Was it a Japanese character, originally?
Yes, Major Motoko Kusanagi was as Japanese as it's possible for a full body replacement cyborg from the post-WWIV future to be, but I still don't see the problem here. It's an American movie. I mean, if a Japanese studio took an American thing like Batman and made a Japanese-language spinoff (and based on the trailer, the GitS movie it is indeed a spinoff rather than any sort of "adaptation"), I would pretty much expect the actors to be Japanese. For some reason people don't seem to agree on the reverse. Because Hooleywud.
If anything, focus on the appearance of the lead actress reinforces how Anglo-phonic-centric the fandom is. It's much more jarring to me to see GitS characters running around speaking US English than anything about their appearance. But I guess people don't notice that, because obviously everyone speak standard American English, even future Japanese cyborg antiterrorist units.
The GitS "whitewashing" hysteria reminds me of the Trump election in one aspect: after watching the trailer, I was very in tune with all the things wrong with it (of which the race of the main actress is not one). However, all you can read about online is about the race thing, overshadowing the legitimately retarded content of the trailer. It's like everyone howler-monkeying about Trump's alleged racism, overshadowing his legitimately concerning policy positions, such as a wishy stances on gun control and electronic privacy.
