Chimpzy watches Ghost in the Shell - Stand Alone Complex (Part 1)
Season 1, Episode 1: Section 9
It’s been some 15 years since I last watched it, but the moment the OP and Inner Universe started, I just felt a wave of nostalgia wash over me. Hearing it, you just know this show is something different. What I didn’t quite remember is the CGI in the opening. It, eh, doesn’t hold up well. Anyway, we start the episode proper in media res with the Major kicking some dude’s ass in that leotard, jacket and thigh-high stockings combo. Man, I’d forgotten how dumb her outfit is in the first season. Not that it’s so much better in the second, and I know it’s a nod to the manga, but still, it just looks dumb imo. Animation is pretty solid, as expected of Production IG. Not the most dynamic, and obviously not up to par with the 1995 movie, but quite high standard for an early 00’s animated series, and with some nice attention to details. The cgi vehicles stand out quite a bit tho. Not bothersome, just noticeable.
After some of the interdepartmental bureaucracy and political maneuvering, we quickly move on to what is arguably the real opener: the geisha house vip hostage situation and subsequent chase. It is a fun scene, not the most sophisticated perhaps, but it gets the job done, showing without exposition what Section 9 is and does, and offering some brief first glimpses into the main cast's roles and personalities. It also presents the setting as one that’s high tech, where robots exist and most people have at least some cybernetics, allowing them to be surveilled and hacked. GitS is often called cyberpunk, but I disagree. Or rather, if it is cyberpunk, it’s a more grounded, more realistic take than the dystopian crapsack worlds of your Bladerunners or the Cyberpunk rpg. I wouldn’t call the 2030s version of Japan utopic, but it comes across clean, stable, relatively prosperous and overall a mostly pleasant place to live for the average civilian. At least not much worse than current day, just with more tech, tho it might only appear that way because real life has slowly started resembling it somewhat.
Back to the plot. After the hostage situation is resolved, we learn there is more to the hostage situation, since one of the VIPs was under investigation, and the undercover agent doing the investigation was conveniently one of the fatalities. Bit sus, as the young’uns would say. Long story short, it turns out there was a bit of bait and switch involving brain swapping, something the Section 9 cyborgs missed, but the almost fully flesh and blood member Togusa picked up on when he went to do some actual physical detective work. Iirc, it won’t be the first time Togusa’s more human perspective will play an important role. But, one airport stand-off later, an international terrorist is prevented from absconding with some sensitive documents, and all is well.
And thus closes the first episode. It’s not really a great episode, and iirc is stand-alone (sic) with no bearing on the rest of the season, but it’s nicely paced, sets up the world and protagonists well enough, and most importantly, got enough of my attention to want to continue watching it. It would’ve been nicer if it tied more into the greater themes that run throughout the show, but I can understand it had other priorities.
I said I was gonna watch all of SAC again, and by golly, I’m doing it, and I’m planning on writing something like this for every episode. Both seasons, obviously, and probably Solid State Society too (but not SAC_2045). Before anyone asks, I don’t plan on doing the original manga or the Mamoru Oshii movies, tho I’ll probably reference them, nor will I do the Arise ova series.
