I hope you fuckers like this jarring 3D OP animation with ultra-shiny tachikomas and Motoko the barbie-crusher, because you're gonna have to get used to it. Still, those opening shots of the city with the first bars of Inner Universe were a fucking trip back in the day. I remember the first time I saw it; got the DVD out from an actual real-life video shop many years ago. It's at about the moment you see the VTOL take off, when the music peaks momentarily, that you know shit's going to be rad.
Ah, yes, the opening text. "It is a time when..." I used to be able to quote that from memory. It's not the most transparent establishing brief, but SAC isn't the most transparent show.
Now we have one of those classic GitS shots: Motoko standing on a rooftop, looking over the city. Keep an eye out for this, because it gets repeated in various forms throughout SAC and 2nd Gig. A metaphor for technology elevating her to something that is more than an ordinary human.
Dreads guy w/Adam Jensen glasses - you hear Stamina Rose start playing behind you? Yeah, you're getting FUCKED
Cyborg ankle gorn. Cyborg gorn is a big thing in this series, and you'll see a fair amount more of it as you go on - why, there's some good headshots in this episode, even. Much later, in S2, there's a particularly memorable example that happens at [REDACTED] when the [REDACTED] finally [REDACTED] [REDACTED], saving [REDACTED] from his [REDACTED] and his fashion sense.
Aramaki's here to stop an inter-departmental squabble. Him playing politics is always entertaining. His friend Kubota - brown suit, glasses - will turn up again with a fair amount of regularity.
Wired telepathy. A secure 'hard line' between brains. That's one of those incidental/casual uses of cyber technology - people 'reading' barcodes directly is another - which SAC does really well as a vehicle for subtle world-building.
The nearest thing to a cyberpunk cop procedural (inasmuch as SAC is one at all) in more recent anime is, naturally, Psycho-Pass. Same animators, even. But you only need to watch this episode to get a grip on how different the two are in intent and execution. The hostage situation we get dropped into here is so much more nuanced and dare-I-say-it realistic than anything PP ever managed. Obviously the geisha-bots and brain-swapping-for-fetish-value parts aren't realistic, but I'm speaking in terms of the low-level grit (the hostages being ministerial personnel, the backroom dealing, the military/police squabbling) that PP elided in favour of a glossy, ideas-first approach. In point of fact, what makes SAC so great as cyberpunk is the fact that its setting is not a dystopia, nor a thought experiment writ large - it's a world recognisably quite similar to our world, twisted around a high-tech axis.
RUN RABBIT JUNK AWW YEAH that's the song that tells you it's time for a montage showing all the S9 members doing what they do best
to all those who take issue with Motoko's casual attire - the, uh, leotard - try to bear with it. It stays that way for much of the season. Fortunately, her combat outfit and military dress outfit (you'll see it soon) are much better, and she gets a far less cringeworthy wardrobe in 2nd Gig.
Aramaki's all about the letter-numbers in this episode - A2 loadout, B6 protocols...he never really does it again, interestingly.
"I think he broke." - Epcar's Batou is a fucking treasure, and he's one of the many reasons this is one of the rare few dub > sub anime
Note the closeup on the Minister's eye at the airport. "Directed by K. K." Clever.
Whenever someone says 'micromachines' in this show, read 'nanomachines'. This was written before the latter term became popular, but it's what they mean.
"Lithium Flower" is probably my favourite out of SAC endings, though there are only two to choose from.
Aaand now the Tachikomas are having a discussion about the philosophy of language
I LOVE THIS SHOW
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