Ghost in the Shell: Arise - Border 2: Ghost Whispers

It's time to write a review. Ghost in the Shell Arise II: Ghost whispers. This "episode" was extremely stylized to say the least. Everything from extreme camera angles to (tasteful) use of slow motion, this episode was really some great eye candy. More and more I'm liking the new art style, and the animation is more fluid than the water in my cup. The story, as all GitS stories, is pretty complex. A good understanding of how this universe works is a prerequisite to being able to enjoy this particular story. The story had some strong elements of the puppet master woven in, with issuessuch as self awareness and false memory being important and reoccurring the course of the story. But rather than rehash the first GitS story (the 1995 movie), Arise 2 focused more on the political plot and characters rather than the philosophical questions raised. This is not a bad thing, however, as the main point of this story (at least as I saw it) was to assemble Kusanagi's team. The team has to be introduced somehow and this episode was where it happened. We already have back stories from 2nd GiG, but Arise 2 makes it clear that these are not the backstories that will be used in the Arise series. This is another reboot, one where Saito actually has a personality (lol). To make it clear: the 1995 movie and 2001 movie are in the same timeline, the GitS TV series is another timeline, and the Arise series is a whole other time line, and most significantly different of the 3. This is a fresh reboot of the GitS franchise. The feel is grittyer than the series. It feels almost like comparing the new Daniel Craig Bond movies to the old Pierce Brosnan ones. finally I must comment on the soundtrack. Cornelius is no Yoko Kanno or Kenji Kawai, but I must say...WOW really keeping up in his own way. The sound track is minimalist (no epic tracks like "Torukia" or "Kugutsuukatageroiha yomini matamuto") but fits well. Cornelius is not trying to compete with Kenji Kawai nor Yoko Kanno; and to be honest, I doubt he'd be able to win. He instead turned around and did something else, and boy is he good at it. The music really felt like part of the movie rather than an addition to the movie and helped create a holistic feel. Will I buy the OST for Arise? As of now, no. Would I rather Yoko Kanno or Kenji Kawai did the music for Arise? Surprisingly no as well! I'm happy with the sound track. More than happy actually. Overall this episode was beautiful to look at, but stands alone in style, even compared to the first Arise episode. I personally like it less, but if you're a fan of fluid fights withs extremely stylized action sequences, this one is for you. I gave the first Arise movie a 10/10. I'll give 8.5/10 for this one. I have great expectations for the next movie.

Ghost in the Shell: Arise - Border:2 Ghost Whispers is very similar to the first Arise episode in presentation. That is to say, it is basically a stand alone GiTS story revolving around the redesigned cast as the quirk. I don't think this Arise episode is as good as the first one, but it was good enough in my opinion. Ghost Whispers is even more bombastic, colorful, and stylish than the first Arise episode, and much more so than the somewhat similar Stand Alone Complex. This episode is about 90% action scenes, and they are all well choreographed and look excellent with this well budgeted animationand cgi. It is unfortunate however, that most of the attention went to making the focus of this episode bombastic action. The GiTS franchise is not new to action obviously, but there is always an appropriate depth to the narrative that takes precedence over it. This is not so in Ghost Whispers, which features a rather simplistic tragic war hero plot with a single twist that doesn't redeem it past being made out of recycled 2nd Gig concepts. I may sound a little harsh, but that is because I have high standards not just for the GiTS series but also the Arise branch, because the first Arise was pretty cool. We saw much more of the other members of the soon to be Section 9 in this episode of Arise, contrasting with the first episode. Batou, Paz, Borma, Ishikawa, and Saito all make appearances, basically the whole gang. Batou is still Batou basically, despite him being featured as a secondary antagonist in this episode we didn't see much about his character. Paz is kicking ass in his leather jacket, not unlike his previous iteration. Borma is still blank faced and no personality. Good old Borma. I actually like Borma alot he is a straight man just by existing it is kind of funny. Saito was crap in this film, for some reason he is a moneygrabbing Mr. Krabs. I do not like this change in direction from a previously collected, mysterious sniper into a much sillier persona. Ishikawa didn't wise crack even once, nor did he blow up a pachinko parlor, but I guess we can't get everything. This film's length didn't do justice to this redesigned cast, but we will probably see more of them in the next film. I do think however, if they didn't have so much action there would have been more time for some character dynamic. The Section 9 team is an iconic, serious, and interesting team in Stand Alone Complex, and the premise of the Arise series would imply it puts a focus on these guys. Music is once again underwhelming. Although the intro once again is styled like a sitcom opening like last time which was funny. The verdict I have on this episode is basically, it was a cool action packed ride but it felt like the new Appleseed movie, its all style, very little substance. It's not that Arise itself suffers from this, its just that this particular Arise episode suffers from it, which is disappointing. Great action and animation awaits you, and not much else. This doesn't make the whole episode way better but, there is a particular scene towards the end of the movie that is a very obvious reference to the first GiTS film. I got goosebumps when I heard it, but we have no idea of its significance just yet. If you are curious about this scene be sure to check out this, above average but not as good as the first Arise episode.

Not a huge fan of the first episode, but border 2 picks up the pace. We get to see the coming the together of the SAC unit. For Better or Worse border 2 feels like a classic GITS. "Ghost" and spiritual themes are brought up again but with no elaboration on those themes to add. We get a solid story vague, and a little characterization on each member of the SAC unit. But no complex characters, they are only stactic cut outs meant to serve to the overly dense plot. The plot is nothing the gits series hasn't done before along with its spiritual undertones.But this episode has some pulse pounding action scenes and fantastic Art Work. Camerawork and excellent production values make this a must see. I The story is easier to follow than border 1 and sets the series up nicely for Border 3 & 4. Special mention the excellent visualization of the cyberhacking scenes involving the major and the corporal. It involves optical illusions you will find yourself captivated during the final climax of the film. Border 2 does an outstanding job providing a back story to the SAC unit and its creation. It will leave you wanting to dive back in the SAC tv series or a SAC 3 if they ever make another

Pretty much the same episodic GI Joe action movie as the prior Arise film. However this one pivots away from the more interesting elements of mental disorder the 1st movie depicted in the Major's POV, instead almost completely focusing on what is practically a single uninspired movie-long drawnout action sequence between generic soldier groups intercut with boring politik exposition/narration dialogue between them. The characters are given no opportunity for improvement, they're still shallow props for action as before. The world/art design is still a bit low budget and generic with almost none of the ruination dystopia visible, instead almost entirely boring buildings and a ton ofgeneric highways. The entire plot of this movie has an overt warcrimes erasure/apologist political angle the narrative leans towards in a series that is quite overtly pro re-establishment of military and pro nationalist, tastelessly denying the realworld culpability and acknowledgement of such warcrimes (for a dystopian commentary the narrative seems quite contradictorily unwilling to criticize it or the very leaders responsible, instead reveling in cyberpunk dystopia because 'that's so cool' just as it does with violence). None of the main characters nor the major are even allowed to voice any concerns as they rally a private military unit to insert themselves into this internal government issue (that doesn't concern them whatsoever) on the side of... blindly protecting warcriminals from prosecution because that would be embawassing for the gov rather than simply having the gov get ahead of any such concerns by releasing any such data themselves while hanging any such warcriminals out to dry. Of course all of what should've been a nothingburger for that reason turns out to be a giant nothingburger instead because actually Japan *cough*Unit 731*cough* is the victim and can do no wrong. The plot is another shallow action-focused murder mystery of the same style rehashed once again, now with the generic noncharacter antagonist on trial for the murder mystery crime. At least the robot mascot finally did something even if it was just boring action and dumb quips. Though I feel like Major immediately flipped into being super friendly to it for no reason when she was treating it as a dumb rustbucket in the 1st movie. Like gee, you got hacked because you're an incredibly outdated security vulnerability, "I'm all kinds of important to this movie" "Aw, yes you are. (who's a good pet? Yes you!)" ? Frankly the entire plot from start to finish is full of plot holes, like how they have the antagonist in complete isolation yet for no reason can't simply isolate him from all communication signals with a simple faraday cage. Or how the antagonist sat on his hands for pretty much the entire movie for no reason before suddenly deciding to start actually hacking the thing he could've just hacked from the start. Or how these geniuses are unable to do something as simple as not including expensive AI self-driving tech in their car and instead must spend billions trying to make it hack resistant rather than simple manual drive with less tech. Or how all the hacked cars are never unhacked, yet stopping them from moving (freeing up even more processing from what would've been put into driving) in this retarded logic completely prevents them from being used as processors for no reason when the antagonist is still in complete control of their processes and can just put them in park, (this 1 retarded move is what saves the day, the entire rest of the movie is practically irrelevant, plus the antagonist was already in custody and supposed to be put to death from the start but isn't killed with the excuse that he's hacked all the cars as hostages, but as they've already sentenced him to death they could just kill him to solve that so none of this should even be happening, it's just really dumb). 3/10 (where 5/10 is average)