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Ghost In The Shell TV Series
Briareos writes: "Just found out over at animeondvd.com's forums (no link provided to protect the innocent...) that Production I.G. finally revealed quite some info about the GITS TV series they're currently working on. (I also thought it was a nice birthday present for me, by the way... :)"
broadcast and licensing outside Asia :: Bandai Entertainment Inc. http://www.bandai-ent.com/
Ghost in the Shell was originally a Manga. You can buy the manga if you look around amazon or other books sellers. In the manga is pretty much the WHOLE story in detail. There is also Ghost in the Shell 2, which I'm not sure what happened to it. I can buy the action figures at Media Play for it, but I'm not sure if it was an anime or a manga. This series is pretty much the manga animated and not compressed into one hour, like the movie was. Remember most anime starts out as a manga. The manga usually has a lot more detail and a lot less plot holes, however it is also less shiny and requires you to read. It's also sometimes harder to get manga in English than it is to get anime in english. However, tokyopop (http://www.tokyopop.com) is helping solve this problem. Yay! ^_^
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Chances are Bandai Entertainment will be handling the North American release. Same people who handled Cowboy Bebop.
Whether it'll air on TV or not depends on who gets it, but I guarantee CN will not get it.
Maybe the Action Channel, or Showtime.
Or you could just buy the DVDs. And don't buy Hong Kong bootlegs.
The manga of Ghost in the Shell is significantly more in-depth than the film. While most American fans love the anime (it is well done), I was always disappointed in it because it barely skimmed the surface of the printed story. The anime only followed the core plot that ran through the manga, neglecting some of the really interesting side stories that developed the characters. This was of course necessary to compact 300-some pages of work into a two hour film, but the end result wasn't quite as satisfying (not to this otaku, at any rate!). IMO, Ghost really needed to be done as a series from the beginning, and I'm thrilled to hear that it's being done. If you get into something like Cowboy Bebop, you can really appreciate the depth of storytelling that can go into an animated limited series.
Regarding Ghost in the Shell 2, the creator (Masamune Shirow) has already finished and released the new series in Japan, and is in the process of converting it for an English-speaking audience. The first issue is hopefully due in October of this year, but don't hold your breath - Shirow is notorious for taking his time with these things. To keep an eye on how the manga translation is going, check out www.studioproteus.com and the fan feedback section in particular. Toren Smith updates more or less monthly, and almost always with news regarding GitS2.
It's hopefully due in October of this year. And keep in mind that it's not a strict translation. Japanese books, including comics/manga, read from right to left instead of the left to right style in English. That means the artwork is also designed to flow from right to left, and has to be carefully modified for English-reading audiences.
Before you ask - no, you can't just mirror the artwork. Right-handed characters would become left-handed, Japan would have people driving on the wrong side of the road, all signs and writing would be backwards, etc. Most of the best-translated manga spends a lot of time back on the drawing table being layed out and adjusted to account for that.
GITS2 will eventually make it over to here (probably through a translation by Dark Horse if that isn't already happening), and I believe in Japan a movie based on it is already being made, though I could be wrong.
The series is based upon the manga. The movie was just a compilation a certain aspects of the manga, put together in such a way that, to a first time viewer, it would seem to make sence (well, maybe after a few viewings) but to someone whos had the manga for years now and read it cover to cover far too many times (me for 1) it ended up slightly dissapointing and fairly confusing on first view. This has (now) changed for me as even with the dissapointment, it is still a technically outstanding piece of animation and CGI.
From what i have seen in the captured cells on Production I.G the series is looking fairly true to the manga, especially now that they have re-intruduced the Fuchikoma's (robots similar to spiders, som ewith their own personalities such as Batou's) that were criminally left out of the film adaption.
I'm very much looking forward to this series, be it dub'd or sub'd. It will certainly fulfill alot of angst left by the poorly cut-and-pasted plot line of the film.
Before you ask - no, you can't just mirror the artwork. Right-handed characters would become left-handed, Japan would have people driving on the wrong side of the road, all signs and writing would be backwards, etc.
Actually, this is exactly what is done in most cases - and it is certainly done in all of Shirow's works that have been pubished in Enlgish (yes I have most of them and have been a fan of his work for years). Shirow is unusual as far as the fact that he does most of the artwork conversion himself for these releases (mostly changing the shape and size of the dialog "bubbles", but he does other stuff too).
But, the artwork is, in fact, mirrored, and right-handed people do indeed wind up using their left hands for everything.
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