Koukaku Kidoutai: Shin Movie

What is it that makes us "human" and distinguishes us from machines that, quite convincingly, appear to look and act like us?

We continue to explore this question in GiTS 2015, which begins with a nostalgic flashback scene of Major Kusanagi's childhood, when she began her relationship with Kurts under the falling cherry blossom petals...

AND THEN, we are thrown into the excitement, continuing the unsatisfying ending of GiTS: Arise as the Fire Starter Virus and Ghost Hacking are coupled with a horrendous assassination of the Prime Minister and Kurts, the "greatest event since the War". Excellent action from the [then] fledgling Section 9 is ... present as they work together like gears in a machine to unravel the truth behind the assassination and suspicious events in Niihama. GiTS 2015 contains great character development between the enigmatic Major Kusanagi and her team in Section 9.

For those of you who are not familiar with the series, Ghost in the Shell (GiTS) is prolific Sci-Fi/Cyberpunk manga and anime series spanning many decades. GitS 2015 continues the plot of GiTS: Arise and acts as a prequel for the events of the GiTS movies released in past years.

This new installment of GiTS offers smooth, crisp art, greatly improving the animations of past movies to a 2015 standard. The characters resemble their forms in Arise more than in previous installments. My personal favorite in terms of art were the futuristic cityscapes as I found the architecture of Niihama as portrayed in GiTS 2015 to be quite creative and thought-provoking.

GiTS 2015 also boasted a solid OST, from the beautiful instrumental in the flashback scene in the beginning to the smooth and jazzy ED by Maaya Sakamoto x Cornelius. The well-done voiceovers and OST set the atmosphere for the plot.

Overall, GiTS 2015 is an excellent watch for anyone into the Ghost in the Shell series. Although it's very much possible to watch this movie without having previous knowledge of the GiTS series, one may find the plot and setting difficult to interpret on-the-go. Nevertheless, GiTS 2015 adds an extra layer of depth to existing lineup of the series, and closes the door to the loose ends in Pyrophoric Cult. Now, the question is: Will a new door open to further development of Ghost in the Shell in the series?

Well, for better or worse, the answer is yes, as a live-action movie will be released in 2017, directed by Rupert Sanders. But that's another story for another time.

I hope you have found this review to be helpful.

When I got to the end of the movie, could see the link between this and the first GITS movie. It was then that several things made more sense, and this was perhaps the movie which made the most sense to me (who is not a hardcore fan and all).

Ghost in the Shell always excites me with the massive amount of depth comes because of the inherent setting of their world. I must say, that this kind of designing of a storyline is one of a kind and that is something I would remember this franchise for.

Especially when it comes to futuristic genres, where the ... setting consists of sophisticated robots and lightning fast computers that blow away our minds, it is super important to get things right (I mean the story) because say all you want, in the end it's pure fantasy although I hope I am proven wrong. In that sense, the first movie of GITS was released 20 years ago which is a blasphemously long time, and in that age having such futuristic ideas (which are entertaining to watch even now) is utterly magnificent. It is genius. This is truly a classic franchise worth your time.

This movie as opposed to the sequel has more elements of comedy and definitely lesser gore and absolutely no nudity which I find surprising (because, you know). Also, I understood this movie better than the first (maybe it's just me). Another thing I would venture out to say is that there is much more action in this one.

Perhaps the only thing that it lacked was the serious atmosphere (with all the gore, nudity and longer political talks) the original movie had made for the viewer which got the franchise its fans. However, I liked this one the most :)

First of all, everything you say about one installment of the Arise-Series, automatically applies to all the other installments, cause all of them follow the same lame ass blueprint. So that being said, there is no need to differ between the 5 entries (and the movie).

So, here we have another true Tow Ubukata Screenplay. You can recognize that garbage only 2 minutes in, cause NOTHING makes any sense or is well sceneraized. Just like any other Tow Ubukata Screenplay, we have randomly thrown together scenes, that don't make sense on their own, yet alone any sense withe the original manga. One random occasion after another, ... trying to fool you into thinking you just watched the deepest shit ever. But you really didn't. Things just appear and then go away. No content whatsoever. The characters literally beam themselves into the next scenes. It goes without saying that character development is non-existent in an Ubukata Story.

Remember the one South Park Episode with the sea cows that just randomly picked balls with words on it out of an aquarium and made a sequence out of it? That is exactly how Tow Ubukata writes.

Ok let me try that:

Character: Major
Location: Park
Occasion: Birthday
Activity: Shooting

Ok cool, so we have Major holding her Birthday Party at a Park while a Shooting going on. That is a perfect Tow Ubukata right there. See I'm capable of that method myself, let me write the next screenplay. Geez...

Oh yeah and: don't watch this junk of a movie.