I'm going to preface this by saying that I was rooting for this series to be great. I love GiTS. Despite not being a fan of CG animation, I was excited about this show particularly because of Kenji Kamiyama's involvement and also because of the return of the original SAC VAs. I always put way more weight on story telling than I do on visuals so I was willing to tolerate the changes in animation style. Furthermore, I think it's an awful practice for people to be unfairly critical of an anime simply because it utilizes CG. Watch the show and then make up your mind. You can't watch a 1 minute trailer on Youtube and come to a fair conclusion that something is bad because it uses CG. That's idiotic. It's a bad habit. Stop it.
Anyway, I fall in the middle between liking and disliking this show... Although I guess I am mostly in the like it camp as I am happy it exists. There are elements of SAC_2045 that made me happy. Primarily it was the return of old characters that I love. I enjoyed seeing Section 9 together again. I enjoyed seeing the Tachikomas interact with them. Some of the action scenes in the first few episodes looked really good. The cyber warfare stuff was fun as usual. All that familiar stuff is good for the most part. It's definitely not anywhere near as godly as the other adaptations but there were enjoyable moments here that I was satisfied with. Where the show falls apart is that it pivots from the serious tone and complex storytelling of the earlier series to what is largely a straightforward action sci-fi show rife with comedy. I kinda think it made sense to go this route given the cartoon-like (and mostly god-awful) character designs. Would it really be sensible to tell a story as complex, political, and serious as the Individual Eleven with cartoon-like characters, many of which look like children? No. So, I was willing to accept a different take on GiTS. I figure that SAC_2045 being more viewer friendly and slightly different from past GiTS doesn't mean that GiTS fans won't ever get a follow up to SSS/Arise. There's no harm in experiencing a different spin on something familiar. That said, this is still a flawed show even with my expectations kept in check. Midway into the season they slowly abandon the action and comedy and start to include more horror and dialogue heavy scenes. The show falls flat on its face when it makes this change because the CG models can't adequately convey the emotion the show is trying to elicit. How am I suppose to feel sympathy for a grieving character when the words coming out of their mouth are not in sync with the mouth movements on their cartoon-like faces? Or when they're sobbing and it looks ridiculous? The horror elements at best look awkward when they're not comically bad. The cartoon-like designs detract from the mood that the show is trying to set in these later scenes.
Another issue with the show is that it takes too long to get interesting. Overall I enjoyed watching it, but it didn't get interesting until the final episode. Everything was too straightforward. There was no mystery to be found until episode 12. While watching GiTS I have always been accustomed to racking my brain trying to figure out where the story was going and trying to understand what I had finished watching after each episode. It can be convoluted and hard to follow at times, but there is fun in trying to make sense of it. SAC_2045 is too simple. All of the political intrigue, espionage, and chess that is common in GiTS is absent here. So this also means that important characters like Aramaki are tossed aside because he isn't given anything interesting to do. He was never given an opportunity outsmart anyone and get his crew out of a tough situation by using his giant brain.
Anyway, this review is getting to long. Some quick thoughts:
+ Nice CG for the most part... Mainly in action scenes.
+ Old VAs return
+ Couple of fun episodes
+ Nice to see section 9 again
- Awful OP animation and OP track
- Too much comedy. The majority of it falls flat.
- Takes too long for the story to get going
- Awful character designs... What the hell is Boma wearing? Purin looks ridiculous.
- New characters are unlikable.
- 12 episodes in and Aramaki has been treated like an afterthought.
- The CG is bad in dialogue heavy scenes and horror scenes.
