This is a redo of some Ghost in the Shell OVAs I haven’t seen.
I was never a big fan of Ghost in the Shell, although it used to be the most popular anime there was, back in the day. Or at least in the circles I ran in… Now you barely hear people mention it anymore.
I was always uncomfortable with the show’s themes. And now, after over a decade of the Patriot Act, endless war, drone strikes, and the CIA and NSA continuing to seize and abuse power since the show first aired… it’s hard to take something like Ghost in the Shell Arise sitting down. I just don’t have the stomach for another nine episodes glorifying abuse of power and violence when these characters and their real life counterparts ought to be in jail but instead continue to be well-respected, wealthy members of society in good standing.
Arise has a weird way of presenting the formation of Mokoto’s team. Basically Mokoto whines to Aramaki for four movies about how she wants her own team of special people with special privileges – and in the end she simply gets what she wanted.
As for the abuse of power… In that regard the setting is very anti-heroic. It’s the kind of world where the law doesn’t work and doing the right thing might mean you do the wrong thing for the right reasons. The anti-heroic characters end up doing bad things from time to time but they redeem themselves by fighting for the greater good or they learn to do the right thing for the right reasons during the course of the story.
Since you haven’t seen the Arise-series before, it’s worth mentioning that the first two episodes of this Alternative-Architecture-version are the fourth movie and the third episode is the first half of the first movie.
Interesting how they switched up the order so much.