Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045 Season 2

In my initial review of the first twelve episodes of this season, I lamented over how so many franchises were being brought back tailored for new audiences that completely miss the point of the original show. At the time, I didn’t think I’d ever see a legacy franchise successfully resurrected with the way entertainment is being handled lately. But then Top Gun: Maverick came out. So, it is possible. With the right writing. Any idea can work with good writing, really. But the people who did this show? I wouldn't trust them to do a nursery rhyme. As before, I will limit myself to five points. Spoilersahead. Use what worked before. That’s fine. But don’t depend on it. The first season dealt with someone who took a book too seriously. The second season dealt with a dude who attempted to get his hands on a nuclear weapon to get his point across. Let’s use them again! The new idea is post-humans, which had the potential to be interesting on its own, but they just go ahead and do what the Laughing Man and Kuze did because nobody will notice. Leaning too heavily on what worked before is a subtle way of your plot not being strong enough to stand on its own. It had previously been my understanding that the members of Section 9 were the best of the best, mainly by their own merit. And then Batou admits to an AI helping all of them aim. Great. This is as bad as the Major downloading how to box. Our heroine and her heroes are not the best of the best. They have the right bodies to handle enhancements that make them superhuman. Saito’s augmentation makes sense. He had to have his eye ruined before he was able to use his little gizmo. A sacrifice was necessary. That’s compelling and adds to his character. Well, now we can all be Saito! And we don’t have to have the Major poke our eye out! Just so long as we have the right prosthetic body. Why should I care about characters whose talents are not unique? I guess all one must do to be special here is download a Wikipedia article and find an AI to fill in the blanks. How does one get to be a member of Section 9? I mean, they let Purin in. It can’t be that hard to join them. Accepting the finality of death demonstrates a mature perspective of life. Of all characters, I would have been willing to bet the Major would understand this. But she is not interested in the ethical implications of her decision, despite how philosophical she can otherwise be. They needed Purin’s brain. Because nobody else in Section 9 is talented enough to hack the Pentagon. Uh-huh. Here’s a thought. Did the writers really have to kill Purin in the first place? Evidently, because they wanted to use this trope, and they made the Major look like an absolute idiot while doing so. Having said that, it will come as no shock that I found the ending to be on par with how Neon Genesis Evangelion concluded. Rebuild included. Everyone’s consciousness is in “heaven” because the world is in the throes of nuclear war. The Major is given the chance to pull the plug, but relents. Yet she can’t live in a fantasy world, so she decides to retreat into the net. To essentially live in a fantasy world. Yet it is not all negative. As before, I applaud the dub. Everybody did fantastic. I got mad respect for Cherami Leigh's portrayal of Purin. This is one of the few shows I prefer to watch in English, but the dub was not ready at the time this first came out due to the pandemic. I wasn't enthused enough to watch the first twelve episodes a second time despite how much I like the English voice cast for this show, so I missed Leigh's performance. Until this season. As much as I do not like Mary Sue---oh, excuse me. Purin! As much as I do not like Purin, Leigh made her tolerable. Where do they go from here? It would take a miracle to come back from this. Oh, wait! A Rebuild. That’s right, it would take a Rebuild to come back from this. Maybe when they get to 2045 a second time around 2055, they’ll get it right. But I doubt it.

As a huge fan of Stand Alone Complex, and GITS in general, I find myself to be very, very, very, very, very, very, very conflicted over this season, and understandably so, as this iteration of GITS came the closest to reimagining the genius of Kamiyama Kenji's first outing with the franchise, but, as you'll soon find out, somehow managed to crash and burn gloriously in the final lap and right before the finish line. I have a lot of scattered, disjointed and eager thoughts I feel I need to dispel, but I don’t really know how to organise them into anything resembling a legitimate reviewof this show, so, this write-up will be mostly stream of consciousness. With specific regards to any mention of the visuals, this "review" will, more or less, cover both seasons, as they are ostensibly the exact same. And do be wary. I’m going to drop random spoilers whenever I feel like it. In hindsight, I probably should have rewatched season 1, despite 2020, and the release of said season, only feeling like it happened a couple of months ago. But, I guess it’s been long enough that upon starting up episode 1, I had initially completely forgotten all this series’ specific jargon. No matter though, because unlike the original Stand Alone Complex, this series isn’t too reliant on it, plus I have google on my side. And it’s only now dawning on me that this exact reason is probably why the compilation movie exists, but, well, I wanted my fix of GITS, so I guess you could say I got what I wanted. Nevertheless, I can safely say that, for most of its run, I enjoyed what this season, and SAC_2045 as a whole, had to offer. It almost felt like a well-needed return to form, but at the same time, something new altogether. However, despite that, the show still finds itself with a fair share of issues, some more glaring than others. So, I’ll get one of the most contentious aspects of this show out the way first: the character designs. I think Ilya’s art is nice enough to look at in isolation; I can very much appreciate that. But, for whatever reason, I find his designs have always had this air of pretentiousness to them, which is especially true for these redesigns, particularly the female ones. See, unlike their Arise counterparts, the Section 9 of SAC_2045 sounds, acts and emotes like their usual, badass, slick 'n cool selves, however, due to Ilya's radically different take on the cast, and the new 3DCG look, there's this insufferable dissonance going on between the writing and the visuals, and that goes double for the Major. Thankfully, the woman is so astoundingly charismatic, that at times, I'm tricked into thinking Ilya's redesign doesn't suck. So, even though she looks like a—as SingleH so flatteringly puts it—sex doll, she continues to, without falter, command attention with her mere presence every time she graces the screen, which I think is a testament to how powerful Atsuko Tanaka’s performance is, despite how unauthorative the new design looks. As for the rest of Section 9, everyone looks objectively (if I can use that word here) passable, even if I find Togusa’s rework to be absolutely awful in terms of representation. The design is just so, 2020, for a lack of a better way to describe it. Strangely, it’s not even really Ilya’s fault either. Episode 5 restores Togusa’s glorious mullet, but it’s just that the CG engine is incapable of truly capturing its glory the way I.G did so masterfully two decades ago. Speaking of the CG, it looks—and I don’t care what anybody has to say about this—fucking amazing! Sola and I.G finessed the absolute shit out of what they were given to work with. Everything looks incredibly polished across the board—it really grows on you over time, although, still nowhere near as breathtaking as Kise's Arise. As I said in regards to Vampire in the Garden, there are many ways to say something looks great, and SAC_2045 season 2. Looks. Great. I couldn't really tell if anything was upgraded, visually, since season 1, but I’d like to believe it looks different, somehow—maybe it's smoother? Anyway, this segues into my main issue with how the CG, despite its evident polish, negatively affects the show on a scene-to-scene basis in comparison with the original SAC. So let’s move down a paragraph. SAC_2045’s greatest strength is also its greatest weakness, that being the mode by which its story is conveyed: the virtual environment. Don’t get me wrong, the way it’s used here is genuinely great, so great in fact, that I’d argue SAC_2045 might be the best-looking CG TV/ONA series I’ve ever seen. It’s quite enthralling to see the characters traverse the environment as well as interact with props, and one another, in fully realized, aesthetically pleasing renders, masterfully brought to life by I.G and Sola. It's that same filmic movement Kamiyama sought to capture in animation during the original SAC, now given the tools to flat-out do so. For instance, Purin climbing over the hotel bed to get to the robot charging port kinda blew me away. It’s a fairly small, inconsequential scene in the scope of the entire series, and there are definitely better examples I could have used, but you don’t often see characters move through a "set" like that. I was fully expecting her to walk around the bed, but the staff took full advantage of the liberty that the 3DCG allowed them and had her traverse through the z-axis with the camera in tow. I hope any of what I’m explaining doesn’t sound too mundane, but getting back on topic, my point is, that while the virtual environment stuff is great, the freedom it gives the staff hinders their ability to really frame a scene impactfully—if you get what I mean. A lot of really big scenes seemed to fall flat because of the focus on intractability and life-like movement. I feel a more traditional approach to presentation, like in Arise, for instance, would have forced the staff to think long and hard about how to storyboard specific segments, upping the visual impact that I think SAC_2045 was sorely lacking. The trade-off for this, I suppose, was the big-budget action feel a lot of others noted and attributed to Aramaki Shinji, however, I feel this is just as in line with the type of media Kamiyama enjoys consuming (and I guess creating), as he’s stuck his neck out on several occasions to profess his love for well-oiled, Hollywood action, popcorn flicks. As a matter of fact, we've been seeing more and more of this style from Kamiyama as of late—well, relatively—starting with Hirune Hime, or maybe even Re:Cyborg. Of course, that isn't to diminish Aramaki's role on this project, but SAC_2045 just seems more mutually collaborative than most make it out to be. But hey, I know literally nothing about animation, and I have no idea what I’m talking about. However, I do know what I’m talking about, especially when it comes to things that I know what I’m talking... about, and the ending falls into that category. The ending of SAC_2045 was absolutely atrocious—or was it? I really don’t know whether or not I absolutely despise this ending, but what I do know, is that it left me incredibly disappointed and wholly unsatisfied. It's for sure going to be the most polarizing component of SAC_2045’s narrative. Like, what the fuck were they thinking? At first, I thought ‘N’ was a relatively cool idea, though nothing as ingenious, inventive, intelligent, imaginative, innovative, incredible, intuitive, impeccable, impressive, indispensable, or inspired as the Individual 11 nor The Laughing Man, but still, relatively cool all the same. But the idea just kept growing and growing until the stakes were at a global level, and here I thought Gouda’s nationalist renaissance was big money. Boy, was I wrong. This ‘N’ bullshit just kept getting more and more contrived the further it went, until it eventually imploded in on itself like it was the end of some cookie-cutter, milquetoast, bag-cereal, run-of-the-mill, garden-variety, top-ramen, dollar store, teen-fiction, dystopian novel, where there are seemingly no consequences for the character's actions. But who knows, this might just be another case of, “I’m too stupid to understand the nuance, and with time, I’ll accept this as some legendary subversion, or extension, of GITS as an intellectual property.” I hope the fuck not, though. The concepts got so big and ill-defined that even the characters couldn’t explain them. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was where Satou Dai’s authorial hand came into the picture. I love the man’s work, but this is right in line with the big-concept stupidity he often indulges in. LIKE, WHAT IS THIS? THE MATRIX? THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE STAND. ALONE. COMPLEX! DOUBLE-THINK IS JUST PURE TECHNOMANCY BULLSHIT! I don’t even remember any of this being established in season 1, apart from the aptly named “nostalgia virus,” though its connection to double-think, N and Shimamura’s grand plan is utterly lost on me (on second thought, they're all just synonymous with each other, aren't they?). Like, I understand what the plan is, and how it works, but isn't it just a little juvenile, especially for SAC, given its reputation for grounded, hard sci-fi? Also, that ending scene was absolutely masturbatory—undoubtedly the worst version of the backdrop (or whatever you want to call it) to date. And man, what were they thinking with Shimamura’s final design anywho? He’s decked out in a school-shooter trench coat on top of already looking like a cross-bred Joker and Minato Arisato. That’s just a recipe for disaster. And a disaster it was, as I attribute everything wrong with SAC_2045’s rushed, frankly baffling conclusion, to him. Now, in the same vein as Shimamura, Purin is a character I SHOULD hate, but surprisingly, don’t. I don’t know what to tell you: she just grew on me. All that Ilya pretentiousness I was talking about earlier melted away thanks to Megumi Han's (huh, wait a minute, I was just explaining a couple of days ago how I thought she carried Vampire in the Garden’s emotional crux, go figure) brilliantly emotive performance. And hey (I bet you just love how I keep using "and hey" to nonchalantly add some stupid, obvious tidbit), they even decked her out in a plug suit, so I guess Eva really did alter anime eternally. Anyways, I thought that was real cool and—to use a smark term—it got a pretty huge pop from me. But you know what also got a pretty huge pop from me? Scott “basically god” Matthew, that’s what. When was the last time you heard an Australian singer in an anime? That’s a rhetorical question of course, and yes, this is ironic lampshading. So anyway, on top of receiving an insert song from the man I’m going to dub, "the voice of SAC," we also got an insert song from EMI FUCKING EVANS of all people! Those two additions to the soundtrack fixed what I thought was lacking from season 1’s OST—an emotional punchline that underscores those big scenes, which are supposed to make us, as viewers, care. It’s what Kanno’s score did so flawlessly on the original SAC, and, to an extent, it’s replicated to decent effect here (wow, this paragraph is huge). Alright! I’m going to end this “review” by mentioning a few things I thought were interesting. So, first of all, you have no idea how happy it made me to see Batou in his original SAC design during that Purin flashback, as blatantly fanservice-y as it was. It made me so happy, in fact, that the unfortunate co-occurrence of it, and a retcon to the stand-alone Marco Amereti episode, didn’t even matter, although it probably should have. Secondly, it really seemed like someone on the team lifted the whole soldiers crying, laughing etc thing right from Guns of the Patriots, anyone else? Thirdly, when the fuck did “3D printing a cow” become a thing in SAC? What is this, Star Trek? I half expected to see Data come out of that thing instead of Mizukane, lol. And lastly, as hard as that one rock track is trying—and failing—to be Run Rabbit Junk, it surprisingly, like Purin, grew on me, to the point whereby the last couple of episodes, I was doing air guitar every time it played. Yeah, isn't that cool? So, while SAC_2045 had some really, really interesting ideas pertaining to the American empire, a sustainable war, post-human cyborgs, and crazy world-building events like the synchronized global default, it also had some really, really rushed, horrible ideas that only served to muddy what could have been a legitimately good sequel to one of my favourite anime of all time. Though, despite its lopsided shortcomings, watching the Section 9 gang get back together at full force warmed my cold, black heart. I expect to revisit this “review” to add or fix some things, seeing as it’s 6:22 AM, and I’ve spent the entire night watching this show and writing this garbage, so I can only imagine it’s riddled with spelling errors and inconsistencies. Hopefully, someone more adept at writing can produce a review that clarifies what the actual fuck was going on with those last two episodes plot-wise, so they can explain to me, in clear terms, why the ending didn't suck. Well, the net is vast and infinite, so I imagine that's not a big ask. Thanks for reading.

The second season was good ; in my opinion it envision a point in time and space where humans no matter how greedy and powerful they get ; they will always seek to destroy themselves for more power and hunger ; creating a critical point in time and space where they stop thinking of what they can become and evolve and they turn into what they can gain by dominating others with will of force ; its a fine line of morale that it shows and a good lesson ; was a good series close to the real one but i would say it improvedin some aspects where the story takes crazy twists and turns that turn the story 360 and can shift into any direction until the end its hard to figure a lot of stuff but every piece is a puzzle in this season and they all add up to one big amazing picture

Came closer to what GITS should be [based on the original movie and series'] than the first season, and hinted at deeper threads in areas. But utterly flubbed in tying anything together into any form of a satisfying and or cohesive ending. I was able to just dismiss the first season as meh tier cash grab, but this was more frustrating as it showed some promise at times. Scoring this is difficult due to the hints of promise; the only thing that never specifically bothered me was the sound / music so it gets nominal marks - the rest just get my overall score. Edit: grammar