I’ve always believed that Ghost in the Shell’s best incarnation—outside of Masamune Shirow’s original manga—was the TV version: Stand Alone Complex. It stayed true to the cyber thriller/police procedural-style manga without falling into the somewhat boring, brooding style of Mamoru Oshii’s popular series of fims. Solid State Society, a made-for-TV movie sequel, continues this trend.
Two years have passed since the events of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex 2nd Gig. Major Motoko Kusanagi has resigned from Section 9, leaving Togusa, the new head of field ops, to deal with a series of bizarre suicides committed by followers of the infamous terrorist General Ka Rum. The perpetrator of the suicides is a cyberbrain hacker going under the alias “Puppeteer.” (Anybody whose seen the original Ghost in the Shell movie will find this familiar.) And during their investigation Batou and Togusa make a shocking discovery. There is a very small chance that the Puppeteer is in fact Kusanagi herself, operating as a rogue agent, and conveniently appearing whenever one of the Puppeteer’s victims slays himself.
I will refrain from spoiling the rest of the plot, but will mention two important points. First, in true GITS fashion there are several twists, turns and reversals in the storyline, adding to the ever-growing mystery surrounding the Puppeteer’s true identity. And second, despite the familiar feel to the plotline, it goes in several different directions and ultimately feels fresh and rewarding.
Bandai (collaborating with Manga) has pulled a real rabbit out of their hats with this DVD. Unlike a lot of recent television anime, Solid State Society was originally made in high definition, and that comes across rather nicely through a DVD transfer that has none of the slight strobing and aliasing effects visible in previous series releases. I did notice some small encoding errors in the form of junk interlacing frames, but those only occurred once in a while. I was very pleased by the quality of the included Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks in English and Japanese. They provide a wide front soundstage and decent directional and ambient effects in the rear, but most importantly they add depth, space, and excellent low bass reinforcement to veteran composer Yoko Kanno’s techno-inspired score.
Extras on the standard edition are pretty slim. “Uchikomatic Days” is yet another installment of the popular gag segment series in which the Tachikomas reenact Hans Christian Anderson’s Ugly Duckling story, but with the new and “improved” tanks starring in the title role, hilarity ensues. We also get a fascinating interview with the English ADR director and cast, and one of those annoying and hard-to-read features where you can view the film’s storyboards on a subtitle track as the movie plays. The Limited Edition, which I’ve not seen, adds English and Japanese DTS sound and an additional disk of extras.
