No, casting Margot Robbie was a headscratcher, casting ScarJo makes perfect freaking sense, there's very few people who can open a movie and only a sliver of those are women. ScarJo is one of them, so yeah, of course they're minds are going to go there. I wouldn't have thought of her, but I think she might be the ONLY actress who could really do that part. And honestly, I'm not offended like I am by the idea of a white-washed Akira. Why? Because Akira is about being Japanese, Ghost In The Shell is about being human. The character is barely human, let alone Asian, so I think in this case it's okay.
There's a movie I love called Hachi, it's the story of Hachiko, a famous Japanese folk tale, transposed to modern day New York with Richard Gere in the role of the Professor. No outrage, first because it's not a well-known film, but also because that film isn't about being asian either, it's about a man and his dog. It's universal. The dog, I will point out, is still Japanese.
You also had The Grudge, Ringu and a bunch of Asian horror flicks adapted into American films with American leads. No outrage.
But then you have sh*t like Godzilla. We've never been able to make a good Godzilla film in the states, and that's because Godzilla is inherently Japanese, so much stuff goes into it even at an unconscious level. Japan reveres nature, but nature was constantly destroying them. They had been annihilated by a nuclear weapon and were still frightened to the core by it, and the people who dropped the bomb were now in the country protecting them. That's an insane thing to get your head around.