Cyberpunk

I Thought I Would Hate Virgin Punk (And I Was Dead Wrong)

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[Trigger Warning: This review covers a film that touches on some sensitive subject matter. Namely, a villain with a lolita fetish and a main character being forced into a younger version of her body and being controlled by said villain. There is – thankfully – no sexual violence depicted in this film, but I felt the need to put a disclaimer anyway.]

During Aniplex Online Fest 2024, a trailer dropped for a film that instantly captivated my attention like nothing else. A cyberpunk action story, but one that traded the traditional neon-drenched eerie gloom for a bright, sun-drenched European-inspired city that might look utopian if it weren’t for all the blood being shed. Gunfights, explosions, sinister men, and amid the chaos, a young woman in a cybernetic body, dragging a large attache case and toting a mean-looking pistol. This was Virgin Punk, and I couldn’t fucking wait to watch it

It was to be the start of a new series from Yasuomi Umetsu, a beloved director and animator behind Kite (1998) and Mezzo Forte (2000), two OVAs famed for their gunporn, to say nothing of the actual porn in their extended editions. Yep, they were hentai, albeit with enough exciting action and competent attempts at weaving revenge stories and crime thrillers that they could cut out the sex entirely and still find an audience. And that’s exactly what happened when the OVAs found their way overseas, not that there was much choice when the uncensored versions were banned in multiple countries.

But see, I didn’t like Kite. It’s actually one of my least favorite anime. I found it a little gross, to be honest, and even the highs of the action weren’t enough to compensate. It was heralded as a classic, but I found it lacking, such that it stained my perception of the director and his work. You might wonder why I’d be so excited for Virgin Punk in that case, but I think the trailer speaks for itself. There’s just one problem: the trailer speaks for itself, and once it got subtitles, I feared that this new film would fall victim to the fetishes of an unfortunately cracked director.

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Ignore the Hate, Ghost in the Shell SAC_2045 is Good

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The new Ghost in the Shell is good

This isn’t up for debate. Not because I’m opposed to dissenting opinions but because the festering shitholes known as the comment sections and forum posts about this new series have made such a claim a necessity.

About three years ago, Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045 was announced. After 14 years, Stand Alone Complex was getting a direct sequel, something that was welcome after the middle-of-the-road Arise series from 2013. Even better, it would be directed AND WRITTEN by Kenji Kamiyama, the same guy who directed and wrote the original SAC. As a bonus, he would be co-directing alongside Appleseed director Shinji Aramaki.

Production I.G. would be working on it (no surprise there) along with Sola Digital Arts. In a big surprise, the character designs would be handled by Ilya Kuvshinov, someone who is mostly known to me for making beautiful art that people always set as their Soundcloud thumbnails for some reason.

Just last year we got a sense of what this very production team, sans Kuvshinov, was capable of. They released the Netflix original Ultraman, the animated sequel to the legendary Tokusatsu show of the same name. It was a cool show that got praise at the time, for good reason. So you’d think that knowing that these same people were working on the new Ghost in the Shell that people would look at the two and think “ok, this is the kind of animation I can expect.”

Instead, a lot of stupid fucking people acted like they didn’t see it coming when the new Ghost in the Shell was entirely CGI. Now that it’s released, I’d like to believe that people realized they were wrong, but nope. So I’m coming out of my hiatus swinging to get you motherfuckers cultured.

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The Untapped Potential of Ghost in the Shell 2017

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[This analysis contains spoilers for Ghost in the Shell 2017]

Ghost in the Shell, directed by Rupert Sanders, is not a great movie. That isn’t to say it is terrible. I feel the need to clarify that in a world where sometimes it feels like things are either great or terrible. No, Ghost in the Shell may not be great, but it is an average, entertaining science fiction action flick.

Many will accuse this film of whitewashing, though I would argue many of those people haven’t seen much of the series. The hardcore fans who have seen the series mainly dislike the film for being a dumbed down, poor adaptation. Is it dumbed down? Certainly. Is it a poor adaptation? Well, that depends on your perspective.

Keep in mind that EVERY version of Ghost in the Shell is significantly different from the other. The characters and lore change enough between them that it is easier to think of them as completely separate universes. Even the original manga creator, Shirow Masamune, said there was no definitive Ghost in the Shell. Hell, the original film was an adaptation of the manga and by all merits, it was nothing like the manga.

So in this analysis, I’m not judging GITS 2017 as an adaptation, but simply a new, flawed take on the series. I want to look at how this film fails to capture the essential elements of the series and even look what makes this film unique and the themes and messages that- if executed properly- could have led to a truly different, but all-together great classic.
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