Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex: Individual Eleven OVA Review
Yesterday I reviewed the first Stand Alone Complex (SAC) compilation OVA/movie that streamlined the first season’s Laughing Man storyline into a single, coherent film. It was better than I expected it to be — probably because it was edited by head writer and director Kenji Kamiyama himself. Today I’ll take a look at Kamiyama’s second attempt at editing his own work, with this similar release, a digest of the second season (2nd Gig)’s complex Individual Eleven storyline. Kamiyama himself is on record stating that he learned a lot from making The Laughing Man’s OVA, and that he feels that this experience made his editing on Individual Eleven superior.
At the end of the first season, Public Security Section 9 has been disbanded — at least officially — following the political fallout of the Laughing Man case. 2nd Gig picks up the action two years later, in 2032, with Section 9 once again being reinstated, under the direct authority of Japan’s new, female, prime minister. We open, much like the preceding film, with a greatly shortened version of the season’s first episode — REEMBODY — with Major Kusanagi and her team defusing a terrorist/hostage situation perpetrated by a group calling themselves “The Individual Eleven”.
We then jump ahead to episode four — NATURAL ENEMY — and a botched military training exercise in the skies above the Niihama Refugee Residential District inflames tensions between the Japanese populace and the Asian refugees who have been exploited as a source of cheap post-war labour. The refugees are forced to pay taxes but are refused the opportunity of citizenship. Cabinet Intelligence Service head Kazundo Goda makes his entrance, and immediately makes a poor impression on Section 9. Something’s rotten in the military and in the government, and Goda seems likely to be the one pulling the strings.
The film then leaps ahead to the conclusion of episode 12 — SELECON, missing out great chunks of background detail about Goda’s manipulations, the ideological basis of the Individual Eleven group, and even prominent character Hideo Kuze’s introduction as a would-be assassin of the Prime Minister — this is only later alluded to in passing. Instead, Kuze briefly appears with his co-conspirators before joining them on the roof of a skyscraper, where everyone but him is beheaded. This was a shocking scene in the TV show, which came after much build up — now it’s bizarre how quickly the film dispenses with almost the entire first half of the season. Although some footage from episode 9 — AMBIVALENCE — is spliced in here to show Kusanagi digging up dirt on Goda’s motivations, background, and probable plans.
Apart from some brief political scenes from episode 16 — ANOTHER CHANCE — that demonstrates the new Prime Minister’s apparent lack of authority due to her many enemies in the Cabinet, we then jump ahead to episode nineteen — CHAIN REACTION — already into the endgame of the season. The majority of the rest of the movie is a streamlined version of the final seven episodes, all edited together into two main acts. The first is Section 9’s unsuccessful trip to Etorofu (same place much of Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence is set) to prevent Kuze from acquiring Plutonium, and the second covers the climactic events on the Dejima Island Refugee Residential District where Section 9 has to somehow prevent the outbreak of war, a Japanese goverment military coup, and the launch of a US Empire nuclear weapon aimed at Dejima.
It’s understandable why Kamiyama chose to focus so heavily on this final part of the story — it’s a truly excellent political/spy thriller, not dissimilar to some of Tom Clancy’s acclaimed work. Stand Alone Complex’s world has a deep, well-constructed geopolitical history, and Kamiyama explores it with a keen sense of drama, driven by intelligent, multi-layered plotting. Ghost in the Shell movie director Mamoru Oshii’s involvement in the plot is obvious, as Individual Eleven reminds me a great deal of his superb Patlabor 2 movie, especially in its final two acts. Kamiyama’s brutal excision of so much earlier connective tissue makes this a very lean film, despite its over two-and-a-half-hour running time. This does have the unfortunate side effect of lessening Goda’s character development — his sneaky underhanded manipulation of Section 9 is pushed to the wayside, and he’s less of a formidable villain as a result.
Togusa has much less to do this time, as many of his episodes weren’t absolutely central to the plot. New character Proto similarly appears from nowhere to suddenly play a pivotal role, and this is somewhat jarring. The one character with the most focus, however, is the Major. Although the bizarre episode where she visits a strange museum and learns the story of the children who were cyberised so young is completely excised, we instead hear a shortened version of the same tale, but related by the Major herself. This removes any ambiguity about her history — she was definitely the girl in the hospital, and Refugee leader Kuze was most certainly the boy she loved. I don’t know if there were extra scenes added or not, but the film seems to give a lot more focus to the relationship between Kusanagi and Kuze. Perhaps it was because of the higher relative concentration of scenes featuring Kuze, but I found myself empathising with him more in this version of the story.
The final moments when Dejima is battered by Japanese missiles, Batou is fighting off a team of his ex-comrades, Major and Kuze are trapped beneath rubble, Aramaki, Togusa, Proto, and the Prime Minister are trapped in the government building, and the Tachikomas make decisive action, are masterpieces of ratcheting tension and disciplined plotting. There are so many moving pieces, but everything flows together smoothly, even exploring fascinating philosophical ideas in amongst the explosions and hacking. In particular, the Tachikomas’ noble sacrifice always brings tears to my eyes.
While some may prefer season one’s more standard cyberpunk/GitS storytelling, this film has really cemented in my mind how much I love 2nd Gig and its exciting political/war story. It’s a shame it had to cut out so many of 2nd Gig’s excellent episodes, but there is no way Kamiyama could have fit it all in. I still think watching the TV show is absolutely the way to go here, but this movie version is still an excellent piece of storytelling. I probably wouldn’t show it to someone who’d never experienced anything else Ghost in the Shell, but it’s definitely a valid option for fans who feel they can’t give up the time to re-watch all 26 episodes of 2nd Gig.
While Individual Eleven doesn’t really look like a cinematic production, the TV show already had superb production values, far higher than the vast majority of its contemporaries, or even most modern TV anime. Yoko Kanno’s soundtrack is used to superb effect here, especially some of her more ethereal tracks. Unfortunately, like with The Laughing Man OVA, the English TV dub cast once again aren’t used for this film version, they’re replaced by a presumably cheaper, less accomplished cast. That may be a deal-breaker for many viewers. I, however, do not regret revisiting the Individual Eleven story in this way at all.
As I’ve already reviewed the next SAC film Solid State Society, I’ll jump ahead next to review the first SAC_2045 compilation film, Sustainable War. It’s been four years since I watched the first SAC_2045 season it adapts, so I probably won’t be able to give it quite so detailed a blow-by-blow episode breakdown. See you again soon!
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex: Individual Eleven
Director: Kenji Kamiyama
Writers: Dai Sato, Junichi Fujisaku, Kenji Kamiyama
Based on: Ghost in the Shell by Masamune Shirow
Music: Yoko Kanno
Studio: Production I.G
JP release: 27th January, 2006
US release: 18th December, 2007
UK release: 23rd April, 2008
Runtime: 155 minutes
Languages: Japanese audio with English subtitles, English audio
BBFC rating: 15
