The purpose of this article is making a study of the depiction of figures in Oshii's animation: it will be done by discussing Mamoru Oshii's Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer (1984) and Innocence: Ghost in the Shell 2 (2004) and especially by giving attention to the difference between the depiction of human figures and that of human-
like figures like mannequin and robot.

Essentially, animation is expected to make lifeless figures appear to move as if being alive, where the difference between human figures and human-like figures, or between organic matter and inorganic one, has been made clear usually by the degree of being
real in depiction. However, Oshii overcame those limitations, giving all his energies, from 1989 onwards, to the process of layout.

In Urusei Yutsura 2, that difference was made clear by whether characters were animated or not and by their features in depiction, eg., the change of the colour of skin, the existence or non existence of hair, a mouth, double lines to show joints and so on. In Innocence, however, that difference was not made clear by that style in design, but by the delicate direction of animator himself. It is there where the originality of Oshii's animation comes clear.