Genres: action, drama, mystery, science fiction Themes: cyberpunk, cyborg, mecha, military, police, virtual reality Objectionable content: Intense Plot Summary: In the future, life between the digital and physical world has been blurred. The boundary of technology and humanity has been stretched beyond imagination with lives being led in both the electronic and physical worlds. With the melding of man and machine – a new cybernetic level of existence is being created - An existence that continues to redefine mankind. Number of episodes: 26 Vintage: 2002-10-01 to 2003-03-25
Genres: action, drama, psychological, science fiction Themes: crime, cyberpunk, military, police, politics, virtual reality Objectionable content: Significant Plot Summary: In a futuristic world where the internet and cybernetics has blurred the borders between societies; the members of Public Security Section 9 are reinstated to assist in solving numerous cases of cyber crime. A spate of similar crimes committed by separate suicidal groups known as “The Individual Eleven” becomes the core focus for Section 9 as war approaches in the form of refugees flooding into the country. Number of episodes: 26 Vintage: 2004-01-01 to 2005-01-08
Genres: action, science fiction Themes: cyberpunk, mecha, police Plot Summary: in 2027, Motoko Kusanagi is a highly skilled agent of the military that meets Daisuke Aramaki, former soldier who is currently the chief of Public Security Section 9. Their encounter sparks the assembly of an elite new unit within Section 9. Number of episodes: 4 Vintage: 2013-06
Ghost in the Shell: Arise Alternative Architecture / Kōkaku Kidōtai Arise: Alternative Architecture
Genres: action, psychological, science fiction Themes: androids, artificial intelligence, conspiracy, cyborgs, mecha, military Plot Summary: The story follows Motoko Kusanagi, a highly skilled member of the military, whom upon meeting Daisuke Aramaki, a current chief of the Public Security Section 9, in less than desirable conditions struggles to clear her name whilst forming her own independent team with the highest priority under the sponsorship and guidance of the chief Aramaki himself. Number of Episodes: 10 Vintage: 2015-04-05
**Plot Summary: In a near future, technology has firmly taken root into society at large. Cybernetic implants are nothing uncommon and robots roam as plentiful as humans, all connected through their ‘‘ghosts’’ to the electronic datastreams of the net. Major Motoko Kusanagi and the Public Security Section 9 find themselves in a constant battle with the newly created wave of technological terrorists and cyber-hackers. But things take a turn once Motoko gets involved in a certain case involving an extremely dangerous ‘‘ghost’’ hacker nicknamed the Puppeteer, as she dives deeper and deeper into the limitless reality of the net, to reach her own startling conclusions. Vintage: 2026
I remember when adult swim first aired this show in 2004 alongside Fullmetal Alchemist. Those were some great Saturdays. GITS season 1 had the best opening I ever saw.
Ghost in the Shell is finding itself in dire need of a shorter title with the announcement of a 3D remake in the form of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex Solid State Society 3D, to be presented in stereoscopic 3D.
GITS SAC SSS 3D is described as in “complete 3D,” although it seems only the opening will actually be getting any new material.
The movie opens in Japan on the 26th of March 2011.
The marketing spiel rather tritely admonishes fans that “with the all-new never-before-seen opening the audience will feel like they’ve become cyborgs themselves!”
Aside from feeling Production IG needs to hire new copy writers, fans could probably be forgiven for just wanting a new series of Stand Alone Complex…
We have watched about the first eight episodes. (I haven’t counted, I just know it’s the first season.) The stories are good and I like the sci-fi elements. I think that story-wise, this is one of the better ones I’ve seen.
The only thing I don’t understand is why a cyborg is dressed like a call girl. :unsure: “She” is intelligent and good at her job, so why? I know there’s a 16 year-old boy element out there that needs to be pandered too, and yet, it makes it harder to respect the anime as a whole. Just my two cents, for what little it’s worth.
In one of the episodes, I think it was fairly early on, Batou asks her why she doesn’t just swap her cybernetic brain into a male body. The Major’s dress (or lack thereof) is somewhat intellectually (gotta put that in lol) interesting considering her orientation presented in the show as it kinda goes against stereotypes (made slightly more interesting by her partners fitting stereotypes perfectly). I think there might be some “sociopolitical commentary” going on with it, or some other fancy-sounding jumbo word, but I think that the prurient pandering was more the motivation. Can’t say that I found it too appealing, for what little that’s worth.
It took me years to finish GitS:SAC as the show kicks off with the whole Laughing Man bit and then ignores it for a long time, giving us only “stand alone” episodes which occasionally hint at the Laughing Man plot. The show has so many “stand alone” episodes that have nothing to do with the plot that I gave up on it, thinking it was one of “those shows”. Eventually I powered through it and it was rather decent IMO.
BTW the title screens for each ep are color coded (green or blue) to indicate whether the particular ep is a story ep or a sidestory “stand alone” ep.
Personally, SAC and it’s sequel are among my all time favorites. I definitely hope that what’s hinted at a couple posts up about a new series, makes it off the drawing board.
Celestial_Being - Thanks for the heads up on the green versus blue episodes. I paid attention last night and saw what you meant. As well, kudos for using the phrases “sociopolitical commentary” and “prurient pandering.”
Thanks. I’d like to take credit for them, but after watching GitS those sort of phrases just roll out, it does that to you lol. You’ll see.
I’ll have to watch 2nd Gig sometime. It’s really the only thing in the series that I haven’t seen. I saw most of GitS in Japanese and didn’t enjoy it but I eventually went back and watched the dub and liked it a lot more in English (which I saw solely because I kept running into Mary Elizabeth McGlynn at cons and had nothing for her to sign besides AiVA). You guys who saw all those now classic anime series on CN dubbed were lucky; I saw all of 'em first in Japanese and with the exception of Cowboy Bebop I didn’t enjoy until I saw 'em years later in English.
Seeing GitS later than shows that came out after it I have some issues where some of the themes for which GitS was praised for being profound come off as a little shallow to me, a prime example being GitS’ exploration of sentient artificial life compared to Ergo Proxy’s exploration of the same thing. Maybe that’s partly because Travis Willingham playing a “gay robot” is funnier than the Tachikoma, but I’d like to think that I’m a bit more objective than that
I don’t think that subtitles ever anticipated the barrage of psycho/technobabble that shows like GitS blast them with lol.
I’m shocked. Isn’t that a demerit-worthy offense, dereliction of your self-appointed duty to flood the TAN forum with redundant re-posts?
Anyhow, I wonder who will be bringing the actual anime to us dubbed. Try as I might, most modern J-dubs sound horribly cheesy to me & I wasn’t a fan of the original SAC’s J-dub.
Well if they can get Richard Epcar, Mary McGlynn, Crispin Freeman and William Knight to reprise their roles as Batou, Kusanagi, Tougusa , and Aramaki, I could live with an English dub of this.
Maaya Sakamoto as Mokoto Kusanagi
Kenichirou Matsuda as Batou
Tarusuke Shingaki as Togusa
Tomoyuki Dan as Ishikawa
Takurou Nakakuni as Saito
Youji Ueda as Paz
Kazuya Nakai as Borma
Ikkyuu Juku as Daisuke Aramaki
