Koukaku Kidoutai: Stand Alone Complex

In the not so distant future, mankind has advanced to a state where complete body transplants from flesh to machine is possible. This allows for great increases in both physical and cybernetic prowess and blurring the lines between the two worlds. However, criminals can also make full use of such technology, leading to new and sometimes, very dangerous crimes. In response to such innovative new methods, the Japanese Government has established Section 9, an independently operating police unit which deals with such highly sensitive crimes.

Led by Daisuke Aramaki and Motoko Kusanagi, Section 9 deals with such crimes over the entire social spectrum, usually with success. However, when faced with a new A level hacker nicknamed "The Laughing Man," the team is thrown into a dangerous cat and mouse game, following the hacker's trail as it leaves its mark on Japan.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Kusanagi, Motoko Main

Tanaka, Atsuko Japanese

Batou Main

Ootsuka, Akio Japanese

Togusa Main

Yamadera, Kouichi Japanese

Aramaki, Daisuke Main

Saka, Osamu Japanese

Tachikoma Supporting

Tamagawa, Sakiko Japanese

The Laughing Man Supporting

Yamadera, Kouichi Japanese

Saito Supporting

Ookawa, Tooru Japanese

Ishikawa Supporting

Nakano, Yutaka Japanese

Aoi Supporting

Yamadera, Kouichi Japanese

Pazu Supporting

Onozuka, Takashi Japanese

Maseba, Yutaka Producer

Sugita, Tsutomu Producer

Kamiyama, Kenji Director, Script, Storyboard, Series Production Director, Series Composition

Wakabayashi, Kazuhiro Sound Director

Reviews

Mar 29, 2024

Zanryu1337

Recommended

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex is a classic, and for good reasons. It blends the serializes "Stand Alone" episodes with the story focused "Complex" episodes very well together. And even tho they can be classifies as serial episodes, they contribute to the world and story in meaningful ways; either through tone or details that the complex episodes revisit.

Story: 9
Animation: 9
Sound: 10
Characters: 8
Enjoyment: 10

Total: 9

... The isn't much a have to write about GitS: SAC. The story has many twist and turns I liked, even when I feel that the story felt rushed in the end, especially the resolution.
The animation is solid and blends 2D and 3D very well together, especially for the time period it was made in. Which is kinda ironic considering the opening and how it aged so badly.
The sound has impact and the soundtrack pulls up and down when necessary.

The characters are good by themselves. The biggest issue one might have is that they are veterans and already well developed. There isn't much of character growth to speak of. For most of the time, characters excel in defying expectations of other characters. Which is one part which contributed to the tension of certain scenes.

Nevertheless, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex holds up really well. For its age and for the depiction of a Pre-Cyberpunk-esque world. The setting is more timid and much more down to reality as one might assume from various futures featuring themes of AI, Cyborg, Mechanization and the conflicts inheriting from that setting. But it also has its well share of dark turns into the depths of the abyss of human psychology.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Nov 1, 2024

LightningComet

Mixed Feelings

When I contemplate Kenji Kamiyama’s Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (heretofore “SAC”), I’m reminded of the ending lines of the morning routine monologue from American Psycho:

“There is an idea of a Patrick Bateman, some kind of abstraction. But there is no real me, only an entity, something illusory. And though I can hide my cold gaze and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense that our lifestyles are probably comparable, I simply am not there.”

Coldness aside, it’s as though SAC itself spoke these words to its audience. For all its flair, for as meticulously ... crafted, honed, and maintained as it is, and for as much as it presents itself as something especially valuable through these specifically material lenses, there is an underlying emptiness there by design. This is a show that lacks immaterial value, a work of art with little to no actual artistic statement at its core; in other words, SAC is mostly devoid of a soul. That does not mean it is without any value, seeing as it is generally good fun, but it strikes me as odd that a series held in such high esteem by so many would be one that engendered such minimal emotional attachment from the audience to its characters, at least in my experience.

I don’t believe it’s fair to compare SAC to the Oshii film (“GitS”). I respect that these two works exists alongside each other and are designed to be consumed differently (TV versus film), even if not necessarily by different audiences; they have real-world purposes distinct from one another that inform the style of their stories as they have been put to the screen. Where GitS is a film rooted in its lead character’s mind, functioning as a psychological deep-dive that ponders the fluidity, strength, and capacity of that element labeled an individual’s “humanity”, SAC is mostly unconcerned with these concepts and just wants to be a fun cyberpunk conspiracy-thriller show into which audiences tune every week.

And doesn’t that ever sound familiar. In my last review (on Tiger & Bunny), I mentioned that Witch Hunter Robin skated by on its aesthetic and atmospheric value in lieu of presenting engaging characters. I feel I would be remiss if I didn’t also give a nod here to Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress, a series that, while having more heart than either SAC or Robin, in my opinion, very clearly puts the brunt of its effort into looking as good as it can for as long as possible. Both Robin and Kabaneri are shows that I enjoy and even afford solid ratings. I’m no hypocrite; SAC deserves the same fair treatment.

Even so, I have to admit an inherent bias: I feel a net loss upon observing just how removed SAC is from GitS in every meaningful way while retaining the same now-ill-fitting name. The fact that it seeks to fly through that film’s jet-stream in spite of sharing only aesthetic elements and general character profile makes SAC read as an attempt at cashing in on brand popularity. This is only my cynical and reactive gut feeling; my conscious mind instead argues that SAC stands on its own merit both in style and substance. While the main story is not one I found very affecting, ditto many of the standalone episodes, all are effectively told with some moments being memorable enough that their tension remains. This is a tough feat to accomplish and yet an essential one in a show that could have weeks between episodes relating to the main story; that Kamiyama and his team did it so deftly is a testament to their capability. But this ability to craft and maintain suspense does not necessarily make SAC a great show.

Where is the drama, the emotional conflict? We get pieces here and there of hearts in the standalone episodes, but these stories are rarely well-written; episode 16’s “I’m the one with the blind spot” line made me and my brother almost die laughing. The emotional climax of the episode should not seem so ridiculous. GitS may not have been quite so willing to shed a tsunami of tears or scream loudly with feelings, but it presents itself as a film with a palpable mood. I think back to when the Major is being assembled while eerie vocals flood my ears, or the Major floating upward to her reflection in a moment scored with what I can only describe as aural serenity, or the time when she wakes up in the morning and opens the blinds to let in the ghostly daylight and we hear nothing at all. As much as I do believe that GitS and SAC should be taken on their own merits and flaws, that they are not comparable works, I think that emotional resonance and a willingness to build empathy within the audience is something inherent to all works of art. My philosophy is that to be effective requires being affecting, and SAC doesn’t have that.

And it’s this absence of a beating heart that takes me back to that quote from American Psycho. There is something fundamentally missing; in spite of all of its attempts to reach the audience, it doesn’t seem to succeed or even really try when it comes to connecting in ways that matter e.g. touching the hearts and minds of viewers. All that I can say about SAC is that it is fun, has great art, animation, and music, and showcases solid ability at crafting a suspenseful conspiracy thriller; hats off to you, Kamiyama. SAC can be a good choice of show to watch an episode of with your friends or whoever after a day at work, but it does not function well as a drama, and this is a recurring pattern in Kamiyama’s oeuvre. He’s like the J.J. Abrams of the anime world for all the good and bad that entails.

I don’t think it is fair to not recommend the show given its merits, so I will instead leave you all with this: really consider what you hope to get out of something before devoting your time to it.

Happy watching!
- LC

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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May 19, 2010

no_forehead

Not Recommended

There are several things I don't appreciate in Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex.

Spoilers included by necessity:

I found it really disappointig that the final solutions to the main mysteries didn't actually have anything to do with the technology of GITS's world like would have expected. Why not explore the chance that, for example, the EXACT replicability of things electronic input/output to brain allows could result in different minds processing the raw thoughts to a same conclusion as the results of human minds being at some level identical? Instead the "copies without original" were explained through memetics, despite the fact that the concept of memes ... doesn't have much to do with random people deciding to do the same thing randomly after witnessing some event.

This reminds me much about the reasons why I don't like Paranoia Agent - making a work that involves psychological and sociological dynamics, but then exaggerating the phenomenon to totally unplausible levels causes it to not deliver any real message, or illustrate the workings of these theories in educational sense. Some may find it brilliancy, but I find it as a lacking sense of reality and/or poor grasp of the concepts it is all about. It's even more frustrating when it's offered as a solution to a mystery the whole series is based upon.

Also, what's up with the Major's outfit? Nobody wears clothes like that, that's pure fanservice. It's up to you to decide whether or not this cheapens the work (GITS is not a character-driven show to begin with after all), as long as you aren't a hypocrite and think that in the case of Code Geass it does but in the case of Ghost in the Shell doesn't.

Some praise the difficulty of the plot to follow, such as mentioning a important, relating case in one episode in the beginning when one has not a clue of the whole picture of what the series is about, and then casually referring to it later on. I can't see how this is a positive thing and somehow adding 'depth' into it and not different from just bad storytelling.

My strong opinion is, mindfuck for the sake of it is never good, it should be used only as a tool to serve a purpose, to deliver the message of the work if it cannot be effectively delivered any other way (such as in Paprika, in which it is fun to guess whether what's happening is a dream or real event, or to a lesser extent in Serial Experiments Lain, which uses uncertainty and inconsistency as a metaphor for the layman's defective understanding of the nature of modern technology and detachedness from the world's clockwork functions).

Overall, Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex is pretty average and unrealistic cyberpunk that has nothing that is actually worth a honest thought of 'what if this happened in reality' and you haven't seen somewhere else already. And by this I mean most of the Stand Alone episodes are based onto recycled cyberpunk ideas.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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