to kicking butts and taking names on the big screen.

As Natasha Romanova, aka Black Widow, ScarJo, 32, inflicted bodily harm in five (soon six) Marvel movies.

As a drug mule-turned-invincible pugilist-with-a-high-IQ in Lucy, she sent thugs by the truckload to meet their maker. (We still can’t wrap our minds around what became of her character at the end of that movie — she morphed into a USB flash drive? Oh, never mind.) This week, Johansson is back in familiar territory in Ghost in the Shell. It should be a walk in the park for her.

Ghost in the Shell is adapted from a manga (Japanese comic book) by Masamune Shirow that has been around since 1989 and has countless spin-offs, including revered 1995 anime film by Mamoru Oshii. 

Set in a future metropolis, the story follows a bunch of cyborg cops — called Section 9 — on the trail of a terrorist hacker. During the investigation, squad leader Major (played by Johansson) suffers an existential crisis and begins questioning her own identity: Does she have a soul (the ghost) even though she’s in a robotic chassis (the shell)? Can the soul move from one shell to another without losing its memories? Does being human require a body?

Real cheem stuff. (It’s a role that requires her to also draw on her experiences playing a Siri-like AI in Her and an alien trapped in a human body in Under the Skin.)

In 2008, Steven Spielberg and Dream Works Pictures acquired the rights to make the first liveaction adaptation of Ghost in the Shell. The ’Berg handed the keys to a potential franchise over to British helmer Rupert Sanders, best known for Snow White and the Huntsman, who cast Scarlett Johansson in the lead.