Ghost of a story?

Shell of an anime?

Normally I’d write up a media post about “what to watch” for the fanzine, but I really don’t know if I can recommend watching Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045.

I am not an anime purist. I suspect most anime lovers would suggest that I’m barely a fan. Yes, I’ve been hanging around the fringes for a very long time (yes, I still call it Starblazers, thank you) but I’m not super invested. When GITS popped up on Netflix I didn’t rush to it. I was interested enough to start, and finish the series so far.

IF you’d like a review filled with fans and spoilers – head over to Gizmodo and check them out.

I’ll stay away from the spoilers (I think). I’m not sure if Patrick Huge is a spoiler or not… but it was a ridiculous character name in this show. I find little things like that distracting.

Anyway, the story itself is set in the future of the GITS characters, beyond a lot of the other material I’m familiar with. It presents some very interesting world building. There’s a lot of room for action and the creators do not shy away from that. There’s a lot of clunky action.

Why clunky? Because this is all done as 3D render, not traditional anime style. It’s downright distracting and tough to watch. It’s twitchy and looks cheap. I know it can’t be cheap, but I’ve been spoiled. IF you haven’t seen the animation from the Netflix series Love Death + Robots you should definitely go watch that. That stuff is amazing work. This variation of GITS was a struggle.

So, getting past the animation style itself – the story could have continued with the starting point, but then it felt like it changed half way through the episodes. We switched focus from this giant, world building economy based story to this other post human thing and it’s just messy. I’ll probably take a look at the next season to see if they tie all this stuff together, but I’m not in a rush.

IF you’re desperate for some new GITS then you can give these a look, otherwise I’d wait and see what so called season 2 will be… and hopefully we’ll avoid naked back flipping things…