Everyone has their likes and dislikes, but I've been overall pleased with Sentai's dubs of late. Some of their subs can cause eyestrain, but I don't mind the yellow on black (they switch to white on black with song lyrics or when a second person is talking in the background). I do think it's more than likely that Funimation will get this new GITS series, though.
If the usual suspects don't get it, then I'd also put my money on Funimation as well, considering they have Appleseed XIII, which was also a popular Shirow Masamune created work. As far as Sentai Filmworks/Section 23/Maiden Japan/Neo ADV goes I don't mind them. They've been licensing a lot of top picks of unlicensed older series from years past I'd given up on owning a domestic copy of like Kurenai and Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 so for that they get great kudos.
So it looks like the Japanese BDs of this (which is the same region as the US, A) will have English subtitles. While that's cool and all, I just don't see something with such name value like this not getting licensed by somebody and sold for cheaper than what it would cost for 4 $60-70 a piece imported BDs. Multiple companies would have to seriously drop the ball for that to happen.
Yep, Funimation's got it. They'll release an initial "special edition" with subs before the English dub.
Well, I don't hate Kusanagi's voice. That's a start. But I'm still mad that Atsuko Tanaka, Akio Ohtsuka, and Koichi Yamadera are not in this.
I've seen the first episode and let me tell you, it's on par with a dull episode of CSI. Nothing too spectacular in the animation and music departments. I'm honestly thinking of pulling apart the audio and replacing the music with stuff from my own collection, because the OST so far is audio Ambien. The GITS cast intros feel a bit forced, as do some of the visual/story references, and the characters are card stock thin. There are a few cool ideas here and there, but the execution isn't anything beyond competent. I'm hoping the next three episodes manage to make up for the weak first episode, but I'm not holding out that much hope. If we're lucky, this first episode won't have much relevance to the following three and we can all just recommend skipping this one.
Is there any way to see it online that doesn't involve illegality? Or did you fly to Japan and see the theatrical release?
Nope. You can wait for the Funimation sub only release or importing a Blu-Ray from Japan if you want to be totally legal. Personally, I recommend the former, because at least you wouldn't be supporting horrific business practices and attitudes towards non-Japanese consumers.
Do you mean Beauty and the Beast? If you're talking about the Oscars, The Lion King did not get nominated for best picture.
I'm not sure they would've been competing for the same Oscar category anyway, since GitS would've presumably fallen under foreign films.
This review claims that Arise does not seem to match up with prior continuity and thus appears to be in its own universe. ( A reboot rather than a true prequel - where have I seen that before? ) If that's true, we would now have 4 distinct GITS universes including the comics.
Yes so? Gits SAC/2nd/SSS is more the personal universe of the director Kenji Kamiyama. Certain events in his other show (Eden of the East) cross into GITs for example. This exercise by Production IG is probably a money extraction venture to separate your cash from your wallet so to fund their less profitable projects.
Foreign Language films can still compete with Hollywood-made English films in the "Best Picture" category. For example, the Italian Life is Beautiful was nominated for Best Picture.
Now I've seen another blog which claims Arise is a prequel to the movie-verse. Which is kind of what I had thought at first given some of the character designs, especially Aramaki. Was this said somewhere, that Arise would end up leading in to the first film?
No, but someone at the Arise reveal press conference mentioned that it was a prequel, plus the earlier date of the show leads people to think it's actually a prequel when it's a reboot.
It's not. The recasting suggests that it's a brand new continuity. It's only a prequel so that they could make Major younger to appeal more to the otaku. It's in no ways a prequel to any of the pre-existing content, the possibility of any continuity landmines is likely why (such as her conflicting origin in the GITS anime).
The first installment was actually quite a nice surprise. Seems to be both, a different continuity that begins before the unit we know from the other ones was formed. Pretty good writing and decent animation (though lightyears away from movie standards), but the crappy character design proved to be a real handicap.