Apart from not much occurring for most of the episode, the bulk of this was all magic box based. The problem with these last minute expectation subversions, if they come one after the other the audience engagement in the story disappears. What is the point of being concerning about a character, if you find out nothing matters, the dead come back to life and characters suddenly change their motivation.
The basic story arc in this episode could work, but not when you constantly flip from one character to another in an increased frenzy. The old SAC does this very well in the end of the 2nd season, but in that case it was the Kusanagi who after discussion with the protagonist discovers what is happening and decided to assist.
The pacing is poor, the story flips around so much you lose any engagement with what is happening and even with all these magic boxes opening, very little of the story-arc seems to progress anywhere. You could of cut 15 minutes from this episode without changing the story arc at all, which makes me this this is the result of massive padding.
The basic story arc in this episode could work, but not when you constantly flip from one character to another in an increased frenzy. The old SAC does this very well in the end of the 2nd season, but in that case it was the Kusanagi who after discussion with the protagonist discovers what is happening and decided to assist.
The pacing is poor, the story flips around so much you lose any engagement with what is happening and even with all these magic boxes opening, very little of the story-arc seems to progress anywhere. You could of cut 15 minutes from this episode without changing the story arc at all, which makes me this this is the result of massive padding.
