Willowhugger reviews Gits 2nd Gig series

[Willowhugger]

1. Re-Embody

I rather liked this episode honestly as it struck me as an excellent intro to the storyline even if its yet another episode of PS9 vs. terrorists. It's not nearly as clever as the intro to Stand Alone Complex either. In that, the actual action took a backseat to the Machiavellian plotting. Here its pretty much an all out action episode that the main result being convincing the new PM to take them on the job as we know they will. I will confess I like the PM's design and she actually is one of the more gorgeous anime designs I've seen. Good job for the animators there.

I must confess that the ruthlessness of the team shines through here the most as they dispatch all of them without taking prisoners. It's here that the series first started to seem less "Ghost in the Shell" and more "La Femme Nikita's ticked off cyborg sister."

Still, no complaints and better than most anime out there.

7/10

[Willowhugger]

2. Night Cruise

This episode I weirdly call the "Evangelion" episode. It's what I term episodes of anime that focus on people whose fantasy lives apparently are the only way to cope with the mind numbing pointlessness of life. It sticks with me strongly but it causes me to wonder what it is about Japan that results in this sort of thing that shows up repeatedly as a theme in the shows. Gio ends up being one of the most memorable characters in the series, in no small part because of the fact that the entire episode is from his point of view.

I do find it weird though as I could swear the Particularlist Eleven were supposed to be Anti-Refuge from the first episode yet here the guy is going to assassinate the Media Kingpin because of his stance for the Refugees.

It's a tad confusing.

Also, I keep wondering why they have the Major dress up 'sexily' as I just can't get her character design as attractive. I loved the Manga Kusanaga but her anime appearences are just awful to my eyes.

8/10

[Willowhugger]

Cash Eye

I thought it was pretty much obvious from the beginning, the "twist" of the episode. Then again, I'm not sure there was meant to be a "twist" and it was in fact meant to be obvious from the start. The adult nature of the storyline was something I also appreciated as in the first episode of Stand Alone Complex they dodged around the aspects of sex-dolls by talking about 'brain switch' (I can't imagine any child fooled by that) while seemingly jumping head first into the sex doll trade for this one. I appreciated the honesty. The sheer garbage that Motoko puts up with was amazing really.

I do agree that there's plenty of truth to plenty of national policy being formulated at those kind of gatherings.

8/10

[Willowhugger]

Natural Enemy


I rather liked this episode even if it does remind me strongly of the Tank episode from the first episode. The idea of machines running wild and people questioning the reason why is a oft-repeated theme in GITS. The Tachikomas action again takes up a large part of the episode but the investigation was especially well done here. We also meet whom I suspect to be the villain of this series in Ghoda. I liked the fellow, deformity is a wonderful method of conveying villainy like in Bond films (so long as the villain seems to take pride in it). His slimy performance here was the best part of the story.

9/10

[Jeni Nielsen]

Willowhugger,

a forum is for discussion. do you want people to discuss your reviews with you? As I said in your other post, this might be better served by a livejournal...

As people have already done, you can post your thoughts about episodes in the topics devoted to discussing them.

I like what you have to say though, and maybe Jeff would have a place for your reviews when he does the site update.

[Willowhugger]

Willowhugger,

a forum is for discussion. do you want people to discuss your reviews with you? As I said in your other post, this might be better served by a livejournal...

As people have already done, you can post your thoughts about episodes in the topics devoted to discussing them.

I like what you have to say though, and maybe Jeff would have a place for your reviews when he does the site update.

Hey Jeni!

To explain my purpose for the reviews. I'm noticing that there is a distinct lack of reviews for many of the episodes of Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex and its sequel. So I figured there was two options. Start a thread for the missing individual episode reviews (which I'm happy to do) or do a thread where I share my thoughts on each individual episode and invite people to share their disagreements/give their own thoughts.

Please tell me which you'd think would be better for the forum.

[Jigabachi]

I think many people would prefer reviews from magzines, compared to a personal opinion review.

[Willowhugger]

I think many people would prefer reviews from magzines, compared to a personal opinion review.

Strange, I'm just the opposite. For me, magazine reviews are ultimately vapid of anything resembling valuable content due to the fact that they so rarely touch on issues that a deep fan would be willing to look into. Certainly, my episode reviews are small touches on the matter and in retrospect individual episode discussions from Episode 1 to the end of Second Gig would be preferrable.

But at the very least, the interactive element to the initial reviewer always puts forum discussion well above magazine review. At heart, magazine reviews always seem to read like advertisements due to their pandering to the new fan.

just a personal opinion.

[Willowhugger]

Well if the moderators wish me to change my method of discussion and instead open threads on episodes not covered so far for open discussion, I certainly will. However, here's my overall First Disc review.

Disc One Review:

Ghost in the Shell Second Gig starts off with a bang and immediately sets the stage for what I found to be a surprisingly direct continuation of the franchise from the first series. In the case of many stories, the franchise "reboots" in the second season and there are few if any reprocussions from that point. Here, the storyline opens with Section One still feeling the affects of toppling the previous government with their inactivity plus a new cabinet brought about by their actions. It's a refreshing change really and good to see Togusa now treating himself like a veteran rather than as a rookie.

The set up for the Particularlist Eleven plot is a lot more solid and important here than the Laughing Man plot of season one with only one episode not devoted to the refugee crisis. Oddly, the one episode not devoted to the Second Season "mythology" arc is one that's devoted to last season with a political crony of Yokoshima (sp?) being the villain that Section Nine takes down. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out Ghoda, the refugees, and the P11 group will end up being the main plot for this season. This indicates to me that we're also going to see a lot less 'Stand Alone' (pun intended) episodes this year. Almost all of them will tie together to the Refugee Crisis as opposed to the relatively few episodes of the Laughing Man/Serenno/Secretary General plot.

One thing that does occur to me for this first episode is the fact that they seemed to have ramped up the stakes considerably for Disc 1. In Season 1, we had the Laughing Man incident being relatively small potatoes. If Section One had never involved themselves in the scandal then really nothing would have changed in the country but a few more people would die of Cyberbrain Scholrosis (and its noteworthy that the disease was all but gone anyway). Here, its fairly obvious that there's the entire stability of Japan at stake. I didn't quite catch how many refugees were really in Japan but it seems like it could throw the whole country into turmoil.

[Willowhugger]

OOC: Again, I welcome disagreements, discussion, and any other choice bits for people to post. I'd very much love to discuss these episodes with folks here.

5. Inductance

This episode was one that I was very fond of because I like the Prime Minister character a great deal. The character design aside, she seems to be one of the more human characters in the series. While possessing all of the cold aloof you'd expect of a politician, she manages to be more freaked out by a box of fingers than anyone else in the room. I thought it was also an interesting point out that the character whom attempts to kill her with a samurai sword is blonde, perhaps a subtle nod to the fact that people most fascinated with the samurai mystique aren't necessarily Japanese at all?

As a note, this is another Particularlist Eleven Episode and we learn the origin of the Stand Alone Complex fairly early in that its basically an Al-Qaida phenomenon. It's not an individual organization but a bunch of people who pledge themselves to a cause that they may have varying degrees of understanding but more or less just amounts to killing "them." I still don't quite get their policy to refugees but I think Togusa was actually saying they DON'T have a united policy to refugees and people who identify themselves as Particularlist Eleven (I like that name more than Individualist) may have views radically opposed but just like the mystique.

Good stuff.

9/10

[Tonks_kittygoth]

Um, this is a forum, not a personal soapbox, Im sorry but you are coming off as very condesending and rude, not only to all of us but to the moderaters as well. You didnt change anything you just put a disclaimer at the top.

Posting a personal review thread implies that you are trying to say you have some sort of one up on the rest of us, who are all quiet inteligent and experianced people.

Also this isnt a place to advertise your books. It is great that you got published but its rude to push it on people in the guise of a forum topic.

[Willowhugger]

Posting a personal review thread implies that you are trying to say you have some sort of one up on the rest of us, who are all quiet inteligent and experianced people.

Sorry, I guess you can close it. But what I want is people to respond with their own thoughts on the episodes, rebuttals, and ideas. There's not much action on these forums.

I wanted to get the ball rolling.

Am I missing something?

I put "Willowhugger's review thread" because I wanted it to be clear I'd review the entire series.

Again, I apologize if its not sparking the participation I wanted.

[Jeni Nielsen]

Since willowhugger requested this, I'm locking the topic.