The only thing about it that I consider positive was the opening song. I dislike everything else, from character designs, art style, pacing, cinematography, color palette, character expressions, choreography, plot structure, exposition, score, to animation, and whatever else there is.
And before someone uhmakschually me, I am aware that this is based on the manga, but the anime movie is a lot more iconic than the manga, and to me GitS is the 1995 movie. This version here, I hate, and no “Uhm, but the manga…” does change that.
And just to be extra clear, even if this wasn’t an existing iconic IP, I would still criticize all the same points. Being so different from the iconic movie just gives it that extra push from “Not for me; I don’t care” to “This shits all over something that I like; I hate it”.
LN (not really a spoiler but explanation that was skipped in the anime)
They skipped over the explanation in the anime, but there are special skills that are ultra rare (the king is king because of one of those) and she kept her Grimoire skill hidden. I think the explanation was that as the future queen consort she should not overshadow her fiancé, which she automatically would if anyone knew about her unique skill. As far as anyone outside her inner circle knows, she has just inherited her family’s ice magic.
As to why she lets everyone walk over her: she was raised to be that way. The question should be rather why does she switch so fast to the revenge side. The light novel makes that transition more gradual during her time in the cell and having her inner monologue helps that transition as well. The anime makes it look like all it took was that little speech fro her maid and she flipped a switch. But I’m okay with this to get the setup out of the way as fast as possible. In the end it doesn’t really matter why she is on the war path, the interesting part is what she does on it.