Innocence is a 90-minute philosophical essay wrapped around a 30-second plot, and it knows exactly what it is. Oshii doesn't want you following a mystery; he wants you sitting in the rot of a future where bodies don't matter anymore, where the line between purchased consciousness and genuine thought has dissolved into nothing. The animation pulls you into this dread, 2D and 3D bleeding together, the camera moving through empty spaces like you're the only thing left that can see. Kenji Kawai's score doesn't score the film; it becomes the film, turning every frame into something that feels less like narrative and more like drowning in questions that don't have answers. It's not for people looking for a tight story. It's for people who want to sit in unease and come out changed.

In 2032, medical technology has made cyborgs common and androids commercially viable. A prototype female android is linked to a series of gruesome killings, and Section 9, a counter cyber-terrorism unit, takes notice. The victims' families refuse to press charges. With Major Motoko Kusanagi still missing months after the Puppet Master incident, the case falls to the cyborg Batou and his partner Togusa. When a malfunctioning gynoid leaves Batou a cryptic message, he starts to doubt what is really behind the breakdowns, and talk of politically motivated murder and an illegal ghost draws the pair into a dangerous conspiracy. As they dig deeper, the boundary between human and machine grows harder to see. The film is psychological science fiction mixed with action, set in a world full of machines and living dolls.