Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu
Reductio ad absurdum. No, of course it's not the only important thing.
I don't see how it's important at all. If you've written a story whose impact is lost by knowing what happens, a story which is not worth rereading/rewatching, you have written an inferior story.
Agreed. Which is why I'm not saying Rakugo is bad or anything. Just that it could have been better without the first episode.
I just don't see how. The sense of inevitable tragedy lends the series added pathos.
Ghost in the Shell: New Movie
To address your points in order.
1) I have mentioned that I thought the action was pretty good. I'm pretty sure (but not certain) that SAC had some fairly well done action sequences. However, I haven't seen the series in many years.
2) I will agree that there was a real attempt to give each member of the team distinct personality / fighting style / role. They were definitely more fleshed out than they've been in other incarnations but their characterisation is still extremely thin. I don't think any anime adaptation of this property has ever made me care about the team besides Batoh and Togusa.
Considering the movie strings together one large-scale action setpiece after another, it's good enough. Giving each member of the team a reason to be there allows for more involved and engaging action. It's like Sword of the Stranger in the sense that if you removed all the action bits and just left in the character moments it wouldn't hold up, but the film is successful at hitting the beats it needs to to motivate the action.
I view these films similarly to how I view, say, Enter the Dragon. In an era of poorly-shot, poorly-directed action which ends up a visual mess (e.g., Bourne), the clarity the new GitS film brings is a breath of fresh air.
As for Innocence, that's a movie which I feel like I really need to rewatch at some point because I can barely remember it besides that terrible philosophy quote session and that cool brain-maze sequence.
Innocence just makes me wish Kazunori Ito hadn't stopped writing for Oshii and gone off to do .hack. Oshii can still do atmosphere well, as the looping mansion sequence you mention shows, but when he writes his own films he ends up sabotaging himself.
