Hey, I’ll take actually good anime that features non extremely stereotypical female characters, even if they are not super popular, any time, I appreciate the write up!

EDIT: Im not super sure what you mean by the watch order being intimidating for GiTS though?

If I were to recommend a watch order, I’d say the first, main, hugely popular movie in its original theatrical release form (subs or dubs you pick, as the subs are astonishingly good for the time),

then SAC, then 2nd Gig,

then I think theres a movie ive not ever been able to find decently dubbed that takes place i think after both SAC and 2nd Gig,

(Yep, this is GiTS: Innocence)

then theres Solid State Society, a third anime season.

Also, theres llike a whole bunch of functionally remasters of the original movie that basically feature jarring 3d animated scenes and/or basically pretty minor dialogue changes or different VAs, sort of. Im frankly of the opinion the original is the best and the other ones are not really worth your time.

Ok, now, significsnt real world time passes and we end up with basically a second canon set of 2 anime series and one movie.

I say second canon, because basically these are reworks or reimagined or retcons that are supposed to be prequels, but they actually conflict a good deal with a lot of stuff established in original canon.

The order for these is

GiTS: Arise (anime season basically format called ‘Alternative Architecture’, OVA format just called ‘Arise’)

GiTS: The New Movie (uh, movie)

GiTS: SAC 2045 (anime season) Note: ive not got around to seeing this one and frankly cannot tell if its based more on the original canon, the new Arise canon, or some extremely confusing hybrid of both.

I would consider those like supplementary, optional. Call them uh psuedo canon if you would, by the way i personally look at GiTS, anyway.

EDIT 2: oh shit, right, the live action movie with scarjo. Obviously this is basically a reimagining intended for western audiences, but honestly i think they actually did a decent job with it.

Not as good as the original movie by any means, but i was surprised that they actually handled the controversy of getting a white woman to play a character who is astoundingly associated with japanese culture and is almost certainly ‘canonically’ Japanese in a reasonable way that actually makes a ton of sense in their reworked major plot arc.

Trying so hard not to spoil here haha.

Id basically consider this one basically non canonical to the basically canonically and timeline consistent first two movies and 3 anime seasons, but a decent way to end a kind of total GiTS experience.

EDIT 3: jfc ok now i get what you mean by intimidating watch order god damnit.

Its been a while since ive watched any GiTS and basically ive now had to go back and edit my post even more, haha.

Anyway, final note: A lot of people seem to think the original movie is not actually canonically consistent with the subsequent 3 anime series and Innocencd, but i honestly have no idea why. There are no inconsistencies or directly contradictory elements between them, as there are with the Arise stuff.