Ghost in the Shell (s1) raises the interesting question of what it means to be human if we can have artificial (immortal) brains, artificial bodies with replaceable parts, transferrable consciousness, whether sentient robots should exist and how they should be treated (human or tool?), wealth inequality in the era of augmented humanity, and more all while being a decent crime drama. I doubt anyone here missed it but s1 was really enjoyable before it became about muh refugees and hacking people's brains for nationalism. It's particularly good at examining how these developments changed society and changed humanity without trying to dumb down the material or treat any of the subjects with kiddy gloves.
>>50894
never really thought of kino that way. I saw it only as post apocalyptic slice of life. I guess you could also see it as kino visiting a different dystopia every episode (during her travels): take a normal world, change one of the founding principals we observe normally (maybe their morals are based differently for example), see what happens to its bitter end. ultimately it felt like I was being led by the nose through the plot rather than being given a chance to examine "why are they doing that" on my own.
Kaiba as well was really thought provoking: can love exist when memories and consciousness can be sold or replaced? Sort of went off the rails in the end with the clones factory but it was a unique show. tfw brain fatigue can't type coherently anymore