I just watched Ghost in the Shell II

Cafe Society
1

Ghost in the Shell II
(No spoilers, but if you want them, i’ll give them)
Watched this on DVD tonight. Studio IG are the cutting edge of animation. Full stop. It’s all a blend of 2D traditional and 3D CGI, and better than anything you’ve ever seen, really. But, is the story any good?
For a start, it’s fucking well deep, following the themes about ghosts and self-awareness from the first film, if the Fanboy Jap translated subtitles are anything to go by. Hard going for the most part, (a lot of Buddah/Confusius quoting) but it begins to make sense near the end. It took me 4 viewings to appreciate the first one, so I don’t doubt this is mining the same vein - you’re supposed to look for deeper meaning etc

If that doesn’t float your boat, you can always just look at it, and there’s loads of fighting and explosions and guns and shit. I’ll watch it again to pick up on bits, but it’s definitely one for the cinema this. Beautiful stuff.
Highlights include a huge parade through an abandoned city, Batou in a 7-11, and a repeating stained glass window house.
The action looks rotoscoped too, very similar to the styles IG employed in Kai Doh Maru & Blood.

Ah, if only the Wachowski Bros, had held on, they could of ripped this off to better effect than their own Matrix sequels.

GitS2 - It got the Paulie seal of approval.

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Does it have naked female androids in it? Because you can never have enough naked female androids.

3

A fair few. That are evil and hence get shot to bits a lot. They’re fairly child like though, which becomes an integral part of Batou’s investigation.

4

Do I have to see the first one to understand this one?

I’m in about my 10th cycle of really really reeeeally trying to like anime right now but it’s still just not working.

5

Yeah, you’d pretty much have to see the first one to get a lot of 2. Re-occuring characters that’d make no sense if you watch it stand alone.
It also references the themes of the first one a lot - AI becoming self aware, what it is to be sentient and/or human, that kind of thing.

If it’s any consolation, the first one is still one of the best Anime films around - you can pick it up fairly cheaply on SE DVD nowadays too. It was £10 last time I looked over here.

6

Watch all of Cowboy Bebop. Cartoon Network shows them periodically, or you can rent them on Netflix. The show takes a few episodes to build up steam, but it’s one of the best anime series ever, and it’s pretty accessible to a casual viewer. I finally convinced available light that anime had some good stuff to offer with Cowboy Bebop.

I wouldn’t jump straight into Ghost in the Shell 2. I like it a lot, but it’s deeply philosophical and confusing, especially the crazy mansion scene. There are tons of references to the Bible, existentialism, Chinese and Japanese proverbs, and stuff I never heard of.

7

I watched about half of the movie a few days ago and I was really liking it. I was too tired to keep up with the subtitles though and fell asleep.

I’m also somewhat feeling “Case Closed” but it seems more like a kid’s show and I’m not sure if it would even be considered Anime.

8

Is it going to unseat Metropolis for best 2d/3d visiuals?

GITS2 is available on DVD already?

9

Lets just say a friend got it for me through cough ‘channels’.

Which is good, seeing as theres no cinema release date for it over here yet.

I thought Metropolis was really nice looking, but boring as hell. Couldn’t get into it at all. Although this may have something to do with it being new years day and having had no sleep.

The Mansion bit threw me right off. I thought the DVD was skipping (I have problems with unclean discs on my LG) until things revealed themselves.

10

I thought the music was the best part. :stuck_out_tongue:

I’ll pick up GITS2 when in comes out on DVD in a year or so. I’m hearing great thing about it.

11

I actually like the English dub better in this case. The DVDs of the show and movie have English, Japanese, and French (Ed sounds pretty funny in French). Also, the movie music is more conventional and boring than the stuff you find in the show; Yoko Kanno experiments with all different styles, and it’s really cool. The show’s opening theme kicks the movie’s theme’s ass up the street and back down again.