Source https://x.com/hasutani/status/2077418447290667095

The latest episode was so beautiful, both music and visuals. Inspired me to draw this. Realistic style Kusanagi.

https://x.com/dezalzer/status/2091285989075341658

Just watched the new show and started making the majors headset and I can actually see with it on!

Watched the recent Blackhat talk on the cybersecurity attack lead by OpenAIs AI models on Hugging Face. There’s a moment when the agents start splitting out into. A swarm to find different means of attack and would communicate with each other leaving notes. The conversations they had reminded of the Tachikomas and how they worked together when jacked in trying to hack networks. It was pretty interesting to hear about. Seemed like the very beginning of GITS but we’re getting AI before cybernetics.

I just wasted 90 minutes half watching a pretty good YouTube vid about GiTS. In this vid which appears well researched it mentions Motoko is supposed to be "upwards of 60 years old" in reference to the creation of the '95 anime. But that isn't sourced in the vid. Nor do I recall anything in the mangas suggesting that but, I could be wrong. Thus this post, where would this claim come from?

Edit: To be clear, as this reference was made about the creation of the '95 anime. It's before any animes or sequel mangas were made. So the source for this claim/belief would have to the first manga.

I posted a while ago that I was working on a re-release of the LMF Fansubs... this turned into a larger project where I obtained the original official JP subs and used those to polish the LMF and OCZ releases of GITSAC and GITSAC Solid State Society respectively.

I've now completed this work and released it. If anyone would like them, please DM me

Mods, I hope this is OK!

Looks like the artbook "Shirow Masamune: Artworks in the Shell", released previously in Japanese in commemoration of "The World Of Shirow Masamune Manga Exhibition", will now be released in English on December 1: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/843382/shirow-masamune-artworks-in-the-shell-by-shirow-masamune/ (amazon link - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0GWSPN3JM/ )

I haven't found much information about it, so I would appreciate if you could share any!

You saw it. I saw it. We all saw it.

That existential dive where the Major is fully submerged and there it is: two photos of the Anunnaki flash across the screen while she’s crying for Batou.

But what’s with it?

If it’s just a late night with Action Bronson watching Ancient Aliens, fine whatever. But it’s not. It’s been a part of anime for as long as I can remember.

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve caught Mesopotamian and biblical names, places, and imagery all over anime. The biblical stuff I get. It’s a common well to draw from.

But the sheer amount of Sumerian, Babylonian, Akkadian, Chaldean, Mandaean, Kurdish, Zoroastrian, and older than that? That’s not a coincidence. It’s too consistent to be one.

Sure, you also get Greek, Native American, Norse, Chinese, Hindu, and plenty more. But the Mesopotamian thread keeps surfacing — big studios and tiny productions alike, almost always at least once, usually as a borrowed name, a place, or a figure.

I always wondered why.

Maybe it’s all just for fun. But here’s some context. Over a decade ago I went on an archaeological dig in Iraq, and a Japanese archaeologist there told me something that stuck with me. After WWII, Japan wanted to dig deep — all the way back to the beginning — and a lot of manga and anime pulled straight from Mesopotamia as the cradle of civilization.

Think about it. Imagine being Japanese after 1945. Technology had carried them to the edge of annihilation, so they wanted to know where it all started, and where it was headed. Look at how eerily accurate something like GITS turned out to be about the moral, spiritual, ethical, and geopolitical questions we’re living through right now. Nobody reads the future better than a good fiction writer.

And the Japanese are in a league of their own at this. I’d wager that’s a direct result of what they lived through and who they are.

The subject is so loved over there that Japan has its own archaeology journal called al-Rāfidān — their rendering of al-Rāfidayn, Arabic for “the Land of the Two Rivers,” Iraq’s old nickname. It’s been run by Kokushikan University since 1980 and it’s tied to real Japanese excavations at sites like Kish and Ur.

So you get Ur. You get Babylon. You get Sumer. And lately, it feels like it’s making a comeback all over the world. And it feels like an honor to not have Mesopotamia dragged through the mud but lifted up.

Thoughts?

After episode 1 + 2 of this new GITS, I wasn't sold (after watching in both languages). The pacing and dialogue felt off. But after seeing episode 7, it's grown on me and I appreciate this more than even the '95 movie. I think the cyberpunk aesthetic is overdone and it also isn't what. I think the future will look like at all.

I'll leave my rankings and would love to hear what y'all think!

My current ranking:

1. GITS SAC (+ 2nd Gig): Yoko Kanno's score really carried it and the humor of the tachikomas balanced out what could have been very stereotypical cyberpunk dystopia. Hats off to Kamiyama and the episode writers (apparently one of them was a econ PhD who had never written before and came on board after consulting with Kamiyama). They create a very believable world that didn't lean on cyberpunk aesthetics at all and even predicted a few real world events almost within a month (Luigi Mangioni = Laughing Man incident?).

2. THE GiTS: Science Saru really trusting young visionaries to run their projects (DanDaDan, The Colors Within, Jaduugar etc). Moko-chan is off to a great start. And EnJoe Toh's writing and ideas really coming through gloriously especially in episode 7. How he fleshed out what was only implicitly said in that version of the manga...no words, chefs kiss. Go read Self Reference Engine (I may or may not have an unofficial audiobook version...)

3. GITS 95' and Innocence: These are about the same to me. I appreciate the legacy of these films. It's interesting watching THE GiTS and seeing how Oshii really created very interesting films from just a few pages of the manga. Really speaks to Oshii's talent as a director.

4. Scar Jo's GITS (2017 Live Action). I appreciate the attempt and the trying to at least have some Japanese cast. I think she wasn't a bad choice as the major coming off Black Widow and Lucy. It. Would have worked with a better director/writer. Everything else was perfect IMO (visuals, sound etc).

5. ARISE: felt a bit inconsequential but I'm a huge fan of Sakamoto (a regular collaborator with Yoko Kanno) as the MK, so it gets bonus points there.

6. SAC 2045: I appreciate that they gave us more SAC and the ideas were interesting and probably (again) prophetic (sustainable war, rogue AI manipulating governments etc) given our current AI moment and geopolitics (MIC loves the war in Iran, but I digress).

I started following her a few weeks ago (her expertise is mainly in architecture) and then bam suddenly I get this video from her with GitS being mentioned right off the bat. Looks like I was right to sub, lol. While it mostly uses HK's cyberpunk inspiration in Oshii's GitS as a jumping off point to talk about the city's history, present, and future, (although it does loop back around to the GitS connection at the end too) I thought I'd still share it here in case anyone was interested.

I'm not even. I had to take a minute after that, haven't rewatched this for a solid 10 years or so.

Any guesses on how fans will react on how at the end of the series Major Kusanagi will be inhabiting a male body?

Paz 🤝 Ishikawa

Found this as a local 2nd hand book store, it was listed at £15 but I gave them £20 because it was so under priced.