Ghost in the Shell: The New Movie

2029 AD, Newport City.  With her team formed, Motoko Kusinagi is now free to carry out investigations as she sees fit.  Following an operation to settle a hostage situation, an unexpected assassination attempt claims the Japanese Prime Minister and an old friend of Motoko’s.  Justice and vengeance take hold as Motoko begins to look into the case with the help of her new team.  But in this world of man and machine, organics and ghosts, nothing is ever what it seems.  The seeds planted in this case will sow the seeds of Motoko’s future and see the birth of Section 9.  This is where the beginning reaches it’s end.

I managed to catch a special showing of this the other night and figured id give it a review.  Ghost in the Shell: The New Movie, is the feature length final chapter of the story begun in Ghost in the Shell: Arise.  It is it’s own stand alone entity and has nothing to do with Kenji Kamiyama’s hit Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex universe.  It may look different but this is still the Ghost in the Shell was know and love in the world of Anime.

I have to note this right away: I have only seen three episodes out of the four part Arise series.  So while I had a good understanding of most things like how Motoko formed her team, I was a bit unsure about several story elements: why wasn’t she working with Aramaki yet?  If she wasn’t why does she still have 4 Logicoma tanks?  Things were iffy between Motoko and Kurutsu but what happened to generate so much animosity between them?  Short version, if you haven’t seen all of Arise, you’re going to be lost. 

I will say that even if you pull those problems away, this is still a very solid Ghost in the Shell kind of story.  The action is loud and over the top as ever, the cybernetic ethics talks are as deep and confusing as they’ve always been.  What I did enjoy most was actually seeing Motoko’s Proto-Section 9 work as a well oiled machine.  Those of you who kept up with my Stand Alone Complex reviews know that I harbored some harsh criticism towards some characters for kind of just being there and not really contributing much to the series.  In this film, Batou, Togusa, Ishikawa, Paz, Borma, Saito and Motoko all played together nicely.  They aren’t perfect but theyre still just starting out (Motoko needing to calm down Saito’s itchy trigger finger).  One of the best scenes of this strong developing bond is when Togusa calls Motoko and Batou together to discuss a case in person, sharing a meal, rather than talking via a chat room hub like always.  Motoko doesn’t get it, Batou teases Togusa, this is something that I felt Stand Alone Complex lacked actually, a sense of real comradery and team work as it mostly fell to one or two people to get cases done, usually Motoko herself.

The animation is a mixed bag.  For the most part it’s just a more polished version of Arise’s already well rendered visuals.  There are several animation cues back to Ghost in the Shell 2, especially with the chat room scenes.  Character design wise, everyone except for Motoko looks a lot closer to their original Manga counterparts than ever before (plus Paz smiles, did I ever expect to see that?)  Our leading lady, imho, has never looked better.  It may have taken me a while to accept the new haircut and younger looking face, but Motoko was on her A-Game, design wise anyway.  Her combat uniform looks great and I loved her red jacket and pants look, way better than her SAC look.  Still there were some moments where the animation took a dip into a more cartoony realm, this went especially for wide shots featuring two opponents fighting. 

The story…well to be honest I’m kind of lost on it but that’s Ghost in the Shell for me.  I’d never want any entry in this franchise to dumb things down for me and I’m glad it doesn’t.  It keeps the chats at decent length and makes you think even when you don’t know what’s going on.  Bare bones version: someone is committing terrorist acts using a familiar face and it’s up to Motoko to stop them.  As iterated above, it’s not that simple and again that’s not what Ghost in the Shell does.  And to balance things out, we get some of the best action ever with the hostage rescue scene at the beginning and the Proto Section 9 smack down against their enemy in the films finale.  It’s great watching everyone work together as a team and Motoko can still throw down no matter how many times she gets an arm shot off (seriously it happens so many times in Arise id feel bad if she didn’t care).  Plus you gotta love the in battle banter like when Batou complained to the Logicoma about not having a cockpit and the poor robot screaming “YOUR SUGGESTION IS BEING PROCESSED!!” as it evaded fire.

Ghost in the Shell: The New Movie was a fun return to a new take on a familiar world.  I think I warmed to this more than I did Stand Alone Complex really.  But I wont be able to make a full decision on that until I see the rest of Arise, which will hopefully be soon.  And if anything, you have to watch the final five minutes of the movie.  It was one amazing, smile worthy surprise to see one of the most infamous scenes in Anime brought back once again, a particular scene from the original 1995 Mamoru Oshii Ghost in the Shell film.  Stand Alone Complex also nodded to this scene…but The New Movie did it better.  Heck, I really liked this one and hope to see more from this particular incarnation soon.

8/10