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REVIEW: Ghost in the Shell: Arise Blu-Ray 1-2

Sentire wrote:

Personally, I don't mind "cold and impersonal" in a cyberized world or character. I have always liked Kusanagi's temperament. It seemed necessary and believable. Her personality was harmonious to the story and just fit. In fact, I'm a little worried I may find the new (younger) Kusanagi a bit.... annoying. I have watched everything else, so there is no way I'm going to skip "Arise".

Completely agree. I think the cold and detached personalities are part of the appeal of GITS. It's fits the setting, and the characters are stone-cold professionals who rarely panic or have any hesitations. It's a different approach to storytelling that some people will like and some people won't. Anyway, I recommend checking out Arise, Sentire. I didn't find younger Kusanagi to be annoying. If anything, I think they "softened" her personality a bit, so she's not as detached. She's a little more expressive than before. You see her get angry and even a little worried in a couple scenes.

I had high hopes for Arise but it wasn't until I watched it that it fell into place that it wasn't a prequel to the Movie or SAC but a whole new reboot to the franchise. Something they don't really spell out unless you pay good attention and have seen the previous works of the franchise.

Really tried to give it a chance but in the end I thought it was alright but not worth owning it had a lot of techno bable and all the deep meaning crap the Movie had, that for me bored me at times.

SAC and 2nd GIG etc, was the closest thing to the Manga series with a cohesive enough story that had a mix of all the things necessary to be great series.

And I don't know why but that red outfit of Motoko just rubbed me the wrong way it's color to be exact, that and she only uses her trusty Seburo M-5 pistol in the opening sequence and not the show lame.

Masamune Shirow, the creator of Ghost in the Shell, has no peer in anime and manga when it comes to imagining a future with cybertechnology...

One of the few who comes close is Tow Ubukata...

The soundtrack...is a decidedly mixed bag. It relies heavily on electronica themes and sounds, many of which are underwhelming and sometimes feel like a drag on the story content...

Maybe it was just the color but that Red leather outfit just got old real fast for me personally.

When I watched part 4 and she wore the grey combat outfit with optical camo I said it's about dam time she wore something badass when it's a action scene. Her Military Uniform was pretty close to all the other versions so it plain/normal.

Not even close in my opinion. Arise is just a shell of what the franchise used to be,

Personally GITS:SAC is one of my favorite dubs, so either use the original cast or don't use them.

I don't completely agree with One Eye but there it is. (Some)People complain about techno babble & philosophical introspections meanwhile the "problem" of Arise is that it does'nt delve into the themes tackled by the franchise.

20 years after the movie theater release, there are still YT videos and pieces analyzing & researching this unmatched & unreachable masterpiece. #BringMamoruBack or Kamiyama.

One-Eye wrote:

Not even close in my opinion. Arise is just a shell of what the franchise used to be,

I think it's a little early to declare GITS a bad series now, just because of one mediocre entry (two, if you count Innocence, )

One-Eye wrote:

Personally GITS:SAC is one of my favorite dubs, so either use the original cast or don't use them.

There are probably a lot of reasons why they didn't use the original cast. I'm sure location had a lot to do with it, since it would've been a hassle for the recording sessions to go back and forth from California to Texas.

(Some)People complain about techno babble & philosophical introspections meanwhile the "problem" of Arise is that it does'nt delve into the themes tackled by the franchise.

Well, I didn't "declare" that GITS as a whole is now bad, but that I found Arise to be mediocre. I'm not one of those fans that wants only more of the same. I'm ok with changes. I'm ok that there's a new dub cast. I'm ok that its not exactly SAC. However, what are they bringing to the table to make it interesting and stand out on its own? In that regard there wasn't much that caught my eye.

Which is why I said "Its understandable to me that they needed to change the dub cast since its a different company (Funi)..." My whole point was that they should do one or the other not a half measure approach by having one of the original cast in it.

Yea, to a certain extent I felt this way too. Arise felt like an ordinary cybercop drama to me and it didn't really stand out in that sense. I thought the third episode was decent because it helped flesh out Kusanagi's background more and even humanize her. I think going forward (if they decide to do so) this will make her more appealing to newcomers of the franchise.

"Chief Director Kise told me he wanted to make this new Ghost in the Shell series something that women could identify with. And you see, to do that, we needed to start by bringing Motoko Kusanagi to life as an individual woman. We needed to really bring out emotional ups and downs, a whole range of human feeling. That was extremely challenging work because a Motoko with similar sensiblities to ours was something I'd never seen before.

Whether Ubukata did a good job or not is a whole 'nother story.

One-Eye wrote:

Which is why I said "Its understandable to me that they needed to change the dub cast since its a different company (Funi)..." My whole point was that they should do one or the other not a half measure approach by having one of the original cast in it.

I meant to say reasons why they didn't use all of the original cast. Also, why do you feel it has to be all or nothing? do you want a clean break from the original cast or something?

Interestingly, Mary Elizabeth McGlynn, the voice of Kusanagi for all other franchise installments except the first movie, is back but in a supporting role, which is a bit jolting when first heard.

Based on these comments, this is probably why they don't touch on the themes from the movies and SAC as much. So yeah, it does look like the Arise staff are going for a more "mainstream" GITS. This can good or bad depending on how you look at it.

I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be rude here but am I not being clear enough? I said right afterwards "Throwing someone in there from the original cast playing a different character could be problematic." This is supported by the review where Theron states:

Theron wrote:

Interestingly, Mary Elizabeth McGlynn, the voice of Kusanagi for all other franchise installments except the first movie, is back but in a supporting role, which is a bit jolting when first heard.

I also said "I don't know why they had McGlynn in it since I would expect her voice to be distracting." So yea, either use the whole cast or don't. Do you see where I'm coming from? I also think that some people who are die hard fans of the dub, might actually get annoyed at hearing McGlynn not in Kusanagi's role but in a different one.

Which goes along with what I said that the only part I liked was the third episode as it fleshed Kusanagi out more and humanized her. I also said it would make it more appealing to newcomers. I liked the old cool and collected Kusanagi, but I can accept them tweaking her character. Making a character a little more emotional, by itself though does not make the show standout which again goes back to my point that there was little that caught my eye or stood out of Arise.

Also the quote comes off as a little sexist. Women can only identify with Kusanagi if she has emotional ups and downs?

I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be rude here but am I not being clear enough? I said right afterwards [i]"Throwing someone in there from the original cast playing a different character could be problematic."

So yea, either use the whole cast or don't. Do you see where I'm coming from? I also think that some people who are die hard fans of the dub, might actually get annoyed at hearing McGlynn not in Kusanagi's role but in a different one.

I think that any long time fan who has seen Arise will notice that they are trying to change things up and you are correct depending on the viewer its either a positive or negative thing. I wasn't thrilled, because it felt a little shallow. However, maybe on a second viewing I will be more accepting (not going to say like, because that's not going to happen).

I think McGlynn as not-Motoko is really not problematic, not distracting, not annoying and really not that big of a deal. In fact, her vocals actually matches the character-design she's voicing in Arise.

However, what really is more distracting to me are the new english vocals of Future Section-9 members. Especially Aramaki's. Sad

Interestingly, Sabat's Batou sounded kinda ok to me. At least, he's doing an ok job of aping Epcar's vocals to a certain degree. Honestly, tho, he still sound like Piccolo, but it's all good.

The new Motoko is not that bad. Quite good actually, despite some halting performance at times.

Dessa wrote:

They are, but if you ignore the crap that is 2nd Gig, Arise fits pretty well in with SAC.

2nd Gig can't be crap, because it's got Sakakibara Yoshiko providing one of the voices. As far as story ... , I can't say because I haven't finished it. I don't even remember how many 2nd Gig episodes I watched long, long ago. I bought the Manga/Bandai DTS DVDs while they were being released, and I'll rebuy a nice Blu-ray set that includes English subtitles. Maybe I'm waiting for Blu-ray to finish watching the series? Hmm...

I have been buying the Arise import BDs via Funi/TRSI as they've been released, but I still haven't watched the second and third OVAs.