I’m quite enjoying it, since I like the manga quite a bit, and I think it looks great, visually, but the pacing is a bit difficult.
It’s not Anime of the year material by any means. each episode feels fast but also slow if you know what I mean, some shows can have nothing happen at all yet a 24 minute episode is over in the blink of an eye, and others can advance a story a dozen chapters and feel like a complete slog to get through the episode. this adaptation is a bit of a slog to watch, despite being as busy and fast paced as it is.
I know people always ask for more direct adaptations of manga to screen, but sometimes you do have to change things, skip things, add parts, extend scenes, slow things down, rearrange plotline timing, etc. to make it work on screen. this adaptation needed some more of that.
I think the main complaints from most people are that the pacing is a bit hard to watch. I know the original manga was fast paced and a little goofy, I read quite a bit of it back when I got super into gits years ago, a far cry from the slow and cerebral movie adaptations, but I think I had hoped this more direct and true adaptation would find the middle ground.
I’m enjoying it, but it’s hard to watch, i’m nearly 40 and have always preferred “slower” media, and some shows can be either fast or slow paced and an episode is over in what feels like 5 minutes, regardless of how much or how little has actually happened, but this one is often a bit of a slog, never quite getting me into that flow state in a lot of episodes.
I doubt it’s the last GITS adaptation we get though, I love when we get different interpretations of a source material whether every one is better than the last is irrelevant.