I've had this argument before about Shirow, because it's not always clear whether the writer is trying to tell a good story, or if they are trying to make a point, but I always maintain that the point is to tell a good story. Motoko is not a good person. But you need her to be a bad person to get the story you want. You've got a guy who watched too much 70s cop and military movies taking the best parts out of them and imagining a future where everything is like it is in an imagined America but more. America as seen through the lense of popular media and news stories that reached Japan. Hyper real. The guy isn't trying to make a judgement on morality, he's putting together a world to play out the scenarios he finds interesting. He loves machines. Guns, robots, cybernetics. He loves action and gore. He loves scantily clad women. He loves hyper competent protagonists, especially women. The story is in service to that. But he's not an idiot. He knows the problems this sort of world, these sorts of characters create. So he includes that in the story. He points to how fucked up it is that the system works this way by having characters discuss it, he doesn't shy away from the reality that these are killers we're rooting for. He shows you what they are really like. What cops are really like. Its up to you to make the moral judgement on what they are doing. It's not that the author doesn't get that the stuff they do isn't right, its that the characters believe they are right. If they didn't it wouldn't be realistic. He is making a world that he wouldn't want to live in, but is fun to watch. So does he realize that the characters are not just morally grey, but totally compromised? I think he does. The responses to the teams interventions are realistic. People complain. Coruption persists. Nothing is fixed. Nobody is saved. Because cops don't save people. They kill people.
theartofmadeline
gamechangershow
ellievsbear
vaporwave
