Cosmicisms

The Ghost in the Shell Ep. 02: SUPER SPARTAN ii + JUNK JUNGLE i

i honestly really like the manga precisely because of the ways it's kind of weird and jank, shirow is one of the most autistic to ever do it and i love that about it; there's probably no real way to transfer that exact vibe to animation without being a really hyper-niche solo animator project that only plays at film festivals (ok, maybe something like Junk Head is in the right direction). the pacing of the manga is kind of haphazard, so it's going to be curious to see how they try and make that material work across the whole cour if they're going chapter-by chapter like this. but i kind of really want to see them take on the bizarre early-3dcg stuff in man machine interface.

there's a kind of weird aspect to how science saru are marketing this like 'finally, a faithful adaptation' which people are picking up on, when it's like... this isn't erasing the older ones! we're spoiled for riches here in GitS land. the oshii movie is still one of the most films ever made, with some of the best animation of Inoue, Okiura and Iso in there, it's for sure not the manga but it is one of those films where just about every single shot is an iconic sequence. Innocence is still strange and fascinating in all the ways it is, and SAC is at its best still head and shoulders one of the richest scifi series in anime - also clearly heavily informing the characterisation of the fuchikomas in this adaptation. (i am not mentioning SAC2045 because we haven't watched it lol.) all the I.G. adaptations have that slightly cold and dry feeling, but it is a pretty compelling vibe, very specific to that era of anime, in its own right.