Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		4.0

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex: Individual Eleven Blu-ray Movie Review

Lucky 11?

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman January 6, 2012

Anyone who thinks animated fare is the sole province of kids hasn’t spent much time with anime in general, or Ghost in the Shell in particular. One of the most arcane, convoluted and intellectually challenging franchises to ever reach either the large or the small screen, Ghost in the Shell doesn’t suffer fools gladly, and even those who consider themselves able to handle the various twists and turns that modern day filmmakers like to throw at their audience like so much popcorn may find themselves at least temporarily thrown for a loop by some of the plot machinations this series goes through. Adding to the general complexity of the franchise itself is an attendant complexity with regard to various theatrical and home theatrical releases of various outings in the long and venerable franchise. As with so many successful animes, Ghost in the Shell began life as a manga, which soon matriculated to the screen in two feature film adaptations. Both films took basic plot elements of Shirow Masamune’s original manga and reinvented them in hyperintellectual style by Mamoru Oshii. In between the two films’ releases Kenji Kamiyama came along with a television version entitled Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, the success of which actually probably helped hurry along the second feature film. Stand Alone Complex came back for a second season, subtitled Stand Alone Complex: Second GIG. That’s all fairly straightforward (at least if you don’t actually get into the nuts and bolts of the various storylines of these many outings), but then things start to get a bit more, well, complex (stand alone or otherwise). Kamiyama released his own film (which was broadcast on the Sky Satellite service) as an epilogue to the series, this time entitled Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex Solid State Society, which I reviewed here. In the meantime, a revised version of the first Ghost in the Shell film was released as Ghost in the Shell 2.0 (shades of Evangelion). Then it was decided to reedit both seasons of the Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex series as OVAs, with the first season’s outing being called Ghost In the Shell: Stand Alone Complex: The Laughing Man. Which at long last brings us to Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex: Individual Eleven, which is, as you may have guessed, the reedited version condensing the second season of the series down to about an hour and a half. As with The Laughing Man, Kenjiyama has literally gone back to the drawing board, reinventing whole sequences, doing new bridging material, and subtly recasting the arc of the series to highlight a couple of focal relationships.

A world of secretive governmental operations (and operatives), terrorist cells and manipulated refugees would hardly seem to be the stuff out of which animated fare might be crafted, and yet all of those elements play into Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex: Individual Eleven. Anyone reading that brief list might think they had stumbled across a quick review of this morning’s newspaper, and that sense of current day events spiraling out of control helps give this redo of Second GIG its paranoid power, one that might, yes, be incredibly talky (perhaps too much so, given the anime’s ambitions to be a thriller), but one which ultimately manages to create a sense of dread and foreboding in increasing measure as it goes along.

While the two previous focal characters of Kamiyama’s reboot of Ghost in the Shell, namely cyborg commander Major Motoko Kusanagi and her cohort Batou, are still front and center in Individual Eleven, a lot of this outing’s story actually revolves around an insurgent leader named Hideo Kuze, a sort of countercultural Che Guevara idol who’s out to free a group of refugees who are being manipulated by various factions of the government for political purposes. A horribly scarred operative from Central Intelligence Service (CIS) named Goda enters the fray and recruits Section 9, the group which includes Kusanagi and Batou, to help deal with a terrorist cell known as Individual Eleven.

That brief outline is barely the very tip of an incredibly deep iceberg, as is typical of the entire Ghost in the Shell franchise. Individual Eleven takes a certain degree of patience, for it plays out rather slowly, especially for an ostensible political thriller. This is more the subdued intrigue of, say, a LeCarré than the more in your face action of, say, a Frederick Forsyth. Individual Eleven is actually at least as much about the characters as it is about the incredibly labyrinthine plot, and that is both its saving grace as well as a potential hangup. Those without any grounding in the Stand Alone Complex universe are certainly going to be lost at sea for huge stretches of this Reader’s Digest version of the second season. However, those who have at least a semblance of what’s going on will enjoy the subtle recasting of Kusanagi and Batou’s relationship, as well as how Kusanagi’s interaction with Kuze plays out.

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex: Individual Eleven is about as convoluted as its multi-coloned title, but it’s also an intricately plotted and very smartly written thriller. When a government agent dispatches a major character toward the end of the piece and states that society works best when it’s comprised of “docile little consumers,” it’s some evidence of just how ambitious this franchise is. Of course, it may turn off some prospective purchasers of this release to think of themselves as “docile,” but Ghost in the Shell so fully engages the intellect that just lying back and taking it all in is rarely enough.

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex: Individual Eleven Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

My comments about the previous Stand Alone Complex Blu-ray release culled from the television series, Ghost In the Shell: Stand Alone Complex: The Laughing Man, hold true for this release as well. This AVC encoded 1080i transfer in 1.85:1 looks remarkably clear and crisp and is testament to Kamiyama's professed desire to imbue this outing with a "big screen" look, despite its small screen genesis. Both CGI and hand drawn elements are interwoven fairly seamlessly, and detail throughout remains top notch. Line detail is also exceptional and colors for the most part are appealing and very robust. A couple of the characters (notably Batou) are cast in a pretty drab palette, and that may bother some persnickety videophiles. Despite what can be a very busy frame at times, and considering its interlaced source elements, rarely if ever do any passing artifacting issues crop up (occasional very minor motion judder is noticeable, though negligible), and this is about as clean and precise a visual presentation as one could hope for.

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex: Individual Eleven Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

As with Ghost In the Shell: Stand Alone Complex: The Laughing Man, both Dolby TrueHD 5.1 mixes on this Blu-ray offer superior fidelity and routine immersion. In fact, Individual Eleven begins much the same as The Laughing Man does, with helicopters zooming through the soundfield with attendant panning and some awesome, rumbling LFE. This redo of the second season also features a lot of the same evocative music that I mentioned in my Laughing Man review, and the score certainly elevates the enjoyment of this feature considerably. Dialogue on both language tracks is exceptional, and all elements are very well prioritized in both mixes. This is one of the rare animes where you can't really go wrong with either the original language option or the English dub.

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex: Individual Eleven Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Individual Eleven: Stand Alone Complex 2nd Gig Archive (HD; 29:50) is an overview hosted by Atsuko Tanaka, who voices Motokko Kusanagi in the original Japanese language version of the series and film. From early 2006, this special looks at the reediting process and contains copious commentary by director Kenji Kamiyama.
• Tachikomatic Days (HD; 3:51) is more of the comedy relief featuring the little blue mechas that have also been included on some of the other Stand Alone Complex Blu-ray releases.
• English End Feature Credits (HD; 3:00)

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex: Individual Eleven Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

If you're a fan of the Ghost in the Shell franchise, and specifically of Kenji Kamiyama's television reboot, Individual Eleven is a very artful condensation of the series' second season, picking up a lot of the main Individual Eleven storyline while jettisoning some of the subplots that helped fill the episodic version of the story. Kamiyama has once again very smartly redone some scenes and provided new bridging material to make this piece play very well as a (sorry) stand alone feature. If you're new to Ghost in the Shell, this frankly probably isn't the best place to start. The two other Stand Alone Complex releases provide just enough context to approach Individual Eleven with the knowledge to understand the various elements at play, and those are where you should start, if not with the original Oshii films. This Blu-ray sports excellent video and exceptional audio, and it comes Recommended.