Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex Complete Series Review (Part 1)

While I do agree with the statement that the series needs your full attention I don't agree with the not aging well comment. Just because the vision of the future in GITS is not comming to fruition, it's worth remembering it's science fiction and one possible outcome of an ever changing world where technology has an ever increasing presence in our lives.
 
crashmatt said:
While I do agree with the statement that the series needs your full attention I don't agree with the not aging well comment. Just because the vision of the future in GITS is not comming to fruition, it's worth remembering it's science fiction and one possible outcome of an ever changing world where technology has an ever increasing presence in our lives.
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Yeah, that's like saying Blade Runner is terrible because there aren't replicants walking around, or Akira is rubbish because the Olympics next year (one prediction they did get right 😉) is being held in regular old Tokyo rather than Neo-Tokyo and Back to the Future 2 is poor because there are no hoverboards!
I will say that if I ever wrote a future sci-fi story I would set in a year well beyond my live time so I wouldn't live long enough to see myself proved wrong 😄
 
crashmatt said:
While I do agree with the statement that the series needs your full attention I don't agree with the not aging well comment. Just because the vision of the future in GITS is not comming to fruition, it's worth remembering it's science fiction and one possible outcome of an ever changing world where technology has an ever increasing presence in our lives.
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Yeah, I feel hinging your criticism on realism is a little unfair Ian. SAC does have the odd issue with pacing and complexity (appropriate) but I certainly never considered the plausibility of the future it presented to be among them. Frankly Motoko wearing a bloody swimsuit to work in S1 tests my suspension of disbelief harder than cyberbrains or ghost hacking.

Reviews are personal of course, but to me six out of ten seems far too low given the positives of the series over the negatives - The intriguing plots that often incorporate real life issues of technological ethics, the enjoyable characters and their relationships, the animation and the music of SAC are all excellent, imo.
 
Stand Alone Complex does feel like hard work to watch
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I don't know anyone who's had this opinion, but granted each to their own. Episode 9 is the one where they're in a chat room, and the majority of that episode is just a conversation but it still manages to hold the viewers attention.
 
(Angry Professor noises)

Most of what I take issue with has already been touched upon, although I would add that I feel the 2nd Gig makes a far more determined effort to link the stand alone episodes back into the main plot.

That aside, if you're talking about things that haven't aged well, I think invoking Neuromancer was a bad idea. So many things that followed it have borrowed its ideas and concepts, that all you're left with is a pretty straightforward pulp thriller with some very 1980s trappings. The book suggests RAM chips could be used as currency, for example; in 1984 they were highly valuable, now they're almost worthless. Even the idea of the all-powerful Japanese super economy is fairly quaint by today's standards, given that the bubble burst around 1992.

It's still an amusing read, but like so many classic works of science fiction, I think you need to acknowledge it as a product of its time and not chastise it for failing to predict the exact nature of future technology. Much like Ghost in the Shell.
 
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it is kind of hard to follow though, if only for mixing politics and technology, when you make both complex the viewer is usually only interested in one of those complex things at a time, watch it enough and you do kind of get who the political figures are and what is capable with the tech. I watched nearly the whole first disc and well, I found the "standalone" and "complex" episodes quite easy to separate. standalone eps usually only mention the terrorist/politicians involved and are resolved where as complex episodes can follow something specific but reference the laughing man quite early and do not get resolved.
I really don't get why people talk about the sexual thing with the major, I always think she's just wearing something for her optic camo (which, in the movie, was her outfit specifically) and particularly after arise, since she's raised as a brain in a cybernetic body she wouldn't think of sexuality the same way as someone raised in what is mostly their original body, I've heard the manga suggests she's had a gay romance, one episode I've seen might suggest she lives with 2 other women, with Arise having a scene where she has digitally simulated sex with a man. one thing I did find weird about her in one episode is when they are chasing down some young guy with diplomatic immunity and a romantic attachment to an android Motoko says the suggested use of a type of female android is "sexist", she gets banter from section 9 for being the only girl in the group for it, but for Motoko to describe something like that seems odd to me, as she's more like the android than she is a woman, and quite often doesn't approach something along the lines of sex, but rather in a tomboyish, anti - authoritarian manner
 
Phobos said:
Is this similar to choking on your breakfast then mutterimg darkly that the entire world is against you?
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Imagine the sound of a monocle falling off a face, forever.

Captaaainuniverse said:
I really don't get why people talk about the sexual thing with the major
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In the manga, she has relationships with both men and women (it's also implied she may, at one stage, have been a man), but I don't think it's desperately relevant in SAC.
 
Just wanting to put in a personal word in favour of Yoko Kanno's ground-breaking soundtrack for GiTS SAC which contributes so much to the atmosphere of the series and - for me - has really stood the test of time. Probably the first anime OSTs I ever bought...
 
Sarah said:
Just wanting to put in a personal word in favour of Yoko Kanno's ground-breaking soundtrack for GiTS SAC which contributes so much to the atmosphere of the series and - for me - has really stood the test of time. Probably the first anime OSTs I ever bought...
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Yoko Kanno is one of the best composers to produce music for anime, her discography is superb.
 
Sarah said:
Just wanting to put in a personal word in favour of Yoko Kanno's ground-breaking soundtrack for GiTS SAC which contributes so much to the atmosphere of the series and - for me - has really stood the test of time. Probably the first anime OSTs I ever bought...
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I forgot to say in my earlier post about the soundtrack, though I do agree with the review, the original movie is a little better than the series in terms of it's soundtrack
 
To all - OK, maybe I was harsh in my review and my comments on realism. It's just that looking back on it, watching the series again after all these years, I was dissapointed by it. There are good bits here and there, but quite a lot of it was dull to me. Sorry.
 
Ian Wolf said:
To all - OK, maybe I was harsh in my review and my comments on realism. It's just that looking back on it, watching the series again after all these years, I was dissapointed by it. There are good bits here and there, but quite a lot of it was dull to me. Sorry.
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it's about 15 years old with a lot of outdated stuff even in the period it's based on, it's ok to be a little harsh if something doesn't stand up to changing times, particularly if it has been rebooted before, which in the case of Arise, it has
 
Ian Wolf said:
To all - OK, maybe I was harsh in my review and my comments on realism. It's just that looking back on it, watching the series again after all these years, I was dissapointed by it. There are good bits here and there, but quite a lot of it was dull to me. Sorry.
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It’s all subjective and you’ve stated your opinions on it, others have said theirs ultimately I don’t get why you’re apologising as I doubt you think your opinions are wrong? Being disappointed is fine as is finding it dull.
 
Phobos said:
It’s all subjective and you’ve stated your opinions on it, others have said theirs ultimately I don’t get why you’re apologising as I doubt you think your opinions are wrong? Being disappointed is fine as is finding it dull.
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Exactly - my opinion is just one opinion. People shouldn't judge a series by what just one person says. Also, as stated, this is only the first of a two part review. The extras may make it a much better experience, once I get the review discs sent to me.
 
Ian Wolf said:
Exactly - my opinion is just one opinion. People should judge a series by what just one person says. Also, as stated, this is only the first of a two part review. The extras may make it a much better experience, once I get the review discs sent to me.
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I'm gonna grammar Nazi and put *shouldn't. I can't recall a time where people did judge something based on one person's opinion
 
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