Ghost in the Shell Arise 1 review

When I first heard that some new Ghost in the Shell was being announced, I threw my hands up in the air in celebration. Ghost in the Shell is one of my favorite anime helmed by two of my favorite directors (Mamoru Oshii and Kenji Kamiyama). A new director’s spin on things is going to be awesome! As I heard more coming down the pipeline, like that it was a completely separate timeline from either Oshii’s or Kamiyama’s, I got a little more excited and when I heard that it was going to be a prequel, I got a little less excited. But all that aside, Ghost in the Shell Arise certainly delivers on every level I’d have wanted it to out of a first episode. 

Ghost in the Shell Arise is a prequel to Shirow Masamune’s original Ghost in the Shell comics. However, I don’t believe that it is stand alone. Everything would feel so distant without any introduction to the series (whether that be Masamune’s comics, Oshii’s films, or Kamiyama’s series). But don’t let that be a detraction from an otherwise great work.

Production I.G puts in their A-game in terms of animation here. It blends a modern-style of character designs (done by Kazuchika Kise, who worked on xxxHolic and Legend of the Galactic Heroes of all things) with Oshii’s original feel of the films (a bleaker, dirtier cyberpunk vision compared with Kamiyama’s sleeker look). Kise’s also directing these OAVs and he certainly proves that he can do it. He’s previously worked extensively as a key animator and an animation director, but this is his first time in charge. The direction isn’t bad, but it’s nothing outstanding either. The action scenes were really cool, but they weren’t nearly as dynamic as Oshii’s films.

The scripts are helmed by Tow Ubukata, a longtime contributor for Production I.G (he worked on Le Chevalier D’Eon, Heroic Age, and Mardock Scramble). The scripts are much better than Kamiyama’s as they feature much less stilted dialogue and everything flows much nicer. I’m not sure what Kamiyama was doing in Ghost in the Shell, because his Moribito and Eden of the East scripts were fine.

The music was pretty cool in here too. It’s hard to follow after Kenji Kawai and Yoko Kanno, but Cornelius does a stunning job. It’s nothing I’d listen to recreationally (and I’d listen to Kawai and Kanno’s stuff ad infinitum), but it really fits the mood of the series. The opening in particular provides a great door to the rest of the series. This is the PV, but the opening plays in it.

Arise begins with the familiar Major, now noticeably younger, returning to Japan after a stint somewhere (it’s not brought up, nor is it of particular importance). Still a little wet behind the ears compared to what Oshii or Kamiyama’s versions portrayed, she’s in Unit 501 and her commanding officer has just died.

The things she fights in the first scene we see her in are reminiscent of the dolls from Ghost in the Shell: Innocence, but they’re anything but. They’re actually walking mines that’ll explode upon a good gunshot to the anywhere. The doll thing is actually inside of the coffin that’s supposedly holding Kusanagi’s commanding officer’s body (and intact cyberbrain).

What the show fails to do immediately is inundate us with a familiarity with the characters, which is why I wouldn’t suggest these OAVs to a Ghost in the Shell newcomer. I’ve seen Oshii’s films and Kamiyama’s series (but not Masamune’s original comics), so I’m quite familiar with the Major and her typical antics. In Arise, she’s noticeably different. She acts a little more rashly and she’s a little shorter tempered (and she wears more clothes).

What the show succeeds in is what Ghost in the Shell has always succeeded in: Creating an interesting world with an interesting story involving political intrigue. These OAVs are revolving around the aftermath of the last World War, in which Japan threw seemingly all their money into cybernetics research. Now that the war is over, they have to find a new purpose for people like Kusanagi, who are fully cybernetic. It also poses a problem that never existed in the previous anime adaptations: Kusanagi’s body is technically the property of the army, not her own. In addition, the army is considering implementing a rule for people with full cybernetic bodies similar to a labeling system. They would have to register their body and get approval for basically any action they take. Kusanagi, of course, is against it.

But that’s a very interesting concept that hasn’t really been brought up prior. There’s been a blur between what’s human and what’s cyborg—the first Ghost in the Shell film was about that. But there’s never been anything dealing with prejudice against fully cybernetic bodies or any desire to control those with them. Since Ghost in the Shell’s concepts and stories have been so intriguing, I haven’t considered it, but now that it’s brought up, there’s been a missed opportunity until now.

The bulk of the story, though, is trying to find out how and why Kusanagi’s superior officer, Lieutenant Colonel Mamuro died. In this process, Kusanagi finds something happens to her that happened to a random garbage man in the first film: Her memory is altered. Kusanagi’s memory is, mercifully, fixed. But until then, she’s seeing things she shouldn’t be and not seeing things she should be. It’s not until the third act when she syncs her vision with the Logicoma that she sees things as they truly are.

From beginning to end, we get drops of people from the franchise, most prominently thus far is just Aramaki. Batou (still a Ranger at this point), Pazu, and Togusa (still a police officer) make their small appearances. While they’re important to the plot, they don’t serve much purpose as characters. Its obvious Ubukata is working in their pasts into Kusanagi’s just so they can meet up, but with a prequel story, it’s bound to happen. It isn’t done awkwardly and everyone gets their fair amount of screen time. However, these OAVs are about Kusanagi and not much spotlight should be placed on anyone else.

The cast is completely replaced on the Japanese side of things. Maaya Sakamoto (the only “returning” cast member) plays Kusanagi, a role she once did in Oshii’s film and the Laughing Man OAV as a young Motoko. Kenichirou Matsuda, Batou’s actor, hasn’t done much, but he’s tackling this big character well enough. In comparison, Tarusuke Shingaki as Togusa has much more under his belt, most notably Kariya Mato in Fate/Zero. One of the stand outs is Ikkyuu Juku as Shinji Aramaki who, again, hasn’t done much else. But THE stand out is Miyuki Sawashiro as the Logicoma and don’t let anyone else tell you otherwise. She brings her usual charm into a mix of veterans and newcomers and fits the Logicoma perfectly to the Tachikoma.

The OAVs promise more than they give thus far, and the ending is of course going to be the formation of Section 9 as we know it in other anime media. It looks like the mystery behind Lieutenant Colonel Mamuro isn’t fully solved yet and Kusanagi is still on the fence about joining up with Aramaki. Or at least, that’s what she wants Aramaki to think. Internally, she sounds excited for the opportunity, and so am I.

Barefoot Gen review

I’ve been striving to write more reviews for my blog, just to get my own words out there. Now, I’ve had five beers, but throughout the film I’ve been drinking water and I’m pretty much out of the proverbial woods of inebriation now.

Recently, I’ve had a lot on my plate and not enough time to do it. Reviewing anime and manga part time is becoming too full time and it’s only my own fault for that! But I’m glad to be doing it, because I like doing it. But for today, I’m reviewing Barefoot Gen from back in 1983 and 1986. 

There’s something insatiably interesting to me about media from a country that lost a war. In the 50s, America got a lot of comedy out of its entertainment media because we didn’t want to think about what we just went through (not that Americans went through more than Japan, but both countries gave up a lot). But Japan comes from a very interesting perspective. Japan is the country that lost the war—in fact, Japan surrendered unconditionally. Germany and Italy are the other two big powers that lost the war, but I don’t think they’ve created nearly as much entertainment media as Japan has over the years and certainly not as much about the war as Japan did.

Japan’s creators were influenced by the calamity they went through, moreso than Germany and Italy or any of the Axis powers. People like Akiyuki Nosaka, Keiji Nakazawa, and Shigeru Mizuki were so profoundly affected by the war and the post-war aftermath that they couldn’t help but write about it. And I couldn’t be more glad they did.

Grave of the Fireflies is the other well-known anime film about post-war Japan. Grave of the Fireflies follows Seita and Setsuko as they simply attempt to survive after their parents are killed. It’s about survival more than anything else.

While Barefoot Gen is undoubtedly about survival, it also takes a deep and dark look into what exactly an atomic bomb does to the people it hits. Having not lived in the era, never been through war, and been as detached for hardship as I almost possibly could be, the experience of simply watching it play out had a profound effect on me.

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I kind of went off the rails for a few days, and while these previous paragraphs were written Friday night, it is now Sunday afternoon and I have forgotten the flow I was in during the sleepless stupor at 3 in the morning Friday (technically Saturday). Let’s continue. 

Barefoot Gen doesn’t attempt to romanticize war, as we in the US often do in our film media. It doesn’t try to tell a sob story about the war-torn Japan. It tries to depict life as it was in the aftermath of Hiroshima/Nagasaki. Not only this, it achieves something more. The Japanese are a proud people and when Japan didn’t surrender, the film depicts the people not directly affected by the bomb praising this decision (and even some affected by the bomb praising it). They didn’t want to “conditionally surrender.” They wanted to continue fighting as a country that had already lost its way and the war. Its people were suffering, but TWO atomic bombs had to stop it. That’s part of this depiction, of Japanese nationalism and loyalty. Some Japanese were ashamed, even after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that Japan surrendered. They can’t be seen surrendering, they need to be annihilated honorably (just read Mizuki’s Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths for that depiction). But Gen, his father, and his family all agreed that if you discard honor for the sake of the life of people, it would be worth it.

That kind of selflessness is a running theme throughout the film. When they meet a burn victim later, Gen licks the burns and says, “These aren’t dirty at all.” These same burns that she’s been ridiculed about since she received them, Gen was embracing and accepting. It’s these kinds of acts that make the film so indelible.

But the film is about tragedy, and tragedy strikes Gen more than just Hiroshima. His sister is born in the ashes of the bomb, and his mother and he struggle to provide sufficient nourishment to her. Everything finally seems alright when Gen and newfound orphan and “brother,” Ryuta Kondo, care for a rich man’s brother, badly burned from the bomb. They received 100 yen and use it all to buy milk. But when they get home, they find that Gen’s sister has already died from malnourishment. These depictions of the war are what emphasize not just the immediate aftermath, but the aftermath days and months after the bomb hit. No one in Hiroshima or Nagasaki was able to recover except the rich, and everyone else was pushed to the lower class and given rations of rice porridge they were happy to have.

The one ray of hope Gen and Ryuta have is the wheat that’s starting to grow despite the fact that grass isn’t supposed to grow for 70 years after the bomb.

The second film picks up three years after the first, and features the aforementioned burn victim girl. The aftermath is only emphasized with the poisoned rain and lingering radiation sickness.

A striking part is the anti-American sentiment that the Japanese had after the bombings. This is, of course, to be expected after something like an atomic bomb, but it’s not something you immediately think of when you consider everything that surrounded Hiroshima/Nagasaki. The adults would look at their occupiers with scorn and wonder why they even needed to be there. Schools would teach, monotone, the rules of Japan’s unconditional surrender. And while the Americans likely got all the resources they needed, Japan’s struggling middle and lower classes were still starving.

Of course, the film can’t be complete without another tragedy. Gen’s mother, suffering from her own malnutrition and cancer, ends up succumbing to it all. Gen is now without any family left, and is kind of listless for a while. It’s only his orphan friends that allow him to grip reality again and continue on living.

These two films are some of the best depictions of a war-torn country I’ve ever seen, and one of the best World War II films I’ve ever seen. They’re also among the paramount anime of the 1980s. They’re a must-see for any anime fan interested in good cinema.