Is the GITS show good?

>>15810195
Lot of standing around talking shit about metaphysics.
Good conversations, just pretty static. If you like that sort of discussion you'll enjoy it, if not you'll hate it. I thought it was great.

The Tachcomas are bae

Yep.

>>15810195
it's whatever

it's lots of dull dialog, lots of boring spywork, and the occasional decent action scene
Kinda like the manga but without Shirow's beautiful artstyle and less funny.

I really loved it, the characters, the music, the designs, everything. I need to give it a rewatch so i can really savor each episode.
People do think they portrayed Major as too MarySue/PerfectWaifu-ish but i thought she was fine. Tosuga/Batou episodes a best.
>>15810492
>lots of boring spywork
Some of us are espionagefags, you know.

It's...eh. It's not without some really good episodes but it's also got a lot of REALLY boring ones that are most just talking heads without so much as mouth flaps talking about boring shit in a boring room.

>People do think they portrayed Major as too MarySue/PerfectWaifu-ish but i thought she was fine.

I am one of those people. That Saito episode was DREADFUL

>>15810195

If you like

>Elaborate investigations into political conspiracies and mystery solving

S1 has one plotline that is incredibly strong for this, and most of S2 sustains one conspiracy/plotline throughout. This aspect is done as well as you are going to find it outside of the second Patlabor movie.

>Cyberpunk world building

Every episodes gives you a piece of the world, and the characters really are secondary to the world they inhabit. The world building is top notch.

>Good action choreography

It is less flashy than most anime, but feels really grounded and impactful. GITS SAC really succeeds in set up a tense situation and then resolving it with bouts of quick, somewhat realistic, action. Very satisfying if you are into that.

> Highly developed characters

Not so much. The world really takes precedence over the characters here. Togusa, Batous and the Major do have some arcs and some personality, but it really isn't the focus of the show.

>Philosophical babble

Better than most anime at the very least, actual philosophers would probably find it kind of pedestrian or lacking in clarity, but for a lay person with a minor interest in it it is compelling and actually not that pretentious.

It slightly suffers from the early 2000s art style, but looks better than 99% of the shows from that period anyways, still having more of a distinctive late 90s Production IG look. The color palette and music selections are good too, as is the animation.

The show is super dialogue heavy.

>>15811326
I think the show avoids that pitiful because the major does screw up several times throughout the series. She is definitely one of the most powerful people in that universe, but she isn't perfect. I actually find it pretty endearing that the show goes out of it's way to show that even the perfect operator with the best technical and physical abilities can still cause major mistakes and fuck everything up because of poor judgement or character flaws.

>>15810195
It's pretty good, but I prefer the manga.

>>15811326
This post echos my general opinion, especially about how Motoko is portrayed.

>>15810195
GITS is the greatest film ever made so it's hard not to be disappointed with SAC. It's decent I guess.

it had a massive budget and still holds up well today. good if you like politics and corporate espionage coupled with cyborgs, philosophy and police action scenes.

>>15810195
It's about as good as cyberpunk gets, but as a TWEEST the protags are the clandestine paramilitary cyborg death squad instead of the rag-tag group opposed to said government.

I've been watching through Stand Alone Complex for the first time recently. I like it a lot.

>>15810195
Stand alone is pretty good, its only problem is that it has too much of a gundam seed feel with the early computer animation and it doesnt have some of the color moments of the movie but its pretty damn comfy

>>15810195
First season is excellent. Great character interactions and an overarching plot probably more relevant today than it was originally. 2nd Gig is a bit 2deep4me but still good. Solid State Society is a good cap to the series.

>>15810195
best shit ever.

>>15811982
Were you paying attention? In the second season Section 9 and the "rag-tag group opposed to said government" had mutual interests as it turned out the government was, in fact, stupidly corrupt.

>>15812233
And? That doesn't change who signs their checks or what they do for a living.

>>15812196
>2nd Gig is a bit 2deep4me
Really? I found it more accessible than 1st GIG.

It's alright. Way better than the movie at least.

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>>15811412

I just don't think GITS works for long form story telling at a base level. The (anime) movie was a good length. And The manga was what ONE volume? Even Arise had a lot of flaws but by the time they really began to add up the series and even movie was over.

The Major IS a good character but too much of SAC felt like she didn't really WANT or was working towards anything beyond resolving whatever the current problem was. In the movie and manga she was out for identity, in Arise she wanted independence.

Plus even putting the issue of the major herself aside the biggest problem with SAC is just how much of Sec9 is still woefully under utilized or under explored. They had 50+ episodes to develop shit and their cast and they still basically just stuck with the Major, Batou, Togusa power trio. Pazu kind of got some stuff but I don't even remember what Borma's actual job is.

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>>15815849
Borma does bomb disposal, but most of the time he's just Pazu's partner.

This must be the work of a Stand Alone Complex
Its alright, movies did the settings much better

>>15815849
Don`t pretend Saito wasn`t fucking important.If anything he`s my second favourite character after Motoko.

>>15810195
To me it`s better than the movie,to be frank. I recommend it hotly.

>>15810195
It's good yes

>>15815849

They purposefully chose to minimize character development to throw in allot more world building, broader socio-political themes, and plot. This actually put's it more in line with the original GITS manga than any of the other animated works, the characters were less fleshed out in that than in SAC even. The Major in SAC seems to just generally believe that her job is a worthwhile one, she likes being able to curb disruptions to the order and prosperity of Japan from within and without. She has a few other defining views and traits - but she isn't really the focus, none of the characters are. The major fusing with the Puppet Master in the manga was mainly so Shirow could exemplify some of his philosophical ideas - her own development towards that end and her own motivations that lead to that end was'nt given all that much attention, especially in comparison to how they made it a focal point in the movie.

So I can see how someone may not like the approach, but SAC is my second favorite entry after the Manga. The visual direction in the Movie is superior, but the cyperpunk world building, conspiracy plot lines, and socio-politico themes present in SAC make it a bit more interesting to me than what Oshii did with the source material, and I think makes it more true to the source material.

>>15815849
>>15816044

I don't think GitS really works at all. The manga doesn't work, the series don't work and the movies don't work. There's always either not enough characterization, or not enough action, or not enough humor, or not enough explanations, or not enough drama, or not enough plot developments, or not enough sexy stuff, or not enough philosophy, or not enough artistry, etc...

They all fail to fully realize the premise's potential, because the premise is such a massive mixture of conflicting goals that only a genius could do it justice in every aspect.

It doesn't work in episodic format because it's so high-concept that tiny unimportant stories seem like a waste of time as you said and the pacing is fucked up by too much blunt exposition, and it doesn't work in movie format because you can't develop characters, establish the lore and build up the stakes properly. Which is why the movies all feel like some scenes are missing.

The Major COULD be a good character but most of the time she's just boring and underdeveloped, so you can't build proper drama around her, and her decisions rarely make sense.


It's really frustrating.

>>15816019
>>15815995
Weirdly my favourites ended up as Saito and Borma,

I think it's because I had such huge arse expectations for the rest of them, the ones I had none of were the most surprising and interesting.

>>15816125
>the movies don't work
pleb

>>15816371
They work to a certain extent, but they set up stuff that goes nowhere.

Like I get that the first movie is a mystery plot about what the puppetmaster wants, but once that's resolved there's still the issue of Motoko's half-assed self-discovery character arc, her general lack of background and the cop-out ending. The movie tries really hard to portray her angst and uncertainty through very elaborate visuals, but at the end of the movie we don't really know what she's discovered, what happened to her, and we don't know if it really matters. So the movie works better as a music video than as a story.

And in Innocence it's even worse, because everything is more clumsily-written, and they make Batou just as dull as Motoko, in order to force the same hackneyed existential doubt upon him, which they also fail to resolve properly. Like okay he gets to see what's left of Motoko. Now what? Does that make him more or less confident about his own identity? Does he feel more or less like a real person now that he knows that souls can be digitally transferred? No idea, doesn't matter, anime is about craftsmanship anyway according to Oshii, not about stories.

And the live-action is a basic mid-2000s scifi flick where the protag's life is a lie. It works in that way, and fails for the same reason: the actors are boring wooden puppets who don't make you care about the characters, and the action is the same shlock we've seen a thousand times.

Most of that stuff could be resolved by making the characters more likable, more expressive, more fun, and then showing us how fragile all that stuff is.

Cause who gives a shit if expressionless boring mannequins who never have fun and have no real friends end up getting mindwiped or killed?

It's not like the movies even tell us "oh they were fucked all along, it never mattered cause cyborgs aren't people anyway", they start out dehumanized and we're supposed to feel sorry for them when they become even less human somehow.

>>15816450
>but at the end of the movie we don't really know what she's discovered, what happened to her
You serious? The final line "the net is vast and infinite" should make it pretty obvious.

>Most of that stuff could be resolved by making the characters more likable, more expressive, more fun
Not everything has to be Gurren Lagann. The characters are expressive, it's just handled in a more subtle manner, and both GITS movies contain humor.

>>15816851
>You serious? The final line "the net is vast and infinite" should make it pretty obvious.
It suggests that she can now browse the internet without a brain. Big deal, How does that make her life any less miserable and meaningless? How does that solve her identity crisis? How does that help her overcome her fears and her self-doubt? How does that give her closure?

It's like if at the end of Shutter Island, instead of finding out that he killed his wife, DiCap got X-ray vision and said "wow, the inside of people's head looks funny".

>Not everything has to be Gurren Lagann
no, but everything has to be conclusive and well-executed, with as little unnecessary ambiguity as possible.
>The characters are expressive, it's just handled in a more subtle manner
No. Subtlety is when expressions are nuanced, not when they're barely noticeable.

>GITS movies contain humor.
name ONE funny thing from the movies.

>>15816851
The characters aren't expressive enough to be endearing and somewhat relatable. All they ever express is awe, pain and anxiety or maybe self-disgust.

They don't need to go full chibi wacky overreaction, but let them at least smile or laugh a little. Let them show that they can enjoy their lives, that they actually respect and like each other. Show us elements of their earlier lives, memories, relatives, things they care about.

And only then show us that all of this might actually be fake.

That's basic screenwriting: set up the stakes, create some emotional attachment, so that when the threat is established, it doesn't fall flat.

>>15816889
>name ONE funny thing from the movies.
Batou saying he isn't going to shoot up the yakuza bar in Innocence and then what actually happens.

>>15817051
You're really pushing it, and at any rate, barely counts as situational comedy, and even then it doesn't make the characters any less one-dimensional and boring.
It doesn't even show that Batou has a sense of humor, which is fucking terrible because that's the one big thing that defines him in every other version.

>>15816125
I guess I disagree, I think the GITS Manga, Movie and SAC all do more than enough in terms of what they are trying to do to make it one of my favorite franchises.

I think the episode structure is especially good, because the high concept isn't in the plot or the characters, it's in the world. If anything, episodic structure does this best by giving us tons of small snippets of world that makes up a larger whole once you've seen them all. The political conspiracies aren't that high concept either - they are only different from what could happen in a contemporary setting in the way that future technology plays a role in them. Philosophical themes are exemplified through the very existence of the world and the kind of things that happen in the world. GITS would probably work just as well as a pen and paper RPG setting as it would a manga or anime. That is it's strength though, it creates a world that sucks you in and makes you reflect on the world you inhabit.

>>15816889
>How does that solve her identity crisis?

By showing that identity is a spook. The solution to the identity crisis is to give up the notion of a self contained and singular identity, because as the movie shows, all the criteria we could have to define identity ultimately fail and are uncertain measures. Instead you should merge into the net of information around you. It ties into allot of the religious themes present in GITS ( just about every religious tradition has a notion of ultimate non-duality where the distinction between self and other is illusory or derivative) Motoko transcends via the muting of her self identity by merging with the Puppet Master and opening herself to the net, she admits that she doubts that she will retain her individuality in doing so. But she is not disturbed by this. Buddhism in particular claims that letting go of your notion of self is paramount to finding salvation and muting the suffering of existence - Motoko does this, just in a cyberpunk way.

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Arise seemed a bit sucky to me, but I love the fuck out of the design for the Logicoma.