What is the role that Ghost in the Shell played over twenty years ago as it helped revolutionize anime as a medium? Putting aside the animation techniques well ahead of its time and the splendid idiosyncrasies that gave the characters and the world real depth of characterization unprecedented for the time, the movie posed heavy and prying questions about the nature of individuality and security within one’s own body under a very plausible extension of today’s technological obsession. Yes we have updated to a world where cybernetic brains and bodies are commonplace, but that doesn’t mean we have moved beyond the point of tensions between countries and racial/economic discrimination. It is a future that is recognizable as our own world, where criminals have moved to hacking to commit acts of terrorism, but still for the same motivation of making a change in a world that is unkind to many and overly generous to few. And once one commits to a life of hacking the signals that pass through their brains every single day, diving directly into the internet to skim through data and find the right holes, can you really say your soul is still apart from the network itself?
Eight years later Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex became the decision to start the world anew and pose similar questions in a radically different format. The central characters of the government anti-terrorist unit Section Nine, led by the master hacker Kusanagi Motoko, went about their daily routines of fighting the disruptive elements of society, but with the undertones of a revolutionary hacker named The Laughing Man watching silently from the background, sometimes pulling some strings of his own to make a statement. The show exploited its 26 episode length to have a host of short two-episode stories, but each one took the questions of individuality and classism in advanced society and phrased them in slightly different ways, at some times defending the new reality, at some times criticizing it, at all times analyzing it. It was an action show, but the questions and character motives were always at center stage, far more than the terminology they used as a military unit in a complex society. For all the hacking that went on, there was plenty of shooting—which never really ceased to be a deadly force in the world—and plenty of time for the robots to philosophize.
Why do I spend so much time on past shows? Regardless of their success and motives, the past incarnations of Ghost in the Shell have nothing to do with the Arise universe, and even if they did my evaluations of them should be irrelevant to how I talk about Alternative Architecture. I refer back to all of them because Alternative Architecture is clearly trying to work in the same vein once again, and certainly comes out as more than the average show, but not in any spectacular way. Rather than evaluating it poorly because of its differences from the previous Ghost in the Shell installments, I'd like to simply point out why it only succeeds at being above average. Know right now that if you come into Alternative Architecture with no particular expectations of it other than it being a cyberpunk action show with philosophy, you will not walk away disappointed.
First, the characters. As all previous installments have started off with Section Nine fully formed, Alternative Architecture starts from the ground up, with Motoko meeting her future boss Aramaki, her sidekick Batou, and in turn all the rest of the squadron, and interestingly enough many of them meet on different sides of the battlefield. We finally get to see what happens when the elite members of Section Nine are on the other side of justice, operating as mercenaries for hire, idealists in a troubled place, or in the case of Aramaki, a politician without an arm trying to realize his goals for a better nation. What are lost in Arise are the little pieces of their lives outside the unit, about their families and hobbies, their offhanded musings, random acquaintances. Motoko is the only one shown with a lover at any point in the show, and in the Arise universe she is conspicuously interested in men as opposed to women as before. This is a minor change that should be irrelevant, but it does betray a certain lack of the same revolutionary uniqueness of the show from the early 2000’s with a strong female firmly in command of the screen and an interest in the same sex. Officially she is some form of bisexual, but the choice of love interest is telling.
Next, the way in which the show conducts itself. The action is good. The action is very good. It is pulse-pounding and dire, switching between the technological side of fights and the physical side of fights seamlessly. Twenty years of animation has clearly served this side of Ghost in the Shell very well, even if the choice of shots and camera angles is much less inventive than in Oshii's masterpiece. As for the use of action, use of irregular terminology and impossible feats of hacking seem to dominate the landscape where logical planning, micromanaging of human resources, and emotional connection have traditionally held more sway. Arise is a much more confrontative universe than before, and while this is a perfectly fine and logical choice given the new animation resources, there is a toll that is taken in the central messages the show attempts to convey.
These messages are rooted in the philosophical quandaries that come with being conscious and individual in a connected and robotic society. The true strength of the past shows was that despite how Motoko took charge of situations and made her plans work in the face of unknown adversity, despite how comfortable all the characters seem living and working in this new society, there are always questions that the characters are noticeably uncomfortable with, and are entirely incapable of answering. The old combat robots, called the Tachikomas, highlighted this perfectly. Seeing them muse about individualism while standing in a circle completely indistinguishable from one another, even sharing the same brain, hit harder than any human musing ever could. The Arise universe equivalents are the Logikomas, who maintain a similar cheerful personality but never appear for anything other than combat, never interacting with one another except for formations. Their AI is still loads of fun, and having them in Arise puts it head and shoulders above many cyberpunk shows. But it shows just how far Arise is from Stand Alone Complex in terms of wanting to pose questions to the audience.
No character can answer any of the questions posed in Ghost in the Shell , no matter what incarnation it may be, but in this one there are too few questions posed. When Motoko takes charge of a situation, she has any and all tools ready to use and uses them without question, usually singlehandedly resolving everything with her unit simply playing protection. The central villain appears at the end, in the only arc that was not an adaptation from the earlier Arise movies, but his motives are just lines of early 20th century philosophy being said on repeat. No confrontations with the lower class, no time to breathe for a life outside the plot, and no real sense of confusion in a world that is truly troubling to see.
As another minor point, the color palate is conspicuously lighter in Alternative Architecture than it is in the past Ghost in the Shell installments. Given the nature of the show, it was probably a good choice, as without it the smooth animation and rapid pacing would be flashes of gunfire on a dark background. Also there are a few scenes of deep immersion in the web that are beautifully rendered with the brighter neon colors, which make the web truly feel like a dreamscape. Once again it shows both a good choice for creating the experience that is Alternative Architecture and a poor choice for creating an experience that is Ghost in the Shell . If you want to create a sense of confusion and incongruence, particularly in futuristic worldbuilding, conveying societal inequality, and having a dialogue-driven narrative with visuals that are sculpted around how the characters perceive and interact with their circumstances, all the classic masterpieces, from Cowboy Bebop to Serial Experiments Lain , to Ergo Proxy , Texhnolyze , and indeed even Ghost in the Shell , have shown us that the foundation is laid with the visuals. Dark gray and black matched against a slightly beige white may seem lazy, but committing an entire show to that sort of rigid palate while still conveying a plot is impossibly difficult, and the profound effect has clearly spoken for itself.