The release of the fourth and final installment of the disastrously ill-received Arise has been accompanied by news that Production IG plans a new Ghost in the Shell movie for 2015.
Production IG’s president says the 2015 movie will be a “challenging” celebration of the 25 years since the original manga was published and 20 since the first movie, but has left all other details – most crucially for fans the question of whether it will continue the Arise series or take place in the separate movie and SAC canons – for a future announcement.
The surly online response to the news suggests IG will have their work cut out for them rescuing the franchise from the legacy of Arise:
“Who cares.”
“Keep destroying that brand!”
“Doesn’t Masamune Shirow just spend all his time drawing ero-manga nowadays?”
“Just make a live action version and be done with it.”
“At least this new one will sell well overseas I guess.”
“I guess this will be a sequel to Innocence?”
“More Arise I fear…”
“Please no more Arise!”
“That cheap character design from Arise has to go.”
“A Mamoru Oshii sequel to Innocence is about the only thing I’d be prepared to watch now.”
“I don’t think they can top the CG and traditional animation style of Innocence this time.”
“SAC was the best. The right balance and a plot you could actually understand. Arise should have at least had a Motoko who was as cheerful as she was in the original manga.”
“SAC or Oshii please. No more shoddy Arise rubbish.”
“It all depends on the character design, Motoko seiyuu and director this time around.”
“If Motoko is a complete full-body cyborg, why should we care about the design of her body or what voice she uses?”
It sucked back in the day too.
Just let it die. Franchise as a whole, and Arise in particular. Even Masamune himself forget about it long ago. It would be better to animate his hentai works, lol.
The manga, the first film and innocence, and the SAC series are each awesome in their own different ways as separate things, imo. The problem with Arise is that while it’s still good, it kinda clearly falls flat among each of those past entries in the series. It doesn’t excel even in it’s own way in comparison to past entries. That said I’m all for a new movie to see where they go with it this time, especially if it’s a different direction from Arise or related to one of the past entries in the series.
I just want to add, I don’t feel like GitS is really Shirow’s baby anymore. The original manga was, but since then it’s really been an inspiration behind completely new things in different medias. The manga was shirow’s, but the anime film was Mamoru Oshii’s, and the tv series was Kenji Kamiyama’s. The last two owe credit of inspiration towards Shirow but Shirow isn’t really the one to thank for any of the animated parts of the series.
Very exciting news.
Based on todays mass produced sex robots – from 10,000 dollar life sized life like with exchangable pussies, to blow up dolls, Motoko didn’t get that bad of a deal in Arise’s movie after all. THey would all be bland as hell from a company mass producting them at 2,000 a day.
I don’t mind with the new chara design
I don’t mind with few cliche
I don’t mind with new VA
I do mind about the plot and storyline
granted that not every part of the franchise succeeded
Same, but I did mind that the third episode of arise was pretty much dedicated to Motoko being in love. With a men.
…that just totally broke her character.
She always was bisexual.
Erhm… from the ghost in her shell perhaps??
What the f♥♥k have you been reading thus far?
Yes, but she never was a maiden in love with clouded judgment and stuff. With a fully prosthetic body, where did those hormones come from anyway..
She had a boyfriend in the manga.
While I dislike the cliched “need” to have a romantic subplot, especially for female characters, I also dislike it when people dismiss these stories out of hand just because they have a girl falling in love with a man. Did Spike’s character suffer for him being in love with a woman? Can’t characters be bisexual or even possibily pansexual?
>Motoko isn’t supposed to
Ah, there’s your problem. You think you know better. You can’t stand to see what might have driven your character to become the person she was in the other series, especially not if she has to make typically cliched mistakes.
No surprises a lot of otaku can’t relate to a relationship arc
Cowboy Bebop was a complete trainwreck of a show anyway. No sense pointing fingers at that excuse of an anime.
The problem with arise is that Motoko isn’t supposed to be some naive girl that falls in love with some dude and this all “No, he can’t be evil ’cause I’m in love with him.”
I wouldn’t mind a romantic subplot if she stayed in character for it.
Solid State Society actually reconnected a few of those missing dots. So there was a parasite type of storyline (puppet master) withheld. It all comes full circle in a way, because without the Major, there would be no villain.