Ghost in the Shell: SAC: Complete 1st and 2nd GIG (2018)

GitS: SAC: Complete 1st + 2nd GIG (2018)

Dirs. Various | Seasons: 2 | 52 episodes, approx 25 mins each [Make sure and stick around for the short Tachikomatic Days entries after the credits roll on each one!]

An 8-disc collection that contains all 52 episodes of the Stand Alone Complex TV series - that's 26 episodes apiece for each of the two seasons.

The year is 2030. Public Security Section 9 is a counter-terrorist branch funded by the Japanese government, a team of ass-kicking professionals that get the job done no matter what.

The world is overly dependent on cybernetic bodies; the web has become the medium of choice for terrorists and as a result there exists a large potential for cyber-crime and hacks.

Section 9 specialise in that area. Led by Major Motoko Kusanagi the team deal with corporate terrorism, kidnapping, human trafficking, Ghost hacks (a technique in which a subject's memories are replaced with false ones) and a host of other internal and external threats. They're the people that keep the rest of us safe, often without us even knowing they exist.

GitS: SAC is based on the 1991 manga by Masamune Shirow, just like the 1995 Mamoru Oshii film that came before it. The series isn't a direct sequel to the film, but rather a re-imagining of the original idea, existing almost parallel to it, but nevertheless owing a large debt to it. Plus, the longer length gives SAC the opportunity to explore things the film couldn't.

01. Season 1 (2003-04), episode 01 explains the 'stand alone complex' wording in the title and sets the format accordingly. In short, episodes are divided into two types: Stand Alone ones have a story that (mostly) wraps up in a single episode, while Complex ones are an ongoing arc that's split over multiple episodes. (Hereafter referred to as SA and CX, respectively.) [1]

Ep 01 isn't one of the season's best, but it introduces Section 9's members in an active way and lays a foundation for the ongoing process of worldbuilding that's crucial to a multipart series. While each team member has a speciality that aids the whole (e.g., research, marksmanship, etc), not all of them get equal screen time. The most frequently seen are tactician and team leader Major Motoko Kusanagi (pictured above) and her second in command, Batou, whose bulk and training makes him a formidable foe in close-quarters combat. In addition to their respective skillsets, all but one of the team have either partial or full-body prosthetic enhancements.

Ep 02 is much better. It's then that the nine heavily-armed Tachikomas are properly introduced. Self-aware mini-tanks that can operate autonomously or with an operator inside their pod, their personality is a combination of the inquisitiveness of a cat and the excitability of a child. As such, they're very much in the 'love them' or 'hate them' camp. I'm definitely a fan.

Japanese composer Yoko Kanno, who's perhaps best known for scoring the Cowboy Bebop (1998-99) series, provided a ton of music for SAC. I'm not going to comment on the 'theft or homage' aspect of her work. Most of what's used in SAC is first-rate and heightens the drama or emotional content of a scene, like a film score should. In that respect, it's hugely successful.

The twelve CX episodes tell one long story, known as 'The Laughing Man' arc, which begins with a single TV News broadcast and then widens in scope as more information is uncovered. While not a strict rule, generally those episodes have more heavy exposition than the SA ones, while the latter are better at leaving the viewer with lingering afterthoughts, often bittersweet.

I won't detail every episode here, but will mention a few personal favourites:

Ep 08: The Fortunate Ones – MISSING HEARTS (SA) hints at Motoko's past and shows that the team aren't always overly-serious in their daily work.

Ep 10: A Perfect Day for a Jungle Cruise – JUNGLE CRUISE (SA) is a Batou-centric one, revealing a little of his life prior to his recruitment into Section 9, and consequently throws light onto his relationship with his current co-workers.

Ep 12: Tachikoma Runs Away; The Movie Director's Dream – ESCAPE FROM (SA) is my favourite of the entire first season. It's a Tachikoma story that may pluck a few heart strings, depending on a viewer's sensibilities.

Ep 17: The True Reason for the Unfinished Love Affair – ANGELS' SHARE (SA) is set outside Japan and provides a more personal look at Chief Aramaki.

Ep 25: Smoke of Gunpowder, Hail of Bullets – BARRAGE (CX) is the penultimate episode, so is crucial to the Laughing Man arc, but it has one scene in particular that's truly unforgettable, imo. No spoilers, but I can say that it involves a special trio.

Ultimately, S1 of SAC is excellent. Its main characters are well-defined, with the human element never far from the surface; the action is explosive; the scripts are clever; and the music is a perfect fit. Animation is variable, but it often exceeds expectations, and I know of no other studio that did movement in a long running series quite as good as Production I.G. did at the time.

It's the only anime that I prefer the dub over the sub. The English voices fit the characters much better than the Japanese ones and the delivery is a lot more satisfying and naturalistic sounding than the subtitles give - although when the script requires a lot of exposition it can sound like the characters are reading from a manual; that's not just in the dub, but in both.

[1] I said that SA episodes have a story that 'mostly' wraps up by the end - the Tachikoma-centric ones are the biggest exception. Sometimes an event in a SA episode that involved one or more of them is referenced in a later SA episode, so it's best to watch even the SA ones in numerical order. Naturally, CX episodes need to be viewed in chronological order.

For reference, the SA episodes are: 1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 10, 12, 13 ,14 ,15, 16, 17, 18, 19.

The CX episodes (The Laughing Man) are: 4, 5, 6, 9, 11, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26.

- Motoko, Tachikoma, Batou -

02. Season 2 (2004-05) is set two years after the end of S1. It has a slightly different format, with three types of episode instead of two: Dividual; Individual; and Dual. (Hereafter referred to as DIV, INDV, and DL, respectively.) In that same order, DIV are the most Stand Alone; INDV ones focus on the main Individual Eleven (IE) story arc; while DL episodes have relevance to both a Cabinet Intelligence Service (CIS) storyline and the IE case, so are technically CX.

So far, so good. But more often than not even the DIV ones have some mention or reference to one or both of the other two arcs, meaning it's more a case of subjectivity about which episodes actually qualify as SA ones, if any; e.g., Ep 01 is classed as DIV in the opening credits, but is arguably crucial to the INDV arc because it's the team's first inkling of IE activity. [2]

But worse than that, the quality of writing isn't as good as it was in Season 1. The IE case functions well-enough as a unifying theme to tie various acts of terrorism together, but it didn't keep my interest like the Laughing Man case did. The CIS episodes did even less so, even though they provide a more visible antagonist. Even the Tachikomatic Days shorts are weaker.

As before, I'll mention the ones that I felt were the best of the season; it's a shorter list:

Ep 11: Grass Labyrinth – AFFECTION (INDV) reveals more of Motoko's past.

Ep 14: Beware the Left Eye – POKER FACE (DIV) is a Saito-centric episode, which seems to have been an attempt to address the fact that the secondary characters in Section 9 often get little of value to do. (Paz had one previously, but Saito's is better.) A number of the season's stories pay homage to famous films; the episode is one of those.

[2] For reference, the episodes presented as Dividual are: 1, 2, 3 ,6, 8, 10, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18.

The episodes presented as Individual are: 5, 11, 12, 16, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 26.

The episodes presented as Dual are: 4, 7, 9, 22.

- Section 9 (L-R): Paz, Saito, Batou, Motoko, Borma, Togusa, Aramaki, Ishikawa -

NOTE: both seasons had their respective CX episodes consolidated into a feature-length OVA, albeit in a vastly cut down form; e.g., The Laughing Man's 300+ minutes is reduced to a more butt-friendly 154 minutes. It keeps the action, but losses much of the philosophical underpinnings. A new dub replaces the usual cast. It wasn't as bad as I'd feared, except for Batou who was lifeless and limp, rendering the character emotionally vacant; his unspoken feelings were almost completely excised. The Individual Eleven OVA has scenes and characters that are similarly comprised. I wouldn't recommend either of them as substitutes for the series proper, even to a casual fan. The one positive is that they each have a new Tachikomatic Days episode.