REVIEW: Ghost in the Shell

Normally I wouldn't write a review in the traditional sense for something but yesterday I had the privilege of seeing an advanced screening for the new Ghost in the Shell movie ahead of it's official premiere on the 31st.  Because of that I feel like I'm obligated to write a formal review for it.  To begin this comes from the perspective of someone who has not watched any of the original Ghost in the Shell anime, be that the TV series or movies, and as such means this movie was viewed with a clean slate in my eyes.

Ghost in the Shell takes place in the far future where mechanical enhancements to the human body have become common place around the world.  The story follows Major (played by Scarlett Johansson), who's brain was transplanted to a fully mechanized body after a terrorist attack left her original body in a near death state.  Major is then enlisted in a government anti-terrorism division where she hunts down a wanted cyber-terrorist by the name of Kuzé.  The first of her kind, Ghost in the Shell wastes no time in using Major to to push forward the usual themes of human vs. machine prominent in android driven media.  Major questioning her own humanity and existence is to be expected but it's the fact that Ghost in the Shell doesn't really push the envelope in any way beyond that expectation that hurts it.  The plot follows a fairly standard structure that can be anticipated from beginning to end and doesn't give anything for the viewer to really think on.

The predictable story is certainly not helped by the subpar acting of Johansson.  While trying to put forth a serious demeanor her expression came across as confused instead, almost as if she was in a daze the entire time.  This was compounded with the Johansson's stiff speech that sounded as if she was reading straight from a script rather than the flippant, non-nonchalant Major that seemed to have been the aim.  While it was clear that Major was supposed to be rather lacking in the emotion department there is a difference between acting without emotions and acting a character without emotions, and Johansson was the former.

Fortunately, Johansson's shortcomings were somewhat made up for by some solid performances from the supporting cast.  Pilou Asbaek as Batou was a particular standout.  Unlike Major, Batou's aloof personality shined through Asbaek's snappy delivery of lines and movements.  His actions outside of fighting were purposeful yet also carried a hint of lethargy that complemented his character well.   Takeshi Kitano made up for the rather uninteresting character of Aramaki by executing certain key scenes and lines with finesse that got the viewer riled up.

What failed to get the viewer appropriately riled up, however, were the action sequences.  While not necessarily bad they weren't particularly engaging either.  Each fight was rather one-sided and didn't carry a sense of risk or urgency.  Over-reliance on slow motion and over-exaggerated hit reactions resulted in each strike feeling like a dull thud rather than a resounding blow that one would expect from mechanically enhanced humans.  Nonetheless, the fights did serve their purpose of breaking up the story sequences and were enjoyable enough as to not be unwelcome when they did come.

Regardless of the characters' portrayals and combat prowess, one thing that can be said is that Paramount Pictures has crafted a rather fitting world for them to reside in.  The technopolis setting brims with hologram advertisements and is filled with pedestrians with variety of visually interesting mechanical enhancements.  Special effects involving said enhancements were particularly impressive with body parts coming on and off as easily as puzzle pieces or muscle sinew being overlaid on Major with a gel like substance.  Light filtering through mesh gratings and reflecting off of all manner of metallic surfaces dazzles the eyes and the hustle and bustle make the city come alive.  It all carries a dirty and greasy vibe which perfectly conveys the feeling of technology pervading all aspects of society.

Ghost in the Shell is the very definition of a safe movie.  It sticks to well established methods in order to appeal to a more general audience but lost any potential to be memorable in the process.  A lackluster story, flat protagonist, and merely serviceable action sequences won't be making any waves but very little about the feature can be legitimately labeled as "bad".  By the time the credits rolled I felt next to nothing.  I didn't feel disappointed.  I didn't feel like I had wasted my time.  It almost felt as if I had just sat in a seat and spaced out for two hours.  Ghost in the Shell is a forgettable experience that simply fails to leave any sort of lasting impression, good or bad.





Ghost in the Shell
6/10
OK   

What Makes it Great: White Album 2

White Album 2 is something special.  It's a 10/10 that exhibits a mastery of human emotions, story telling, and cinematography not seen in other anime .  Normally I would pick out a specific aspect of an anime or game to discuss but in White Album 2's case there is just so much that goes into making it memorable that it would be an injustice to focus on just one part of it.  That's why this piece is going to be more general in nature compared to my previous ones as it will be taking a look at the show in a more all-encompassing manner.  I'm also breaking my tradition of avoiding important spoilers this time around since it would be impossible for me to get across the weight the series carries without going into specific plot details.  If you care about spoilers, turn back now, take my word to watch White Album 2 (White Album 1 is an individual story and not relevant to White Album 2), then come back when you're done.

To start to understand what makes White Album 2 tick one first has to look at the tsundere character archetype.  Many anime fans can easily recognize a tsundere type character by their harsh outer demeanor that hides a caring and kindhearted nature underneath.  Kazusa Touma is a textbook example of a tsundere.  She was very curt with protagonist Haruki and constantly feigned disinterest in his affairs.  Yet Kazusa was always looking out for Haruki and gave him a helping hand be that indirectly by urging him to evaluate his remaining time better or directly by helping him with his guitar practices.  It's very easy to be lulled into the assumption that Kazusa also followed the other established trait for a tsundere, and that was the inability to be honest with themselves about their feelings for others.  This seemed to be apparent when Kazusa gave Setsuna her blessing after her confession to Haruki in the first half of the show.  Classic tsunderes, like Taiga from Toradora or Louise from Zero no Tsukaima, refused the feelings they felt towards their respective protagonists throughout the entirety of their series.  It would be logical to conclude that Kazusa would follow a similar pattern.  The viewer was made painfully aware that this was not the case in the closing act, however, and it's that previous misconception on the viewer's part that makes the gut punch hurt all the more.

It's All on You

It's now been just over a week since the Nintendo Switch launched with the much anticipated title, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.  It doesn't take much research to find just how ground-breaking this adventure is.  While Metacritic scores should never be used as the end-all-be-all metric, a critic score of 98% from 78 reviews is practically unheard of for a game in this day and age. BotW has also broken the record for most perfect scores from critics, dethroning the previous holders being Super Mario Galaxy and The Last of Us.  If you want a comprehensive review of the game you can refer to any one of those articles.  As usual, though, I want to zoom in on a particular aspect of the game.  The crux of what makes BotW tick and how it redefines the open-world genre as we know it, and that is true, realized freedom.

A common flaw of nearly all open world games is that they are checklists in disguise.  Take The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt for instance. It's game structure can more or less be boiled down into a simple formula.  Arrive in a new town, find the bulletin board, take all the requests on the board, do a story quest maybe, then move onto the next town and repeat the process over again.  The quests themselves in The Witcher are detailed and involved enough to not feel too repetitive, but when the player opens the quest log and sees the veritable mountain of quests they feel they should do before moving on, it can get quite tedious.  Ubisoft games are especially guilty of checklist syndrome as their game maps are usually so cluttered with icons indicating quests, side activities, bases, and collectibles that they look like a middle schooler's stamp collection.

Phone Dilution

It's no big secret how prominent cell phones and communication have become in today's first-world societies.  They permeate every aspect of our lives and we rely on that ability to instantly get in contact with nearly anyone of our choosing to be a properly functioning member of that society.  This is all the more true for millennials like myself as by the time we were becoming self aware enough to want to communicate with others, cell phones and the internet were becoming cornerstones of life.  Even the most basic of basic flip phones only capable of calling and texting vastly opened the world of the young teenager who received it.  I don't know what life was like before everyone had a cell phones, before the internet became an integral part of everyone's lives.  I've imagined it from time to time and I've seen Hollywood depict those earlier periods of the 70's and 80's, but they've never emphasized this missing part of life quite like White Album has.

White Album takes place in 1986 and follows university student Touya Fuji who is dating the up-and-coming pop star Yuki Morikawa, or idol as they're more often referred to as in Japan.  Understandably, Yuki's schedule as a rising idol is packed to the brim with rehearsals, training, recordings and the like which leaves very little time to spend with Touya, or anyone outside the industry for that matter.  This places strain on their relationship and is exacerbated when Touya is essentially told to stay away from Yuki by her manager.  The only way for Touya to effectively communicate with Yuki is by good old fashioned land lines and White Album places these phone calls squarely in the spotlight.

It's Time to Save the World!... Or Not.

Originally I was going to write a piece about the "Tales of" series's current position in the gaming world and where I believe its future lies.  As I was playing through Tales of Berseria I was filled with all these thoughts about the series and excitement and hope for where it can go from here, and those thoughts may still make their way into this article.  However, after finishing Tales of Berseria my attention was drawn to another matter that I thought warranted discussion.  This is an issue that is rather prevalent in the JRPG genre, or just the RPG genre in general, but has always been especially bad in Tales games.  That is timing of side quests in respect to the main story.

Before I continue let me make this clear, I loved Tales of Berseria.  It has usurped Tales of the Abyss as my new favorite Tales game.  The combat was dynamic and fluid, the characters were some of the most colorful and interesting featured in any Tales game, and the natural connections made to its predecessor, Tales of Zestiria, were brilliant.  Most of all the story was the most gripping and engaging of any Tales game to date and the perfect pacing constantly drove me forward to progress.  It's because the story was so phenomenal and the pacing so on point that it was all the more important for side quests to not interfere with that.  And for the most part, Berseria accomplished that.  The side quests were minimal and and the ones that were there rarely detracted from the main story for more than a few minutes.  This was the case all the way until the the very end of the game, right when the final dungeon revealed itself and the final boss loomed ominously ahead.  The world was in imminent danger and instead of pushing me, the player, with urgency to save it, Berseria decided to instead reveal hours upon hours of side quests for me to complete.  Whatever urgency there was to save the world from impending danger was completely lost.

I Refuse to Make a Switch Pun (Part 2)

With the background of the Switch’s unique announcement period out of the way, this brings us to the present and the future.  Even after the January 12^th presentation there are still many question marks surrounding the Switch such as the nature of the eShop and Virtual Console and they’re odd but unique take on voice chat using a smartphone app.  These questions are causing hesitation in some potential buyers so one can find it strange that Nintendo has left them unanswered so close to release.  Yet here’s the thing, the Switch is still sold out of preorders across all major retailers around the world despite those unanswered questions. 

Die-hard Nintendo fans, of which there are many, were going to buy the Switch at launch regardless.  Nintendo has those initial sales on lockdown.  While this was also the case with the Wii U, the difference is that there is a palpable excitement in the air surrounding the Switch.  Buzz for the console on social media and news outlets has been more or less positive, although not overwhelmingly so.  Nintendo doesn’t have a reason to release more news that could potentially dour those expectations.  It goes back to the confidence they’ve been showing throughout the announcement period.  They believe that once the Switch is out in the wild and people discover for themselves that the core aspect of the console itself is solid and enduring, then consumers will be less bothered by the less favorable, smaller details.  This extends to the Switch’s launch line-up as well which, besides Zelda, is pitifully weak.  But because Zelda is there that alone gives the die-hards enough reason to pick up the Switch at launch and support the platform until later games release.

This is for the first few months of the Switch’s life but what about after that?  A console of course needs to live off of more than its dedicated fans.  Here’s where the make-or-break period begins for Nintendo.  The Wii and Wii U lost almost all third party support from major AAA developers and the consoles suffered for it.  While Nintendo’s own first party titles continued to provide mostly top notch experiences, they couldn’t make up for the month long gaps that came between them.  This will be alleviated somewhat by the fact that the Switch will be absorbing most of the Wii U, 3DS, and PS Vita markets but that still will not be enough.  It’s been said time and time again and now it’s all the more important that Nintendo recapture the interests of those third party developers to pad out those month long periods in between first part Nintendo games.  This will be, and always has been, an uphill battle for Nintendo as they consistently deal with weaker hardware than their competitors Sony and Microsoft.  Nintendo must show major third party developers that allowing their consumers to take their games anywhere they please is a feature worth investing in.  Nintendo does this, of course, through raw sales of the Switch console.  While the Wii U failed to accomplish this, the Switch stands apart in one key distinction: it advertises itself.

I Refuse to Make a Switch Pun (Part 1)

The Switch marks an important milestone for Nintendo.  While the original Wii met with massive market success by capturing the imaginations of the casual audience, it came at the price of losing much of the core gaming audience.  Nintendo attempted to recapture the core gaming market with the Wii U but largely failed in its endeavor and, furthermore, couldn’t even retain the casual audience it obtained in the previous generation.  The Switch now stands to recapitulate those losses and prove that Nintendo can still make a place for itself in the console gaming market through innovation rather than raw power.

From the very beginning the Switch has been somewhat of an anomaly in the video game industry.  First announced almost off-handedly as the codename NX back in March 2015 at a Nintendo investor’s meeting, virtually no official information about the console was given for over a year.  It wasn’t until Nintendo unceremoniously released a three-and-a-half-minute reveal trailer on October 20^th, 2016 that we finally got out first look at the console as well as its official name, the Nintendo Switch.

The trailer, short and sweet, forwent the standard approach of showcasing new games for a new console and instead placed the focus squarely on the Switch hardware itself.  This gave consumers a clear picture of exactly what the Switch console would be capable of and that it would be a distinct departure from Nintendo’s previous consoles, home and handheld alike.  This messaging was especially important considering the Wii U’s first stumble out of the gate was just that, with many people thinking that it was a simple extension to the original Wii rather than a brand new console.

The Switch then entered another period of radio silence.  

No new information was given from Nintendo besides the date, January 12^th, 2017, of a blowout presentation that would go over all the details of the console.  The Switch did make a brief appearance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, however, which showed the console “switching” between console and handheld mode in a live setting.  An unlikely place to find anything video game related, The Tonight Show cameo demonstrated that Nintendo was taking a different approach to advertising and exposure this time around as opposed to the Wii U’s almost nonexistent amount.