So what is Arise-Border? What should have been a straight-forward "re-imagining" of the cult classic turned international favorite strays all too quickly within the first few minutes. Instead of giving us a faithful "re-telling" with our characters being better-developed (a short-coming of SaC) and the story being old-news, Arise-Border seems to want to be something else while knowing it can't. So, basically the odd child in the family nobody knows what to do with. Just nurture them or something.
Arise-Border is what I think the first part of the Arise "retelling" and it hits the ground stumbling. The first episode plods along uncertain of itself and how to invest its viewers while trying to tell the story of Makoto before she left her military unit to become an "independent contractor" aka join Section 9. My initial issue with Makoto in SaC was her being seemingly unstoppable, but still likable. This Makoto is so wonderfully incompetent it makes you wonder at points how anyone held her in high regard.
Batou and Togusa are here, but the "buddy cop" relationship hasn't even had the seed planted yet. We do see a younger, stubborn Togusa (although his character hasn't changed that much, has it?) still green as a detective and instead of the highly-regarded guy any police force would want, he comes off as more the only guy who actually uses his brain on the force. Batou on the other hand feels like the perfect amount of goofy and "big guy" which saves the main trio. Thank the forces of nature, too, because the other members only exist to have a moment of exposure and then fade back into the background.
I'll continue downing on the other stuff in a second, but I wanted to give the technical side of things some exposure. I mentioned in my SaC review that the music was fantastic and worth a listen; Arise-Border doesn't seem to know why. The opening is almost a lazy attempt at the beauty of Origa's voice mixed with some half-baked synth and I won't even go into the other stuff. I've said in another review that the music isn't what makes a series, but it can hurt it. Here, the absence of any music in some scenes is a Godsend. If a series doesn't know what its sound department is doing, leave the tracks that are supposed to stimulate the viewer as part of the whole, out.
The art is good, but the designs that aren't set-pieces are okay. Some scenes really feel pleasing to the eyes while others (like episode 4's fight scene in the lab) are hard to watch if only because of how disjointed and out-of-place they feel. Thankfully, the series doesn't do this too often and when it does, you can take some comfort in knowing those scenes won't last long.
The story itself is episodic and struggling to remain interconnected. The overarching plot is the "Fire Starter" virus that is affecting our post-modern military structure and causing false memories which lead to otherwise law-abiding persons to commit crimes. The first episode plays too much with the "what is real?" concept and loses sight before making a sharp U-turn back to the plot. The second episode does it better, but the last few minutes feel more like an attempt to recapture what SaC did right and run with it. Unfortunately, that "out of place" feeling comes back.
The third episode is really good in that it takes advantage of having what the previous two set up and adding to the main plot. While nothing is actually resolved, there is development for the major. Unfortunately, the next episode shows a kind of unnatural regression for her character. Huh.
Aramaki in this version is hard to watch. The cool, steely-eyed monkey-face is reduced to a begging old man chasing after a young body for her "talent". If I didn't know him to be the badass old guy from SaC, I would feel contempt for the character. Instead, this almost seems like a betrayal and the way he constantly demands Makoto and co join Section 9 is almost as painful to watch as the hard-headed major act like a bratty child who either gets her way or nobody can play with the ball.
Arise-Border isn't a GitS series in the traditional sense. What should have been a creative re-telling is instead a lopsided building the engineers painted in bright colors and straight-faced told everyone it had "personality". Look at it, take a picture, but don't invest too much in it.
