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Behold, the most pretentious Ghost in the Shell piece to ever be created, and one of the most if not the most within the anime medium in general. I must have watched a version by a jokey fansub ten years ago because I remembered a line by Togusa saying that they should stop quoting stuff, but as I rewatched it the other day, I noticed that line doesn’t exist. Well the movie acknowledging its own pretentiousness was one of the few things I liked about it so that line non existing kinda sucks for me. On the other hand, the film not trying to be self aware like many fiction today and respecting its mood makes me at least respect its tone and commitment to it.
The problem is that the tone is the only thing it has going for it and that still does not take away its pretentiousness by being filled with so many quotes. The mood is not accompanied by the atmosphere though, which although serious is not captivating like it was in the first movie. The sound department is amazing, with mature voice acting, way better sound effects like a decade before and Kenji Kawai upstepping his already great soundtrack from the previous entry. This background music still has three versions of the same chant song, and now they are even longer, but the piece itself is better than Making of a Cyborg and its two continuations from the previous album, even though I like that one a lot more. Besides that, and the first track being the worst for how quiet it is, the collection is close to amazing thanks partially to the two House of Dolls themes. I still got stuff from Kenji Kawaii to listen to but up until now this one is him at his best.
Despite that, nothing manages to make the movie not dull, and it’s due to the story and characterization. It helps to have rewatched and reread the two first timelines before this movie and even have watched two retrospectives of the whole franchise on YouTube by Cultured Crusader (which is ok-ish at best) and Dungeon Chill (this one is worth it) to connect the plot to its foundations. It basically takes the story from the sixth chapter of the manga that was adapted on the fourth episode of the 2026 anime and combines it with a case from Human Error Processor and some themes from Man Machine Interface and makes its own thing with them. Basically some sex dolls robots are hacked to kill people and Bato and Togusa investigate the murders and find out that some guy was forcing some little girls to do it, that’s the whole plot.
But because this is an Oshii film, it had to be filled with some existential questions here and there, which wouldn’t be bad by themselves, as you would have the killings linked to some secondary and antagonistic dolls maniacs and fetishists spewing some nonsense about humans feeling bad about how the dolls resemble them, or about young humans being the same as dolls because they have not grown as fully realized people yet. Those lines combined with the dark aesthetics and creepy soundtrack would make for a fine neo-noir cyberpunk thriller, but every few dialogues the characters just seem to need to throw in some philosophical quotes for no reason. For all the shit some people give to the first movie, it never takes it to this level, in fact it features only ONE quote, split in two scenes, unlike here.
It would be excusable if the plot was about that but that’s not it either, as no character is having an existential crisis over seeing themselves as equal to the dolls in the same way Motoko doubted her own humanity and self being and identity as she did in the first movie for seeing herself similar to the androids and cyborgs that appeared throughout it. Ok, you are probably thinking well but the film is a murder mystery, it doesn’t need for the characters to have an emotional connection to the conflict in it as long as they catch the culprit in a way that comes off as interesting and makes sense, but again they basically start quoting stuff and go to places based on that alone, and even during all the remaining time where they are not doing that they start to quote bullshit just by looking at the scenery or something.
Two of the most remembered and praised scenes of the film are those where Batou and Togusa are cyberhacked and start seeing stuff that is not actually happening. By themselves they are cool stuff and are made to make them seem vulnerable but don’t add much to the whole and nothing important actually happens to them so they come off as a bit of fake suspense, not like Motoko getting her body torn apart and shot through in the previous movie.
As for characterization, what do you want me to say? The characters are as dry as they were before but without the previous interest, as there’s no counterforce in this movie. Togusa is supposed to be the most normal and human character in the franchise, and while he has his humanistic drama about his wife and daughter, they are not related nor involved with the conflict in any way, like they would do in Solid State Society just two years later, plus all his quoting makes him seem less normal. He and Aramaki show concern for Batou in the anime about him potentially leaving like Motoko did, but he never shows any sign of doing something like that, and despite his no nonsense and no shits taken attitude, he still responds to all the quoting with some bullshit on his own. The characters don’t seem like what you knew about them after the previous work. The antagonist traps Togusa in a maze-like cyberillusion of sorts but does nothing impressive afterwards and as a character has nothing to fare up to the Puppetmaster. Motoko appears as a deus ex machina near the end and leaves soon afterwards.
After all my bitching about the nonsensical quoting in the script, let me quote myself with an actual reason from my review of the first movie while I was talking about the 2.0 version, where I said “Oshii himself made Innocence earlier and it looked better than it”, and although true, it is also dated as well. Still, the 2D elements and CGI animation clearly were thought of and integrated together since the beginning, not like the film that would come out four years later. Nonetheless, the CGI aged quite badly, compromising backgrounds, special effects and artwork in the process, which is a shame because those things look fantastic on their own. Other than that, the character designs are still great, especially the older looking Batou and the doll-like antagonist. The killer sexbots dolls are all the same which makes sense as they are mass produced but they are meant to be creepy and unnerving and that never worked on me. The coloring is a bit of the same that would be used on 2.0, orange backgrounds included, but because of the darker lighting, it looks and mixes the two styles better than 2.0. The actual animation is also great, I don’t know if they rotoscoped some movements for some scenes or what but every motion is detailed, realistic and done with a lot of care. The fight scenes themselves aren’t all that impressive but that’s more of a choreography thing than something regarding the visuals.
So anyways, the movie has decent to good visuals, amazing audio department and serious tone and atmosphere, but a completely dull plot, one of the most pretentious scripts ever written, and dry as hell characters with nothing interesting in them nor good dynamics between them, thus I do not consider it worth watching in the least. After ten years it is still my biggest disappointment in anime and entertainment in general, but still not as bad as Man Machine Interface, the Arise continuity, at least without rewatching it, the live action, and most of all 2045, the latter two which I’ll definitely never rewatch.
4/10
