The last one I enjoyed watching was Arise but I lost track after that. I think the series has been done to death and I would love to see some completely new IP from Masamune that is more reflective of the AI and economic upheavals we are experiencing in the 20s.
[1]: https://kodansha.us/series/the-ghost-in-the-shell-the-human-...
The nature (infamy?) of his activities over the past few years should also be noted. (And maybe chuckled at if you have a bit of a dark sense of humor.)
His popularity may have corrupted him...
The most recent manga he involved with was Ghost Urn, which explores the world of GitS from a different protagonist. He did not do the drawing, but did most of the worldbuilding and mecha design.
I agree that you can find genuinely disturbing things in the manga world and that Masamune's work is relatively benign (though some of his depictions of less-developed adult women might upset some). In general, I find the idea of commercialized erotica amusing, especially when coming from sources with more mainstream claims-to-fame. In these cases, I don't attach a connotation of moral bankruptcy or anything like that to the idea of them being "infamous", though maybe that's just me using the word wrong. I intend it more in the sense of, "Hahah, oh wow, THAT guy did THAT? That's crazy." Kind of like when we found out about Tezuka's softcore furry/snakewomen doodles.
Whatever narrative you've invented of Shirow changing over time is a stretch.
Shirow's manga is horny though, partly why I dislike it.
It's arty but there's no doubt it's done that way in part due to horniness.
I view the portrayal of Kusanagi as being steeped in aspects of the male gaze in a metatextual way. Japanese society has a high emphasis on traditional beauty standards, and the artists depicting her as a character use her beauty as a foil against the audience, by contrasting her beauty with her strength, and by subverting the desires of the audience by drawing our attention to her humanity by alienation through destroying her body at multiple points in the series. Her desire to protect her comrades at the cost of her body shows us how she is willing to sacrifice her femininity, being forced to regress to a childlike body.
The series have a lot of fan service, but I believe that it’s intentional so that the audience is forced to confront their own biases and stereotypes about women and about cyborgs/robots. The cyborg nature of her body as it is destroyed reads to me as a visual metaphor for the Madonna/whore double standard women are subject to society.
I guess I don’t disagree with your view, so much as I think that how she is depicted works on multiple levels in-universe and with respect to the viewer, and said depictions serve multiple functions in the text.
Movie Kusanagi is her own thing, mostly unrelated to the manga or other adaptations.
The manga is different.
(The site is now intermittently down, with "429 Too many requests".)
The only version that didn't add anything new was the Hollywood movie, which was an entertaining but shallow derivative of Oshii's animes and not based on the manga at all.
I think the original material provides enough ideas to continue spinning off new remixes. It hasn't even been outdated by the recent advancements in AI. Quite the opposite.
- the first Oshii movie
- the two seasons of SAC + SSS
- this new one*
*so far
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shxS5YpyK04&list=PLyhSewr7ii...
To me, Mamoru Oshii's 1995 GitS is THE version, because I'm seldom in the mood for slapstick and I much prefer the introspective mood of the movie, and its cinematic visuals. And the music!
I haven't liked any other adaptations since. To me, the movie is almost perfect. I didn't like Innocence much though.
I just can't get over how pretentious it is, and also I miss Motoko in it. I mean, the first movie (1995) also toyed with pretentiousness, but this was miraculously curtailed before it had a chance to bog the whole movie down [1], and its awesome mood, soundtrack -- much like with Blade Runner, another favorite of mine, I find it hard to separate the movie from its awesome soundtrack -- and visuals overpowered everything else. Motoko questioning if she was human, and what it mean to be human, it all worked for me. Maybe if she had spent the whole movie doing this, without any payoff, I'd like it less.
Innocence has great visuals too, I'll grant you this!
[1] mostly because the movie ends :D
I've enjoyed it so far.
Did you get your manga the same place they sell the 15 minute long Tarantino movie Pulp Fiction?