GITS is amazing as a design universe. The more you dig into the manga or movies (even the SACs) the deeper you get sucked in to what could be. From the vision of mind interfaces to the dream of mind across the net. It was WAY ahead of it's time and still stands up today.
Every crevasse of the original Manga contains deep thought out design on what digital life could become. What constructs we become once we crossed that digital/biological line.
In addition to being a bit of a digital hoarder, I have a decent collection of enlarged anime background paintings on the walls at my office. My tastes in subject matter are pretty wide ranging, but I don’t have a specific collection of the 80s anime film megacities paintings. This book seems to fill a gap I didn’t even think I had in what I display.
I was super impressed by the price point of this book. All the reviews say the print quality is excellent. $45 for a ~250 page hardcover is a great deal even if you just want it to sit on a coffee table or book shelf. Thanks for the tip, I ordered immediately, and it’s going on the small desk in my office.
I don't usually buy books 5mins after I see their title posted somewhere.. but seeing some of the drawings (and the topic) of the book, it is already on its way to me, and thank you for bringing it up!
The SAC series were also intensely thoughtful and well-written, with softly stated political intrigue and philosophical musing that somehow doesn't ever devolve into navel gazing.
Really a must watch anime series if you like anime or even just sci fi at all.
I saw a member of the SAC team speak at a con. The big point was that the team were all big fans of American cop dramas. So, they set out to make a cop drama that happened to feature cyborgs instead of the other way around.
90s cyperpunk existential anime produced with an eye for western markets could also describe Serial Experiments Lain and I am surprised to see no mention of this absolute classic.
I hadn't realised Jin-Roh was from the same creator. And I can see why it wasn't a success: Jin-Roh is dark, properly dystopian, confusing, and unforgiving. But underneath there is a retold story of the little red riding-hood, in the original Grimm fashion.
I found Jin-Roh's use of the Red Riding-Hood narrative to be much more subversive than a mere retelling. Both lead characters alternately play the role of red riding-hood and the wolf, luring each other in and betraying each others' trust at differing stages in the story. At the same time, neither truly wants to harm the other, but it's the human society they exist in which compels them to.
The last shot of the movie is the Rotkaeppchen storybook lying in tatters in a puddle.
Jin-Roh is but part of Oshii's other magnum opus, The Kerberos Saga: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerberos_Saga . I haven't read the second half, which wasn't available in english when I first saw Jin Roh, but I've heard that The Red Spectacles and StrayDog are great if you liked it, but hard to find. I should retry that search one of these days.
Ghost In The Shell suffers from really dragging in the middle.
There's a bunch a bunch of sequences which go on just way too long for the total amount of plot in the film, and there's a lot of missing context for the main character's motivation: we just kind of get a couple big exposition dumps, but no real feel for who the Major is or why the core conceit of the plot matters to her.
The Stand Alone Complex series, conversely, is amazing.
Now this is a matter of taste, but I love the slow moments where the film just pans over city scenes with no dialogue. Just a little time to breathe and look at the art in the middle of the action. It's a film that posits a bunch of questions about human vs machine and then declines to answer them in favor of letting you think about them.
Those periods of "Ma"[0] really make the film for me, and their absence was a big part of of why I didn't like the 2017 Scarlett Johanssen version (I walked out of the theater I was so disappointed). They give you time to think & reflect on the implications of the scene that just ended, and how it will affect the forthcoming actions of the characters.
I didn’t get SAC back when it was on Adult Swim. Seeing it randomly and out of order it seemed stale, slow, and too dense. But watched in sequence it is a fantastic bit of scifi.
I remember enjoying the episodes who were outside of the central plot from SAC and SAC2. That episode when they explain the past of the sniper character and how he got recruited by the major was amazing and I watched it over and over.
I kind of like that we’re thrown headfirst into this world without a ton of exposition around motivations and whatnot. It feels _a lot_ like Blade Runner that way (my favorite film) — sort of confounding and urgent. And you’re teased with these glances and sprinkles of a very intriguing world.
All of this is to say I think the movie is just fantastic and I regularly find new things to love about it on each rewatch.
> I kind of like that we’re thrown headfirst into this world without a ton of exposition around motivations and whatnot. It feels _a lot_ like Blade Runner that way (my favorite film) — sort of confounding and urgent.
I really like this part of fiction and media as well, because it forces you to do some work piecing everything together, so you feel a bit like a detective as well. Way better than superhero movies where you are spoonfed everything. It's a common narrative device found in Phillip K. Dick books, one of which Blade Runner is based off of. I really like the way it builds suspense.
I don't agree with you, but it's really sad that you're getting downvoted for having an opinion and explaining it. I'd understand it on Reddit, but this is HN, and it's supposed to be better here.
GITS is highly relevant today, but I can understand why the Hollywood remake gutted the original story, because GITS is a highly subversive work that directly attacks the authoritarian state's bureaucratic power structure. It's also the story of the transformation of a loyal servant of one of the state agencies, Major Kusangi, into an independent rogue agent who abandons that power structure in alliance with some form of synthetic intelligence, Project 2501.
What sets it apart from similar rogue spy stories is the heavy emphasis on philosophical concepts - the Ship of Theseus in the context of a cyborg human whose every part has been replaced over time, the nature of self and other in the context of the merger of the Major's identity with that of P2501, the point at which obedience to the authoritarian state is abandoned and the rationale for that choice - all notions that make established power structures uneasy, and which accounts for the atrocious garbled plot line of the Hollywood remake.
They botched the remake since it was done by incompetent people. That was (still is?) the time where Netflix was trying to build a library so they threw random people at random projects.
Death Note Remake / live action film was botched too
Oh it's nice to see Animation Obsessive here. Their blog https://animationobsessive.substack.com/ is worthy of a subscription - most of their articles are both informative and very well written.
I'm seeing quite a few recommendations for good shows in the comments, under an article about GITS and Mamoru Oshii, but surprisingly no one has brought up the two other fairly well-known (?) works: Angel's Egg and Urusei Yatsura 2. The first one just got the news about a 4k upgrade next year and first time Western release, while the other has few reasons to be a stand-alone movie of the same manga besides the main cast. Both are sometimes incredibly trippy and heady with the hypnotic 90s look, which seem to be much fewer in the modern anime but I haven't really kept up with new stuff these days as well as animation styles certainly evolve over time.
I'm a fan of most of Oshii's work, and Angel's Egg is a particular favourite, but it's not hard to see why it's rarely recommended. The film has very little narrative and it leans heavily on visual symbolism.
Readit News
Every crevasse of the original Manga contains deep thought out design on what digital life could become. What constructs we become once we crossed that digital/biological line.
Love it. Happy to buy into the sell.
Its a really cool book
I was super impressed by the price point of this book. All the reviews say the print quality is excellent. $45 for a ~250 page hardcover is a great deal even if you just want it to sit on a coffee table or book shelf. Thanks for the tip, I ordered immediately, and it’s going on the small desk in my office.
Really a must watch anime series if you like anime or even just sci fi at all.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_Experiments_Lain (spoiler-heavy article for the kind of story where trying to piece reality together is part of the experience)
The wolf wins.
The last shot of the movie is the Rotkaeppchen storybook lying in tatters in a puddle.
In the world of the story, the difference between a wolf and a hunter is smaller than one might think.
There's a bunch a bunch of sequences which go on just way too long for the total amount of plot in the film, and there's a lot of missing context for the main character's motivation: we just kind of get a couple big exposition dumps, but no real feel for who the Major is or why the core conceit of the plot matters to her.
The Stand Alone Complex series, conversely, is amazing.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ma_(negative_space)
All of this is to say I think the movie is just fantastic and I regularly find new things to love about it on each rewatch.
I really like this part of fiction and media as well, because it forces you to do some work piecing everything together, so you feel a bit like a detective as well. Way better than superhero movies where you are spoonfed everything. It's a common narrative device found in Phillip K. Dick books, one of which Blade Runner is based off of. I really like the way it builds suspense.
What sets it apart from similar rogue spy stories is the heavy emphasis on philosophical concepts - the Ship of Theseus in the context of a cyborg human whose every part has been replaced over time, the nature of self and other in the context of the merger of the Major's identity with that of P2501, the point at which obedience to the authoritarian state is abandoned and the rationale for that choice - all notions that make established power structures uneasy, and which accounts for the atrocious garbled plot line of the Hollywood remake.
Death Note Remake / live action film was botched too