#chief aramaki

[cultofthewyrm]

[morganhopesmith1996]

Motoko,Aramaki,& Togusa By Shirow Masamune

[gallusrostromegalus]

AEIWAM ask spam 1: you’ve already elaborated on all the weird grudges people have, what about weird friendships?

THANK YOU! I am stupid busy but I am having a ton of fun with the friendships in this fic, so short versions that I can/will elaborate on later:

- Kenpachi and Byakuya: when Kenpachi first arrived in the Seireitei, Byakuya was a recently orphaned teenager and Kenpachi is, as he says "related to his mother" and can't help but take him under his wing a bit. As it stands, Kenpachi is, functionally, Byakuya's step-father.

- Izuru and Komamura: Wabisuke and Tenken were friends first, but it grew from there when Izuru got sent to investigate the curious incident of the dog in the night.

- Hanataro and Akon: The 4th needs more supplies than any other division and the 12th provides them, so the 4th's Toxicologist and Go-Fer gets to see the 12th's shadow captain all the time.

- Ikkaku and Sasakibe: the first lieutenant's meeting Ikkaku was at was ALSO the first lieutenant's meeting after TBTP, when nearly all the lieutenants had been field-promoted or killed, and there was a general bereavement, but when Sasakibe walked in to see what maniac the wildman that took over the 11th appointed for a lieutenant, he instead found Ikkaku doing stage magic tricks to cheer up a distraught Isane and Kaien, and realized this was a kind, if fundamentally ridiculous soul.

- "The Kids": Yachiru, Nel, Toshiro, Weiss, Syoga No Kotowari, and all the other Court Guard Brats tend to travel as a pack, and things can get a bit Lord Of The Flies sometimes.

- not exactly a friendship per se, but The Thirteen Daughters of Aramaki, including Hisana Kuchiki nee Aramaki.

- Soi Fon and Chikane Iba: after TBTP, Soi Fon ended up bonding with her fellow female captain and single mother Chikane Iba. And by "bonding" I mean "basically moved in with". Chikane was deeply relieved to have a regular babysitter and Soi Fon relieved to have another home to go to that doesn't contain her family. Or what's left of it.

- Rangiku and Retsu: Retsu, canonically, runs the Ikebana club, is the Chief Judge at the Seireitei Flower Festival, and keeps an enormous flower garden. Her first introduction to Rangiku is finding the academy student crouched in her foxgloves, and then being subject to a surprise 30minute lecture on the medical and cosmetic applications of digitalis, and realized she had found a kindred soul.

- Nanao and Gin: Nanao was quite possibly Gin's favorite person in the Court Guard, because she was very used to explaining things very slowly and in little steps, and Gin was functionally an escaped sausage roll in an executive position so 76% of the credit for the 3rd division's functionality goes to her. She liked having someone who actually listened to and took her advice and MAN, things got weird after Aizen.

- Uryuu and Yamamoto: Yamamoto doesn't actually hate Quincies- it's really only the "evaporating souls" thing he's got a problem with. Long ago, before the gotei-13, he was even friends with the ancestor of all Quincy, and misses his friend and curses Yhwach for what that monster did to him. Uryuu bears a startling resemblance to his ancestor, and it's nice to have someone to practice his German on again. Uryuu is fucking bewildered, but also severely short on men to look up to in his life and- well. Maybe. Maybe if they are friends, they can finally stop this feud?

- Yumichika and Ukitake: Yumichika was raised by his mother and the rest of the nurses in the first hospital in the Rukongai, and that's where he learned to fight too. It's a huge surprise for Ukitake when Yumichika knows what to do when he starts to have an anaphylactic reaction, but far from an unwelcome one.

- Renji, Iba and The Lads: Graduates of the Zaraki Kenpachi Finishing School for Young Men With Good Knees

- Orihime and Tousen: Hey, remember when we were both kidnapped by a deranged maniac that one time and coped by doing religious math and improvisational surgery about it? Good times!

- Chad and Komamura: "What do you guys even talk about?" "Nothing." "Why the secrecy?" "No Literally. We don't talk, and if we do it's about Nothing."

- Tatsuki and Mashiro: "This is boring, you wanna break chairs over each other's heads?" "Yeah!"

- Momo and Byakuya: The Rice Farm Subsidies Fraud Investigation.

[ether-gearhead]

I’m just gonna say it: I want Sakazuki to launch a coup against the Five Elders, and I want him to team up with the Blackbeard Pirates to do it!

I know, I know: Sakazuki doesn’t work with pirates. But honestly? I think he’s willing to in order to defeat a greater evil (whether Teach is a greater evil than the Nobles remains to be seen), given his stance on the Warlords being abolished:

“I was against it, but the rulers’ decision can’t be reversed. Damn it, how can everyone be so naive?!? Justice comes at a price!”

This tells me he has no problems teaming up with pirates to fight stronger pirates. After all, Marines working with pirates is the very definition of the Warlord system in the first place. This is the price justice comes with, the price Sakazuki is willing to pay, even if he does get burned more than he gets results.

But is bringing Teach into the coup a price Sakazuki is willing to pay? If the world floods, the world’s pirates all drown, but will he tolerate civilians and Marine soldiers drowning with it? The Elders said straight to his face that the Marines are merely the public face of the World Government, which begs the question: what need do they have for that public face when most of the world has already drowned? They’re not going to put on a front for fishmen or Minks, are they? I wouldn’t think so. So ultimately, I don’t think Sakazuki has any reason to believe the Marines will be protected when the flooding ultimately comes to pass, meaning he has no choice but to rebel if he wants the Marines to be a thing in the post-flood world.

So why Blackbeard of all people? Because I still believe Kuzan’s his man, or else he would be FAR more concerned with him joining an Emperor’s crew than he showed Saint Warcury! So how I see it playing out is, Teach negoitates Garp’s life for Hachinosu’s World Government membership, Sakazuki spits on the idea of legitimizing a pirate nation, even for the literal face of the Marines, and Teach pulls his trump card: Turns out Kuzan told him about his distaste for the Elders, and wouldn’t you know it, his crew just got the ability to impersonate one of them! So Teach offers his help overthrowing the Elders in exchange for membership in Sakazuki’s World Government, which Sakazuki accepts, albeit with the intent to kill Teach afterwards instead of keeping his audacious promise.

So who actually takes part in the coup? The Ten Titanic Captains except Kuzan, who goes with Teach anSakazuki to confront the Elders, Kizaru, who has a fresh new reason to be done with the World Government, Fujitora, who hated the Government to begin with, Sengoku, who outright quit due to the Elders prioritizing face over public safety, Garp, who’s glad for a reason to finally punch the bastards, and probably Kong, though I don’t know how he feels about the Elders personally. I dunno, I feel like this would be the best excuse to show him fighting we’d get.

So how does the coup actually play out? Well, the Blackbeard Pirates slaughter many Celestial Dragons, but how many depends on whether Ryokugyu is there. Sakazuki probably gives him busywork to keep him away from the Holy Land, maybe quashing an uprising somewhere? Mwanwhile, the Admiral-level fighters confront the Elders, with Teach along for the ride, but ultimately, the coup fails because Imu is forced to intervene, who no one in the Marine camp even knew about to begin with. Teach, however, remembers the name Imu as Nerona Imu of the Twenty Kings, and sneaks out of the fracas before Imu annihilates the whole lot of them.

So what becomes of the Marines post-coup? Well, what I could see happening is Aramaki being named Fleet Admiral, Garling being named World Government Commander-In-Chief, and three Holy Knights being appointed the new Admirals. And with Garp dead by Imu’s hand, the stage is finally set for Luffy’s ultimate confrontation with the World Government.

[toweringclam]

One Piece headcanon:

Admiral Candidate is a half-rank ala First Sergeant, denoting greater prestige and responsibility than a Vice Admiral, but not a greater pay grade. This sort of thing is rare for officer ranks in real-world militaries, but the Marines are absolutely glutted with officers, so they've made further distinctions.

Code names are a relic of a much older system, really of interest only to historians (and we know how they feel about historians). The only purpose these days is the subtle psychological benefit of distancing someone from their humanity.

The names include a color and an animal from the Zodiac, though some leeway is given on how to interpret the animal. For example, Rabbit can also be Cat or Deer, any fowl will do for Rooster, etc. Color is whatever the candidate wishes, but it can't be the same as any other candidate or currently serving Admiral.

There are generally six candidates at any given time. New candidates can choose their animal, but unless there's been a major shake-up (due to retirements or losses in battle), there's rarely more than one available at a time. The former code names of the Fleet Admiral and Commander in Chief (positions held by former admirals) are removed from circulation until their death or retirement.

List of most recent Admiral code names:

Yellow Monkey (Borsalino)

Wisteria Tiger (Issho)

Green Bull (Aramaki)

Pink Rabbit (Gion) (candidate)

Brown Pig (Tokikake) (candidate)

Blue Pheasant (Kuzan) (retired)

Red Dog (Sakazuki) (promoted)

Gold Goat (Sengoku) (promoted/retired)

Grey Rat (Garp) (he has never once used this code name, both for ideological reasons and because he wanted Dog)

White Serpent (Kong)

Black Horse (Zephyr)

Dragon isn't used, supposedly out of respect for the Celestial Dragons.

[fartsofneil]

Aaaand done!  She gun mess somebody up!

[grigori77]

It is now officially 25 years since one of my favourite animated films OF ALL TIME was released, as far as I am concerned one of the TRULY DEFINITIVE anime features, a triumphant masterpiece of the art form and the best film that one of my fave ever anime directors, the incomparable Mamoru Oshii, ever made.  The exceptional Stand Alone Complex TV series may be my personal favourite adaptation of manga legend Masamune Shirow’s finest work, but believe me, this is still THE SHIT.  Here’s to a whole quarter century of what is probably THE MOST INFLUENTIAL ANIME OF ALL TIME ...

As usual, WARNING!!  Potential spoilers ahead for the uninitiated (and believe me, if you ARE uninitiated, you NEED to see this movie!!) ...

[yesnek]

[fmpoliviagensch]

Ghost in the Shell

Plot

Human organs will be upgraded in the near future thanks to cybernetics technology produced by Cutter's powerful Hanka Robotics Corporation. Dr. Ouelet is in charge of developing Project 2571, a whole mechanical body that can be attached to a human brain. She creates a prototype based on the brain of a young woman, Mira Killian, who lost her parents in a cyber attack. One year later, the woman is promoted to a Major and works alongside agents Batou and Togusa in Section 9, a counter-terrorist section led by Chief Daisuke Aramaki. She requires medication to help her brain integrate with her mechanical body, and she has no recollections of her past life. Major discovers the secrets about Hanka Robotics and the experiment she was subjected to when Section 9 hunts down the terrorist Kuze. Kuze, a criminal who has learned to hack into the brains of androids and manipulate them, is now her ultimate foe.

The aesthetic of the futuristic city fits into my project and is a big inspiration for my background design. I love all the neon signs in the city and it adds really good ambience lighting to the scene. The character of Mira fits my main character Alice a lot due to her being sent to take down threats like alice has to take down the queen of hearts’ gang.

[cultofthewyrm]

Ghost in the shell by Skyfire (天之火)

[morganhopesmith1996]

Batou & Aramaki by Shirow Masamune

[orchidzero]

GITS: SAC  S01E01  第1話「公安9課SECTION-9」 Public Security Section 9 Stand Alone

Unmistakably, and perhaps inevitably, the first few minutes of Stand Alone Complex pay explicit homage to Mamoru Oshii's Ghost in the Shell. As in that film, the cold open finds Major Motoko Kusanagi standing alone on a rooftop, surveying a neon cityscape, electronically eavesdropping on terrorist chatter. Her expression is affectless. Her clothing is minimal. Drawing a pistol, she plunges toward a building below. With grace impeded only slightly by a TV budget, she sticks a perfect 3-point landing (a cliché she can be forgiven, having practically invented it). The subsequent chase scene makes further callbacks to the kind of action that wowed fanboys in '95-- cybernetically-enhanced parkour, acrobatic martial arts, bullet wounds erupting in horrific bursts of viscera. The message comes through loud and clear: this IS your big brother's GHOST IN THE SHELL!

Which is misleading, but sure-- a little torch-passing is probably in order. It's just hard not to wish it were handled more subtly. Narratively, it's of zero import-- we never get the backstory on the terrorists, or who they were hoping to nerve gas. Our introduction to the Major is also weirdly off-key. Normally a model of cool restraint, she takes down her target with a brutal, authoritarian zeal that would give Jack Bauer pause. When the perp has the temerity to question the system that just blew his leg off, she invites him to love it, leave it, or take a bullet to the dome. It all feels unnervingly close to Big Brother's Ghost in the Shell.

Luckily, things get better from there. Despite the lingering specter of Oshii, it quickly becomes apparent that SAC will be following the more procedurally-oriented lead of Masamune Shirow's original manga. The Major is front and center, but the show treats Section 9 as a real ensemble-- a kind of cyberpunk Impossible Mission Force, where every member has a unique role to play. In the episode’s first big set piece they’re deployed in A2 gear to area 82-D3, where a political hostage situation has sparked a jurisdictional pissing match between local police and the military (the alphabet soup and internecine bickering are pure Shirow). Five hostages are being held-- literally-- by hacked robot geisha at a high-end restaurant ¹ . Section 9’s Chief Aramaki cuts through the red tape and takes charge of the situation, dispatching the Major to spearhead the rescue. Watching her and her team do their thing, it must be said, is pretty sweet. Their tactical, no-nonsense approach offsets the sci-fi gadgetry and lends the action an earthbound realism-- more Michael Mann than The Matrix.

But how about that gadgetry? Just a few of the technologies floating around, here: thermoptic camo, cerebral augmentation, brain-swapping, memory wipes, holographic displays, insectoid robots, android sexbots, cybernetic eyes, neuro-link telepathy, and Galapagos-style Japanese flip phones (that these will endure in AD 2030 seems plausible). Trying to work out what this gear is capable of while simultaneously trying to parse all the jargon and political subterfuge can be migraine-inducing. Which brings me to the reason I've always found this series baffling and have never really engaged with it till now: I'm not sure whether I'm supposed to be paying attention. Like the Metal Gear games or a Thomas Pynchon novel, there's a very intricate techno-conspiratorial mythology here, and like the Metal Gear games or a Thomas Pynchon novel, it might not really matter. Unraveling the plot could easily be beside the point.  

Nevertheless, I've committed to try. As near as I can figure, here's the sequence of events: Someone affiliated with the foreign minister's office takes an interest in the Ichinose Report-- a classified document detailing the military response to a national crisis (vague, I know). This sets off alarm bells and prompts a secret investigation of the foreign minister, conducted by an agent posing as his secretary. Both are taken hostage by an unknown party, along with the foreign minister's chief of PR and two members of the North American Association for Industrial Development. The military intervenes to protect their asset, but their authority is superseded by Section 9, who seemingly get involved because crazy shit's their bailiwick. Four of the hostages are rescued. The secretary / undercover agent suffers a serious head wound, and one guy from the NAAID is killed, or so it's meant to appear. But in fact, Togusa and the Major figure out he's traded cerebral cores (i.e. brains) with the foreign minister, who has a fetish for getting drunk and swapping bodies with robot geisha, making him an easy mark for this kind of thing. Section 9 catches up to the perp at the airport, trying to board a private jet with the real minister's brain in a box and a copy of the Ichinose report in hand.

Got all that? It took me three viewings. The episode fails to address a few nagging questions, such as "Who?" and "Whaa?", but it hangs together better than expected. It also deftly handles the work of setting up the principal cast. We get glimpses of Aramaki's authority, the Major's competent leadership, Batou's big lug buffoonery, Togusa's humanity, and Ishikawa's beard. Togusa comes closest to getting an actual arc. Following the raid on the restaurant, he betrays some insecurity about being the most fallibly human agent in the field. The Major assures him he has other strengths to offer, and indeed, it's his powers of observation that end up cracking the case (with an assist from a CSI "enhance" button). Clearly, this man / machine tension will be an ongoing concern.

___________________

¹  For its big opening set piece, the live-action, Hollywood GITS mashes up elements of this sequence, the iconic rooftop drop, and Batou’s first assignment from Innocence. The largely practical geisha effects are impressively realized and probably that film’s most successful element.  

[mitigatedchaos]

Review: SAC_2045

(~3,700 words, 15 minutes)

This post will contain some minor spoilers for SAC_2045.

Summary: You may have thought SAC_2045 was a poor entry in the Ghost in the Shell franchise - actually, it's just intended for younger audiences.

Previously: Standalone Complex 202045:1-4 (superseded)

-☆☆☆-

And what did you think of the remaining episodes of GitS:SAC_2045?

[ @irradiate-space​ ]

Standalone Complex

There's a certain indescribable feeling associated with Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex as a work, an artistic touch related to the director associated with it, independent of other considerations. SAC_2045 has it, which isn't too surprising since Kenji Kamiyama is back.

SAC_2045 is Standalone Complex. For a brief moment, while watching it, I inhabited my pre-2016 personality and outlook. I can't tell you how much that means to me. Since the arrival of streaming I've tended to bingewatch series, but on the first run-through I decided not to bingewatch this one.

If you approach this show as season 4 of Standalone Complex (Solid State Society being season 3), it's underwhelming. Now, viewing it again, it's become obvious that a conventional season 4 of Standalone Complex was never the intent of SAC_2045 to begin with.

For those of you who have delayed until now, the English dub has been uploaded - it released without one due to the pandemic. They bring back a number of the voice actors from the excellent Standalone Complex dub, though having already watched it with subtitles, I didn't feel the need to confirm the dub's quality.

Sustainable War

To properly describe a new theory of war is the same thing as to invent it. While the idea of war as a for-profit industry has been kicked around for some time, it's generally assumed that this is a kind of parasitic relationship on the part of the war-making industry.

As time goes on, warfare becomes more abstract (partly because warfare happens where it can happen), much like society itself is becoming more abstract as information moves more quickly and humanity gains access to more energy.[1] In SAC_2045, "Sustainable War" is part of the context of the world and its current issues, but we aren't really told how it works - if it's similar to contemporary information warfare and a blurring of the lines between state and non-state actors, it's bound to be quite confusing.

I believe my earlier assessment of "Sustainable War" is correct. The key feature of sustainable war, the reason they say it's safe if you leave it to the experts, is likely that it involves AIs constantly forecasting against each other and moving units around with few direct confrontations. The goal would be to lock in a victory without having to fire a shot, except for small skirmishes that don't escalate to major incidents (due to the AI forecasting).

The presence of armed separatist movements even in Japan may also indicate that the ruling institutional bodies are engaged in a kind of Post-International Politics,[2] which treats all international relations as fundamentally existing between subnational entities - however, I believe that later information suggests this wasn't their original intent.

What makes it "sustainable"? Since if done correctly, very little is actually physically destroyed, the cost is less than conventional warfare, and thus the war can continue indefinitely. Why does it threaten humanity with destruction? Because there's an awful lot of military hardware waiting for someone to actually pull the trigger.

Season 1: Ep. 2

So what is the intent of the series' creators? I think they may be telling us through this dialogue between Togusa and Section Chief Daisuke Aramaki in episode 2.

Aramaki: Seems time has toughened you up. Togusa: Is that supposed to be a compliment? Aramaki: It is if you want it to be. Togusa: Then thanks for the kind words. “I made the right decision by choosing this line of work over my marriage.” That’s what you’re saying? Aramaki: Perhaps. [...] Togusa: They're bringing back Section 9? [...] Aramaki: But my takeaway from the proposal is this: The PM's reason for the urgent reforming of Section 9 takes priority over his personal motives. I believe his true objective is meeting the Americans' demands for the dispatch of special resources. Togusa: So it's as the Liberals feared? An American-born Prime Minister would be no more than an American puppet? Aramaki: I've yet to meet him in person, so I can't really say. But this is an opportunity to have the Major and the rest of you undertake a major operation for me once more. Togusa: What sort of op? Aramaki: Over the past few years, I have searched for an answer on how to deal with a society in turmoil. I'd like you people to lay the groundwork that will help the next generation find that answer. Togusa: I don't know what a man in my position can contribute, but I'll humbly offer whatever assistance I can.

Those of us who cried, Kamiyama, tell us the future once more! based on Standalone Complex's prophetic analysis of a memetic crime wave were bound to be disappointed. SAC_2045 is less rooted in the near future than in the now - cyberbullying, endless war amidst historic prosperity, employment suppressed by automation, savings eaten up by the complex machinations of finance, and a breakdown of national borders? That's today.

Those of us who hoped for a Ghost in the Shell: Unicorn, a psychically overpowering work that synthesizes the full body of Ghost in the Shell into a single coherent form to elevate us to a higher level of understanding, should have tempered our expectations. To reach each new philosophical level is more difficult than the last - to achieve that with Ghost in the Shell of all things would have required a multidisciplinary genius near the limits of current understanding.

Kenji Kamiyama is just an anime director. And anyhow, Gundam Unicorn was a book before it was an animated series. And who among us even knew we'd have to write a book before 2015? Ghost in the Shell was well-understood enough, so I instead wrote 25,000 words worth of hypothetical country and became a blogger, like the infamous Scott Alexander.[3]

If we approach SAC_2045 from the lens that it's a humbler work designed for younger audiences, however, some of the creative decisions make more sense.

Purin

Just how old is Purin, the MIT grad who joins the team later on? If I had to guess, that's '23歳' on that profile she provides, and Ishikawa notes that she 'skipped a few grades' on her way to a PhD. But she acts like someone a lot younger. She's enthusiastic and we're assured she's intelligent, but seems to be lacking social training. For example, she makes the mistake of assembling an era-accurate music player for Batou combined with a playlist after consulting the Tachikomas to find out what he listens to. There are two ways to take this.

The first is that she's intended as a relateable character for someone who would make this class of mistake. It's the sort of mistake I might have made at age 13-14, meaning that the show would probably be aimed at someone that age or lower. Overly enthusiastic, doesn't understand romantic relationships, impulsive, poor reading of boundaries / poor modelling of others outside of certain domains, impulsive in a way that causes social screw-ups? Yeah that could certainly apply to an ADHD kid of about that age.

And all of a sudden the tone of the first five episodes with the gun-fighting, the literal Agent Smith, the decision to place the focus in America, and even the mystery of the series being much simpler than Standalone Complex 2nd Gig's plot regarding Asian refugees in Japan make a lot more sense. This is Ghost in the Shell for kids!

Wow, I didn't think that could be done!

...is what I should say, except that around the time I acquired the ability to futurist shitpost, and I used that ability to predict that it would.

Purin II

The second reading is that the youth of the future are fucked up. She probably has some tricked out modifications, both cybernetic and genetic. Now usually you would tell someone to try to become a well-rounded human being. But...

The global economy has crashed. Batou mistakes her for a robot - creatures that look like pretty young women are a dime a dozen. In the dating market, she would be competing with full sensory immersion VR pornography on the one hand, and at the upper end of society where cybernetics are more widely available, likely women with a similar appearance but decades more experience and professional standing.

Note that in the original Standalone Complex, the team take down an 80-year-old Russian spy with the full prosthetic body of a 20-year-old. Full cyborgs aren't common then, nor are they in SAC_2045 (though cyberbrains are ubiquitous), but if the economy recovers that may change, and the sector she's trying to get in to (full-time salaried government rather than marginal private employment it would seem) is going to be very tough to enter either way.

So Purin may have to be over-optimized even to just appear on the screen. In fact, she says,

"Just so I could work at Section 9, I moved most of my sentimental memories to external storage."

Youch! It's no wonder she's socially maladjusted. Just how much of her social learning (in particular key events necessary to rebuild logical inferences on the boundaries of behavior on the fly) has she locked away?

Purin III

But you know who Purin looks like? Notorious internet personality, Gamer Girl Bath Water seller, and IRL video game character Belle Delphine.[4]

Or rather, it's the other way around - 2D animation compresses real detail into suggestive abstraction, letting your mind fill in the rest. Going from those impossible 2D shapes to 3 dimensions creates strange results, like training your machine learning algorithm on the salient features of a cat's face, applying it to human shape, and putting pink hair on the result. Belle Delphine adopts that otherworldly kind of appearance as part of her act.

Technically, this a stylistic choice. Within the framework of SAC_2045, this is what "a 23-year-old female" looks like.

Purin is in fact so non-threatening that her big red coat obscures her figure. I'm gonna go with younger audience. Now if only I could remember what pronoun she uses.[5/☆]

Motoko

With a full prosthetic body, outward signs of human-like aging are almost an artistic expression, much like in a world with cheap tissue engineering, visible scars are a choice.

When she was first introduced in the original Ghost in the Shell manga, we don't know how old Motoko Kusanagi is. It was once said that her name is analogous to "Jane Excalibur," which in English would be an obvious alias. In the first movie (from 1995), she's cool, almost cold and robotic.

In the original Standalone Complex, Motoko has a more mature personality than in the manga, but she has a clearly adult look by the standards of anime. Seriously, check out this fantastic character design (combat suit), although admittedly the better-known "leather jacket and bathing suit" design is more ridiculous, fashion-wise.[6] (Fortunately, she gets pants in her much more stylish second season outfit.)

ARISE starts off with a young Motoko Kusanagi in a chaotic post-war period before the Section 9 we know was assembled. This shows in her character design, but it really shows in her personality. This was actually why I had joked about an even earlier Ghost in the Shell.

There is a sense in which the 2017 live-action movie's Motoko is even younger. Scarlett Johansson is a killer cyborg with amnesia. She doesn't even have one day of formal combat training.

Motoko 2045

Ilya Kuvshinov designed SAC_2045's Motoko Kusanagi.

Yes, that Ilya Kuvshinov. You could be forgiven for thinking this is a teenager that hardboiled assassins Saitou and Ishikawa in the background have been hired to bodyguard.

Despite this, Atsuko Tanaka has resumed her role as Motoko's voice actress. Standalone Complex's Motoko looked 25 and felt mid-30s. SAC_2045's Motoko looks 16 and has the voice and attitude of 40.

This may make more sense than you might think.

Through Whose Eyes?

Throughout much of Ghost in the Shell as a franchise, Togusa, the only non-cyborg on the team, who is pulled from a police department instead of a military background, tends to be character used to help the people of our time relate to the future. He's the guy that doesn't know the things we also don't know, so in explaining concepts to Togusa they're explained to the audience.

In SAC_2045, most of the team are off doing cool cyborg things in America. Aramaki (whose in-world function is to create the bureaucratic environment within which Section 9 operates) tasks Togusa with finding them. The original Standalone Complex first aired in 2003. It's been 17 years since it was created - a similar situation to finding someone that reached adulthood who was born after 9/11. And during this time, Togusa's life has changed - the family man is now separated from his wife. And the world has changed - Togusa is now working for a private security firm. Togusa's role in the first five episodes isn't to guide the new viewers.

His purpose is to guide or stand-in for the old viewers.

The New Viewers

"Do you still hold a grudge against the Major and the others for leaving you behind?"

For the original viewers, SAC_2045 is your world, too. Togusa is there. Togusa is you.

The new viewers are Purin. Enthusiastic and smart but awkward and not confident in their skills. How could they measure up to these much more talented and experienced characters? (Also consider who is going to watch any sort of Ghost in the Shell - it's probably going to be a moderately bright and introverted kid, who is the kind of person that may be more comfortable socializing with people outside of their age band.)

But Motoko is visually separated from the rest of Section 9. Batou, Saitou, Ishikawa, Boma... they all have a much more adult look in keeping with their appearance in previous versions of Ghost in the Shell. What gives?

Batou is sort of a cool adult male figure - this is actually a pretty natural use of the character and his sense of humor as previously established in other Ghost in the Shell properties. We especially see this come through in 「PIE IN THE SKY - First Bank Robbery」 episode, with the old folks and the 21st century bank robbery.

Motoko's difference in appearance is because she's acting as a bridge between the two. The new viewer (as represented by Purin) is supposed to grow into being like Motoko as they gain confidence and experience. (The characters aren't each limited to a single role, of course.)

But SAC_2045 is still a work that's shared between two groups, similar to how the excellent Into the Spiderverse features both the teenage Miles Morales and an older Peter Parker that has lost his way, with the loss of the vibrant young adult Peter Parker being what starts the plot going.

The Last Quarter

With this framework, the rest of the work should express its nature as targeted at a younger audience itself. Watch the last few episodes through this lens and you'll see how much sense it makes. One takes place at a school. Even the bizarre 3D style that resembles recent video games makes more sense. If we take Togusa's earlier conversation with Aramaki as a discussion of SAC_2045 itself, later on there's even a sort of acknowledgement that Ghost in the Shell is a difficult work for someone of a young age.

So with that context in mind, does it work?

Standalone Complex

If I remember correctly, years ago, when I was perhaps 15 or 16, I was watching a tiny CRT television some time after midnight, and I saw the thirteenth episode of the original Standalone Complex - NOT EQUAL. It was like nothing I had ever seen before. I was immediately taken by it. And, from what I remember, I immediately understood it.

It was as though it were made just for me.[7]

To me, Ghost in the Shell is like a textbook. I thought that as a creator who has reached a place where I am able to be involved in that kind of work, I'm in a position where I have to convey its contents to a younger audience. Well, I knew it would be a lot of work, but I figured it would be my way of giving back to Ghost in the Shell. I thought that I needed to accept the baton and offer Ghost in the Shell to a young audience, to the same degree that Ghost in the Shell raised me to be who I am.

- Tow Ubukata, in a 2015 interview, regarding ARISE

For many people, Ghost in the Shell is a profound influence. I felt that it lifted me to a new level of understanding.

SAC_2045

But what about SAC_2045?

I can't view Ghost in the Shell with new eyes. When I first saw it, I wasn't the kind of person that casually memes futuristic ethical dilemmas as a means of practicing politics.

Compared to the anime I watched back when I was 13, would I have watched SAC_2045? Yes. Is it more philosophically and politically sophisticated? Yes. Would I have found it memorable? I think so.

Would a 13-year these days watch it? That's difficult to assess. I bet someone who does data science for Netflix could tell us, if they wanted. I'm sure Kenji Kamiyama and Shinji Aramaki are considering the same thing.

2017

How does it stack up compared to the rest of the franchise?

For most enthusiasts it's going to be one of the weaker entries, though it certainly does a better job explaining itself than ARISE.

Compare it to 2017's live action movie, however, and I think we'll find it isn't the weakest. The reason is that the writers of Ghost in the Shell (2017) decided to tell a story about bodily consent in which becoming a cyborg is a form of trauma. On some level this may have been a reasonable decision, but they didn't commit to the concept sufficiently fully to execute it well enough to carry the movie - and simultaneously, they dumbed down parts of the regular Ghost in the Shell material for American audiences. As a result the movie flopped both financially and artistically - except for the visuals.

In fact, I wrote a sequence of posts (1, 2, 3, 4) on how to rewrite the live action movie as an actual Ghost in the Shell property. I feel no need to do so for SAC_2045 - and I can't even think of what changes would need to be made.

I look forward to the second season.

-☆☆☆-

[1] It's short, but that's a concept in this post. "Advanced by Left-Wing theorists, Ninth Generation warfare sees all acts as existing on a spectrum of political violence. Most acts of ninth generation warfare consist of extreme pranks."

[2] If we accept the idea of "Fifth-Generation Warfare" as motivated by a desire to prevent the enemy from using their conventional military assets, then a corresponding theory of international politics would involve preventing enemy factions within foreign governments from taking control of those governments' institutions - effectively treating all countries as in continuous level of conflict analogous to a soft civil war.

[3] There is a kind of technique to this, but in my case I substituted ADHD for raw IQ and conscientiousness, which is part of why my posts are so much shorter than, for instance, Moldbug's. In any case, technically, Scott's blog posts on the matter amount to roughly a mere 11,600 words, and the book of the black forest amounts to approximately 26,000 words (which I'm told is entertaining reading), but I'm sure if we go looking we can find an additional 15,000 words worth of worldbuilding from a man known for writing 16,000 word blog posts.

[4] Would it be more of a legal liability to sell regular water with GGBW branding, or actual GGBW that could prove to be a potential health hazard?

[5/☆] There's some future strand lurking beneath the surface here that I can't quite put into words; a culturally divergent moe meltdown where an appearance this ridiculous becomes normalized among some sub-population. To quote the Funko Pop Hatred post,

There are questions about the anatomy of anime people and their internal organs, and particularly about what sort of impact-dampening alien meta-material their softer bits are made out of, but at least homo sapiens gokuensis looks like it’s a branch off a similar starting hominid! Whatever transhuman engineering company was responsible for manufacturing the creatures in the typical harem anime has some weird ideas about human beings, but we’re clearly in their ancient lineage somewhere.

Under Late Safetyism, everyone is a declawed catgirl.

Anyhow, I don't want to alarm you, but I can't guarantee that this won't be the future somewhere. Both Purin and Belle Delphine resemble Xiaoice, "The AI Girlfriend Seducing China's Lonely Men." (2020)

[6] Motoko's ridiculous outfits are a major flex on the non-cyborgs, who aren't indifferent to ambient temperature and whose natural bodies may have unflattering features. Similarly wild fashions can exist in places like Second Life, a 3D digital platform with mostly user-uploaded content. Presumably they're also a flex on every Japanese salaryman who still has to dress like a normal guy.

[7] "It's as though it were made just for me" is also how I feel about the original game Mirror's Edge. Its follow-up, Catalyst, is also a personal favorite of mine.

[orbital-lesbian-railgun]

Chief Aramaki is that you?

[fartsofneil]

Aramaki’s hair kicked my ass in the inks! Still a WIP