7.4 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
A.D. 2034. It has been two years since Motoko Kusanagi left Section 9. Togusa is now the new leader of the team, that has considerably increased its appointed personnel. The expanded new Section 9 confronts a rash of complicated incidents, and investigations reveal that an ultra-wizard hacker nicknamed the "Puppet Master" is behind the entire series of events.
Starring: Atsuko Tanaka (I), Osamu Saka, Akio Ôtsuka, Yutaka Nakano, Tôru ÔkawaForeign | 100% |
Anime | 95% |
Sci-Fi | 37% |
Action | 35% |
Mystery | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.78:1
English: Dolby TrueHD 5.1
Japanese: Dolby TrueHD 5.1
English
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (locked)
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 5.0 | |
Extras | 3.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
YouTube has become the great repository for cultural detritus, and though I haven’t officially checked, I’ll bet if you’re not old enough to remember the old “Excedrin headache” commercials, where an animated skull opened up to reveal cogs and wheels pounding away inside some poor hapless individual’s head, you can probably find it there. That cutaway to the inner machinations of the mind might have two connections to Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex: Solid State Society. First of all, any given viewer might develop an Excedrin headache of their own trying to figure out this incredibly convoluted tale. But more to the point, several characters within this OVA have what might be jokingly termed Excedrin headaches of their own, specifically those characters with “cyberbrains” (if you have to ask, don’t) who repeatedly find themselves victims of a hacker known as The Puppeteer. A slew of high profile suicides or near suicides dot the landscape of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex: Solid State Society, and they all seem to point to The Puppeteer taking control of various individuals’ cyberbrains and programming these poor folks to kill themselves. Lest that mystery not be enough for Public Security Section 9 to investigate, we also have yet another threat of a nanite “micro-machine” virus in the hands of terrorists, up to 20,000 kidnapped children who have had their minds erased, and just for good measure, longtime Ghost in the Shell heroine Major Motoko Kusanagi largely missing in action and (gasp!) maybe up to no good as The Puppeteer herself. Anyone used to delving into the circuitous world of Ghost in the Shell already knows that this has never been a franchise you simply dip your toe in to get a measure of the temperature; it is instead an anime that requires a headlong dive into deep and often roiling waters, where things are often not quite what they seem, and characters tend to be incredibly verbose if not as incredibly illuminating, talking on and on in sentences that seem to make sense on their surface but which often have the direct effect of producing major “WTF?” responses in the listener. And in that regard Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex: Solid State Society is most certainly no exception.
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex: Solid State Society arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Starz/Manga, distributing a Bandai production, with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. This is a nicely sharp and detailed looking feature, with excellent line detail and an appealing, if often quite dark (as befits its subject matter) palette. As with a lot of Ghost in the Shell outings, there's not mind blowing color in use, at least with regard to many of the characters, who can be almost monochromatic, or even some of the backgrounds, which are often impressionistic and rain streaked, evoking a very noir ambience. That said, there are instances of nicely popping, very robust colors, which in fact pop all the more simply by comparison with the otherwise drab hues. The overall image is very sharp, with the high tech future dystopian world presented very crisply and cleanly.
Yet again, a Ghost in the Shell enterprise arrives with two blisteringly effective lossless tracks, both Dolby TrueHD 5.1 mixes, one in the original Japanese and one a very good English dub. Both of these tracks feature some awesome LFE which thunders through the soundfield from virtually the first moment and which recurs with great regularity throughout the next hour and forty minutes. Sound effects are very well placed throughout the surrounds, with some excellent pans that help establish a really involving amount of immersion. Dialogue and score are very clear and brilliantly mixed, and the action sequences, which include some blasts of guns and other huge explosions, really bring this soundtrack fully alive in a very enjoyable manner.
You may have an Excedrin headache by the time you make your way through the entire Ghost in the Shell franchise in preparation for viewing this latest outing, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex: Solid State Society. And in fact it may simply be a case of having had to slog through so much material to get to this OVA that has at least partially colored my reaction to it. But the fact remains that this outing covers a lot of territory we've seen before in slightly altered form, and it also relies on a couple of clichés that anyone worth their salt is going to guess the outcome of the minute they're introduced. All of this said, Solid State Society is still an often extremely exciting, convoluted thriller that has several unexpected developments and manages to keep the Ghost in the Shell franchise alive, if only barely at times. It might be time for a little break before anyone attempts another follow up, but in the meantime, while not the best thing out there in the wild and wooly Ghost in the Shell universe, this release is still Recommended.
2006
2005
2002-2003
2013
イノセンス / Inosensu
2004
2015
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