Ghost in the Shell: Arise - Border 4: Ghost Stands Alone

The winter of 2028. The war is over and the country is being rebuilt. Motoko Kusanagi is trying to gather her own team; they are not yet an official unit and answer to nobody. A case opens over a chemical substance: there were irregularities in producing a compound used during the war and the file reaches into a ministry. At the same time there is a ghost attack; the memories of several people are altered at once and all of them remember the same thing. Kusanagi cannot trust her own memory either. Susumu Kudo directs. Maaya Sakamoto voices Motoko. The source is Masamune Shirow's comic series. It is the fourth part of the Arise series, which covers the period before Kusanagi formed her team and reinterprets the characters. The voice cast differs entirely from earlier adaptations and the choice was argued over among followers. The matter it treats is memory and identity; the idea of planted recollection is one of the series' main threads. This part is the last of four and the strands join here. The action sections are kept short; the weight is on investigation and talk. Its limit is independence; the plot cannot be followed without the previous three parts. Another limit is density; there are many technical terms and institutional names and the narrative does not explain. Who it is for: followers of the Ghost in the Shell series and viewers who like cyberpunk. Who it is not for: it is not an entry point, the plot is complex, and the pace low.