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Review of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
Lawrence Person writes "Given how the series itself touches on so many topics near and dear to the hearts of Slashdotters everywhere, I thought my review of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (first season) at Locus Online would be of interest. It is longer and more in-depth than the average review, and touches on GitS:SAC's relationship to obvious cyberpunk and postcyberpunk source material, the elements that make it unique among anime science fiction, the role of P2P networks in popularizing anime, and how GitS:SAC compares to the other great science fiction TV show currently on the air right now, Battlestar Galactica."
I have prevented any lame trolls from getting the first post.
I still own and enjoy many anime series, however. As I'm sure all slashdot readers are familiar with, Shinichiro Watanabe has two series that are particularly well done. Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo are two series that I particularly enjoy. They have great plot lines that usually don't depend too heavily on the viewer to know a lot of background knowledge about the technology used in the show. Watanabe seems to be a master at taking pretty simple plot lines and mixing in great characters to get a light anime that's easy to enjoy. On top of that, those two series amazingly blend together two different genres and cultures which probably make them even more appealing to myself.
Then, there's another kind of anime I really like--which is old school hack-and-slash animes such as Vampire Hunter D. Again, you can pretty much sum the movies into one sentence and you don't need much else. Great stuff to throw popcorn in your mouth to.
Maybe I'm just a stupid American who wants cheap entertainment that I don't have to work for, but I sure hate watching a show and not being able to understand what's going on if I missed the other episodes.
My work here is dung.
Season two ("Second GIG") is finished and a third one is rumored. Was about time people started talking about it (outside anime-centric sites that is :-)).
My advise: if you watched the movies and found them to hard to follow, don't worry. The series are closer to the source material and despite some odd episodes (like the one covering a online chat session and nothing more), it's really worth it.
The season finale is incredible.
"You superiour intellect is no match for our puny weapons" - The Simpsons
I'm interested in watching much more Ghost in the Shell and getting caught up with it- I watched what I believe to be the first movie from 1995 a few months ago but I'm not sure if i've jumped in in the middle of the story.
Could someone in the know please tell the noobs here what we should watch to get everything in, and what order we should watch it in. I'm mildy offtopic but I think if this review has piqued anyone's interest, some info on how to catch up on what we've missed would be excellent.
Thanks!
When the posters fear their moderators, there is tyranny; when the moderators fears the posters, there is liberty.
Odd, that the series hasn't had more attention on /., because it touches the subjects that slashdotters are sensitive to. GITS tries very logically to describe tomorrow's hi-tech world, where giant corporations are in power and government can easily spy on anyone (wait, it's not tomorrow's world :). I also like the political depth of GITS, because it places constraints on what is possible to do, and thereby makes the series more realistic.
Who is John Galt?
Er...it would be nice to know where and when this is being aired.
:T:R:A:N:S:
The original manga had Fuchikomas, puckish AI tanks. The Ghost in the Shell movie sorely lacked them. The series finally got this right (in a slightly modified form as Tachikomas). In fact, the movie lacked a lot of the manga's cool innovations and feel, while the series came much closer. It almost seems like Masamune Shirow had more input into the series, but it's hard to know.
I'm a real sucker for the Tachikoma.
Something about having AIs with child-like curiosity (and voices to match---well, at least in the original audio, not so much in the dub (however, despite my being a sub snob, I will admit that the dub is acceptable to watch)) in high-performance, well-armed machines really does it for me.
I disagree, otakus are probably more mainstream then ever because of the Densha Otoko phenomenon.
Much as I like GITS (because it IS excellent) series one has been out forever and series two (the 2nd gig) has been floating around the P2P nets for a while. Why don't you review 'back to the future' while you're at it?
Oooh, I feel that monday morning snark coming on. Need more coffee.
-- No Sig is a Good Sig
By less than a second, even.
The reviewer states that the first season will set you back about a benjamin if you buy it on DVD. Meanwhile, a season of the Simpsons or Futurama is at most $40, and you can get it for under $30 if you are good at hunting bargains, so why is anime so much more expensive? I know it costs a little more to produce, plus you have translations etc. but I fail to see how that is $60 worth of services. However, the Americans can buy it for much cheaper than in Japan or as far as I can tell Europe(It's about $60 per dvd for some series in Japan, and I saw a bunch of anime at a comic book shop in Austria going for no less than 30 euros. But that same store was also selling a snoop dog action figure for 65, so they may not be representative)
I'd buy more anime if it was priced sa
Monstar L
A phrase I learned not too long ago in Japan is "Akibake". Ie a person who hangs around at Akihabara too much. Not as strong as otaku though, more like "geek" or "nerd".
Huh? Am i missing something from the series here? Wasn't "stand allone complex" (complex as in mental) was about people breaking away from the herd society and linking, sometimes very unusually, with like minded indeviduals?
Seems like the auther didn't watch the series at all, just had someone else do it and cut/pasted.
...
There are also Akiba-san (short for Akihabara-san) which are the type of otaku or plain old nerds/geeks that are becoming mainstream, a lot of them are too far gone but the public's perception is changing.
This is just a way to tell a story. The other way is to introduce a story from the very beginning to the very end, but this means you can spend far less time on the middle. Sci-Fi like this wich at least pretends to want to ask a moral question without force feeding you the answer doesn't really have an "ending" anyway. It just puts a situation to you and then asks you to consider it.
So don't worry about feeling there are things happening outside the picture (as in motion picture clever pun ne?... though crowd) there are. They just don't matter. Well UNTIL the movie became very popular and they could be used to make sequels and prequels out of it.
Should you read the manga? Well perhaps, is a bit like asking wether you should watch the animatrix before watching the matrix movies. If your a fan then sure, gobble it all up. If not, well you started with the movie. That is a nice introduction BUT it was based on a manga (strip/comic). You might want to start here. The manga spawned a sequel with the imaginative name Ghost in the Shell 2 (yeah those crazy japanese). This in turn spawned a tv series. And finally a movie.
If you really want to know the story, read the manga. It is what everything else is based on. Just be warned that it has a different style.
Oh and if you decide to plunge in to the seedy underbelly of the net that is the anime/manga forum please do not proudly boast that you watched ghost in the shell. It is kinda of like going to a sci-fi con having only seen Star Wars. Or like posting on /. using windows XP.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
For me, the Tachicomas were nauseatingly cute, and the worst part of the series. Think the personality of a perky 12 year old japanese school girl (including voice) in the body of of spider-ish police tank.
Slightly off-topic, I just found you can buy the Babylon 5 Complete Universe box. All the series, all the films in a single, reasonably priced package. 41 DVDs in all. *drool*
Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die
Surely the point of Densha Otoko is that the guy stops being an otaku. The way his 'old life' is portrayed is not exactly complimentary.
His liking of things otaku weren't really the reason for his social awkwardness. In the movie at least Hermes is interested in his hobbies and really once a nerd always a nerd even if you can change your outward image and gain some confidence.
One thing that's rather glossed over is Shirow Masamune's writing style itself. The manga in original Japanese was very complex, and written in mostly in kanji (chinese characters) which has caused even the average Japanese difficulties in understanding it. To give you an idea of the use of kanji, the common Japanese only needs to know about 500 or so kanji to be literate, resorting to hiragana and katakana the rest of the time. The common Chinese needs 1200 (Since it's all chinese characters).
This is very normal of Shirow's style as his writing and stories and a partial reason of why his stories are quite intricate. To give you an idea, it would be like comparing the writing styles of JK Rowling to William Gibson, one is very simple and easy to read, the other is very high-level and in-depth. Even Shirow's earlier works like Appleseed (Which is also very good), Black Magic, Dominion Tank Police, etc., are very detailed and intricate if you dig down into the origial versions of them, which unfortuantely is lost when much of it is translated. Even the bloke that brought the material over (I can't remember his name, Terrance-something-or-other I think), and knows the reclusive Shirow once complained that even he had problems).
The complexity of the socio-economoic, political, and contempoary moral issues that is personified in GITS:SAC is what sets it apart from shows like Cowboy Bebop (Which I also loved, I'm still trying to find one of the limited edition box sets). It's in a different genre of anime (yes there are a ton of genres in Anime) and definitely not comparable to Cowboy Bebop. Both are fun, likable, and are a treat for your senses, but CB is more entertainment while GITS:SAC is more a commentary. It's like Starship Troopers vs. 2010; They're both movies about space, but you watch one to be entertained, and you watch the other to be inspired.
GITS:SAC actually takes place pre-GITS manga, but does overlap and transmutate into some section of the manga. Avid GITS fans will draw the parallel of Kusanagi getting snipered in the TV series, and her body getting shot in the manga, as well as many other similarities that do occur between the two. It's one of those "Let's retell the story, but change a few things around to make it work, even though it'll screw up the interdepencies". Any avid Asian film buff will know what I'm talking about, it happens quite often even in "live" movies (i.e. Windstruck and My Sassy Girl).
One other thing to mention is that the 2 movies were Oshii's movies. Oshii tends to take this weird spin on the GITS world, and often leave out a lot of the details Shirow puts in, and more often than naught, substitutes his own views and imagery in (Read: the damn basset hounds). If anyone's ever seen Oshii's "Avalon", you'll know what I'm talking about. The style and subject matter is the same as the 2 GITS movies, and so is the way he presents his imagery (and the damn basset hounds again). Shirow has always defered creative control to Oshii in the movies, but has retained it, and works very closely with Production IG for the SAC series. Hence, this is much more true to the feel of the original manga, and is greatly departed from the movies, hence the additional complexity. It's almost an impossibility to compare the TV series (both of them) to the movie due to the differences in direction.
-Misao Little Weasel Girl
Thanks for your comment man, hope you get modded up so more people see this explanation.
When the posters fear their moderators, there is tyranny; when the moderators fears the posters, there is liberty.
Pardon me for going completely off-topic, but this is a pet peeve of mine.
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/. embedded spaces in the javascript function and paste it into a new Firefox bookmark. Then click on that bookmark whenever a site is controlling the viewing experience oh so helpfully. /sarcasm (last part).
Why do people continually insist on trying to control the viewing experience of the visitor to their website? A lot of these bother me, but the most egredious one is people who hard code pixel widths in their table tags. http://webtips.dan.info/tables.html (that's just one page, there are many others) It's annoying. Why should I be punished for having a lot of screen real estate? If you must use a table, and until support for CSS3 tables are supported widely we'll be using them a lot, ignore the width setting, or set it to 100%. Only if your design is multi-column should you use defined widths for the tables. All added together they should equal 100%. Heck you shouldn't be using tables anyway. Use CSS instead. http://www.meyerweb.com/ is a good site for learning CSS. But for those lazy web programmers that insist on using tables to control the width of the content rendering,
javascript:(function (){t=document.getElementsByTagName(%22table%22);f
will set the table widths to 100%. This javascript function doesn't work to well on multi table design or CSS width controlling madness, but every little bit helps. Remove the
-FlynnMP3
You had me right up until you mentioned Battlestar Galactica, otherwise known as the "damned crazy doctor show."
BG2005's got nothing on GITS:SAC's storylines of political power plays and intrigues. The humanity theme might be the major theme, but it's by no means the only theme.
In Japan, anime DVD's are much more expensive. In the case of series, they tend to pay per episode as opposed to per disc. A single disc with three episodes could cost $45 or more. If prices in the US were drastically lower, most people in Japan would simply import their anime from us. If that happened, the Japanese companies would stop licensing source material to the US because it would cost them too much money.
I'm not sure if there is some background here that I'm not aware of, but I RTFL (Read The Fine Link) and it doesn't mention anything like this. And I quote:
"He poured kerosene oil over a living man and set fire to him," said the judge presiding over the case at the Kushiro District Court. "We cannot understand the motives in the murder of the father."
The 58-year-old father criticized Hiroo Morimoto over the son's job on Aug. 11 last year, leading to an argument, according to the court's ruling.
End quote.
I find it interesting that the author of this article assumes fansubbing is beneficial to companies. Where is the evidence? I searched google for a while but couldn't find much that was relevant. Slashdot should be based on fact, not on faith.
My experience runs just the opposite. I know a few big anime fans who don't download fansubs. They own thousands of dollars worth of anime each. I also know a few who are into the piracy game. They own a few particular series, but that is all. I am sure a few people who are both major downloaders and owners exist, but I have yet to meet one.
Can anyone provide links to the economic effects of piracy in this market, the corporate responses to piracy, or provide me with at least anecdotal evidence of someone who seriously follows the "download lots of fan subs, but still spends thousands on anime" model?
You're missing background information. Probably available on 2ch.
Particularly the short story "The Laughing Man", which can be found online, and of course "The Catcher in the Rye".
You cannot fully understand the series without understanding these works.
>It's rewarding to compare Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complexto the only other great science fiction show on TV right now, the new Battlestar Galatica, as both have the same overriding theme: What does it mean to be human, and where is the line between man and machine?.
at least the women in BSG don't always run around in their underwear and doesn't have camera zeroing in on their asses. I didn't make it past the first DVD of SAC because the cheesecake fan boy pandering overwhelmed the story.
While the question of her 'full functionality' remains to be addressed, perhaps there's some deeper message in the Major's outfit. Given Batou's comments about just getting a male body the next time she needs to replace one, maybe she dressed that way to remind herself that she was actually a flesh-and-blood female at one time instead of simply resembling one via physical form. Alternatively, the attire could have been chosen for reasons of mobility and unhindered movement while still meeting societial standards of decency.
In a way, it all comes back to the question of one's own humanity and identity.
Or I could be wrong and the character design team could be composed of drooling fanboys.
CartoonNetwork's last year's somewhat weeknight lineup showing of GITS:SAC(2nd GIG) and FullMetal Alchemist got pushed back to Saturday only this year, and I'm not sure which genius made that idiotic schedule.
AdultSwim is pushing Perfect Hair Forever and Lupin the 3rd??? Inuyasha and s-Cry-ed reruns??? Even worst, those schedules are not even consistant, but random and chaotic at best. Only lineup worth watching would be Family Guy and Futurama. According to CN, AdultSwim lineup and schedule will change in March (2nd season), but that will only create even worst followup of storyline and it's just insane to view the episodes like from Fullmetal Alchemist's and GITS:SAC(2nd GIG) in order as it's intended.
If anyone who is fan of GITS:SAC(2nd GIG) and FullMetal Alchemist finds CN's new moronic lineup of AdultSwim fraustrating and out of touch with mainstream anime audience, I highly recommend buying the DVD sets or P2P download.
"Don't let fools fool you. They are the clever ones."
I took basic japanese classes and learned 420 kanjis. Intermediary and Advanced would teach me more (roughly) 1500 kanjis... so, totally nonsense the "common Japanese only needs to know about 500 or so kanji to be literate" talk.
Common, I have season 1 AND 2, I've been watching them LAST year and they weren't knew. Masterpiece of science fiction yes but news?
Then again this is a US centric site, if it's new to them it's news for the world.
Overall this is a decent review, but it is a review of a series that has been available in one form or another for well over a year now. Not only that, but I feel it really does not bring anything new to the discussion of the series.
Now, added to all of this, it was submitted by the author. In light of the recent discussion on submits and greenlights, I would like to point this out as a perfec texample of what NOT to put on the front page. Maybe put it on anime.slashdot.org, but not the main page, I want better quality stuff there.
You say you want a revolution....
Again, slightly off-topic.. Amazon UK hints that the Babylon 5 Universe box-set is available on their rental service. At a cost of over 25 months rental, surely renting this box set represents a far better deal?
Hell, you could buy a 300 GB HD for half the money.... *ahem*
Its a bit different now, but I knew fansubbing clubs back in teh 90's that would only release things that weren't released State side. Mostly because they were aware of copyright violations and internet p2p hadn't taken off then.
From my recolection many series would not have been released in the states if it had not been for the Fansubbers and the reaction to those tapes going around. Even if you did get a VHS copy from Japan you still wouldn't know what they are saying.
But today we have the internet and things are generally released within a year of being released in Japan now so there isn't that 5-10 year lag between releases in Japan and the States.
But like all piracy, I say that theoretical sales losses are bunk and made up arbitrary numbers by people who have no clue how widespread (or little spread) it is. I'd say piracy affects real sales in a minimal way because most people who pirate that much would never be able to afford all those items with their actual income. Not that I would know anything about internet piracy or what not... I actually bought the whole DVD series and got the nice tin can box for SAC.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
If you take a look at CD Japan and look at how much new region 2 disks are to the Japanese and do your own conversions into Euro/Dollars/Whatever, we are getting a deal. Fate/stay night 1 [Limited Edition] (which is HOT at the moment), is episode 1-3 listed 6190 Yen so it will probably end up being between $55-$50US. Sometime next year, Gennon will release it in the US for about $30 for the same 3 episodes with other goodies (like a box). We are not only getting shows that are filtered (the less popular shows are not offered, material on DVD is often revised and reedited), we are getting it cheaper.
The fact of the matter is that they are charging exactly how much the market seems to support. Anime is now and probably always will be a "fringe element of a fringe element". To make money at the sales rate they support they have to charge this much, which it seems the market is willing pay. In any event, if they are making money now at what is deemed "expensive" what incentive do they have to lower? It is all market forces.
BTW, if you an entire series that seems too cheap, it is probably a bootleg (there are exception but few and far between). Buy it if you wish but realize almost almost nil of any of that money is going back to the talent or producers.
... you've been watching Elfen Lied, then?
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
I've been watching GITS:SAC(1st and 2nd season) and FullMetal Alchemist (both seasons) perfectly in order, recorded on Saturday night, from the start. The Saturday night anime block was first. What are you talking about?
Hell, you could buy a 300 GB HD for half the money.... *ahem*
Um, yes, but remember Family Guy was resurrected (and possibly Futurama too) due to good DVD sales. Also copying the B5 films and series to the HD would pretty much fill that HD up and take up a whole slot in the computer. It is difficult to take that HD to watch with friends as well.
Support quality programs by buying them.
Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die
on March, CN will change their line up again. Most likely they will run reruns of what they have been running on saturday night and mix it with new episodes throughout the year to split the rest of the episode (til episode 51) for Fullmetal Alchemist. Same thing probably will happen to GITS:SAC(2nd GIG), showing episodes from Saturday night lineup and mix it with new episodes on Saturday/Friday.
Obviously if you have TiVo, this sounds very trivial and doesn't really matter to you. But rest of poor suckers without PVRs just have to stick to the schedule.
"Don't let fools fool you. They are the clever ones."
Well, not *entirely* inaccessible, but certainly by design.
:)
Shirow has said he is trying to achieve an effect much like that if a comic book set in the present day (dealing realistically with our technology, politics and philosophy) fell back in time a few hundred years... would the person who picked it up be able to understand everything in it?
Not likely.
So GITS is similar... only *we're* the poor schmuck in the distant past trying to make sense of it all without all the external social and technical knowledge the "intended readership" would have.
From the review: For one thing, the issue of just whether Section 9 should have quite as much power as it does is never really addressed
That's the issue that the end of SAC focuses on, and it carries over into 2nd Gig.
I'm a big fan of Ghost in the Shell, but I'm still a little confused on the continuity... the first movie is based mostly on part of the first manga series. and the second movie is a continuation of that. (and now i see there's a novel out too.) but the second manga series, Man Machine Interface, seems to be completely different? and Stane Alone Complex is also completely different? I have not had a chance to see much of the series yet, but I've liked what I have seen, and I see they've already made a second season of it. i also really enjoyed the game they made out of it too...
AdultSwim is pushing Perfect Hair Forever
You know, if this weren't Slashdot, I'd be asking, well, what's wrong with that?
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
you will never know the touch of a woman.
I s'pose her outfits are really just fan service, but I think her style at least fits her character. The show seems to allude to how hard it was for her, as a child, to control a complete cybernetic body. She may have a femininity/tough guy /body issues. The whole point of the series seems to be that we rarely see how she feels, she's too focused and exercises complete self-control, in order to do her job. I always wondered if the movies and the anime give more hints.
I made a laughing man windows Screensaver with source. -Andrew
I've been watching both in order from the beginning on Saturday nights. The repeats are scheduled by a monkey on crack, but the new episodes have all been in order (with the exception of a few weeks where they show an old one, but that's more of a pause than a reordering).
Tangentially, I'm quite surprised (in a good way) that these two series have relatively good dubs. Most of the series they show on Adult Swim have incredibly awful dubs (for instance Neon Genesis Evangelion), but I'm quite happy with these two.
i am no anime aficionado by any means, but the samurai champloo fansubs are the best thing i have seen in probably the last two years. and i'm not confining that to anime - they are fantastically good. ok, so the hip-hop-historical style appeals to me, but it's the content and the emotion, the humanity of it... really works for me. i highly recommend finding these fansubs.
the show is amazingly well-crafted: beautifully animated, great rhythm and flow to the plot and the scenes, wonderful sense of humor. cowboy bebop was good but samurai champloo is definitely a couple of levels up from there. an achievement.
i recommend the fansubs because they're really informative. they fill you in on a bit of the language and japanese historical background stuff in a way that's both entertaining and makes a difference to understanding the show. i took a "cultural history of kyoto" class back in school so i have a basis for a lot of it, but my friends that didn't have the same high opinion of the show i do.
[|]
I have two major issues with this getting front page coverage: 1) GitS came out in 2002. There are hundreds of reviews for it out there and yours isn't any different. It's just long. 2) You seem to have watched the dub. May God have mercy on your soul.
Does this rag smell like chloroform to you?
huh, interesting... i have almost the opposite reaction. bebop is nice, entertaining... but i feel like champloo has a real sort of soul that bebop just doesn't quite get moving. the music i'll leave out of it - they each have their strengths in terms of their place in the show (though maybe bebop's is 'better').
i guess it's the wrap-up that really pushes me to my opinion. i have never been a fan of the typical man-woman-entanglement stuff. untypical stuff, sure, but not the depressingly typical stuff in bebop. (the human relationship between spike and faye is a lot more interesting than the one between spike and julia.) champloo's emotional resolution - or lack thereof - is beautiful to me, much more real... something i actually don't mind watching. i get irritated enough in real life by the stupid way people go about their relationships, i don't need to see it in entertainment... and the flip side of that is i think entertainment influences people, so i really disapprove of unhelpful stuff.
well, to each their own.
[|]
The review was rather interesting, I guess, though I felt like I should avoid reading the detail for there be spoilers.
But then, in the very end, you compare the SAC to FLCL. Which was the worst anime ever, let alone badly made, unfinished and completely incomprehensible, although posessing certain melancholic quality. So here it is, can I trust someone who liked FLCL? I think not. Go figure SAC then!
For either "Glassy Ocean" or "Kujira no Chouyaku"
*snap*
Before I part with'em: two pennies weigh ~4.996+/-0.014g, have a zinc core, and the face of Lincoln. You can keep 'em.
GITS as y'all likely know, was originally a manga by Masamune Shirow. The movies and (I beleive) the TV series are by Mamoru Oshii.
There's a lot to say, but trying not to repeat what you can just websearch for yourselves, the TV series is more of a drama, focusing on character interactions; the book is more a geeky indulgence in dreaming the extentions of future technology, eastern philosophy, and impossibly spankalicious babes.
Which is why I mention the REAL GITS2. the second movie was Oshii's extention of his first movie. the manga GITS2 is much more the sequel I hoped for, getting far deeper into the philosophy and revealing the main character's metaphorical parallelling the japanese creation myths most especially involving the jewel, the sword, and the mirror.
here's a few scans to whet y'all's whistle:
image 1
image 2
image 3
image 4
image 5
the book is available at amazon and finer local comic retailers.
i'm amazed at how silently this book's been introduced in america. it's a travesty, as it's so much more fulfilling to GITS fans than the second movie.
I'm only up to episode 8 but looks like a 'keeper'.
He's well known for a certain emphasis on female anatomy plus high tech hardware. In fact, for a Shirow character, Motoko is roughly middle of the road in terms of exposed skin and gratuitous accentuation of the aforementioned.
This even leads to an extremely ironic moment in one episode where an ambush on some smugglers goes sour and the Major ends up getting thrown into a pile of garbage, forcing her to wear even less in public than we're used to much to her discomfort and prompting a smartass remark from her boss.
I guess, I'd take this a little less seriously. Sure it was pretty noticeable in the first two episodes (can an animated camera ogle?) but to let that stop you from enjoying the series for it's many other fine qualities is a little short-sighted. Besides, the Major's mode of dress quickly becomes more a commentary on her complete lack of interest in physical appearance rather than anything sexual.
There's even some argument to be made about whether a totally mechanical sentient being requires "clothes." Motoko is every inch the "soldier" here.
What would Richard Feynman do, if he were here right now? He'd do some math and he'd follow through!
This series came out years ago. And it's a great series, but I fail to see how you having a review of it out counts as "news."
The show has some interesting ideas, but episode after episode of fillers ruins the overall experience. For a 26-episode season that has to compete against PIG's (or rather, PIG's XEBEC division) other sci-fi series like Megaman NT Warrior (Animegaman?) or Zoids, there is simply less incentive for viewers to keep watching (or buying tie-in products). If I were producing the show, I would just concentrate on doing all 26 episode on Laughing Man, or 13 Laughing Man + 13 on another story arc to keep viewers hanging in front of TV.
In response to the Parent, the Grand Parent, et al: What the OP finds so sexy, I am confused by. OP: Do you fall in love with your toaster, as well? The Major is essentially that: a toaster. A very smart, fully-ambulatory toaster, with fully human sapience. But a toaster nonetheless. Do you find your Toaster sexy? Do you dress it up? See, in the universe in question people who have been cyberized don't feel cold, so why should they bundle up like their flesh and blood counterparts? The only reason they likely have to wear clothes at all is because of human sensibilities. Granted, I'd much prefer even the skimpy outfits of the Major to a naked robot, but you get my picture. Clothes to her are more of a statement than a method of keeping warm and protected, and the Anime reflects that IMHO. Your thought-milage may vary.
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I'd pretend I was one of those deaf dumb mute.
that don't need help. Things like GITS, Full Metal Alchemist, and Naruto (to name some recent examples) where huge in Japan and obviously destined to be big in the US as well. I do not think that fan-subbing helped such series in any way, while reducing their sales among the download-and-rarely-buy crowd.
You are right - bad series are also hurt by fan-subbing. That only leaves near-mythical "good series that no one would have known about" as the hypothetical beneficiaries.
Let's see: good+popular=lower sales bad=lower sales good+unknown= higher sales
Now what are the odds that a copy could produce more of the latter than the first two? Pretty low, don't you think? Even then, the company would gain a reputation and the situation wouldn't last. It also could use teasers, free episodes, and other methods of viral marketing, achieving similar effects to fan-subs without the downside.
See my response above. You, or any other half-way concious anime fan, would have learned about almost all of these series without fan subs.
There were plenty of reviews and other information of Cowboy Bepop. Fan-subbing was not the only "filter" you could have used.
Or, avoid the second movie altogether. The movie is nothing but two people spouting off random quotes at each other with some rapid movement between scenes of people driving the speed limit.
After watching the original movie, you get a better idea of what's going on with GITS:SAC, so I will recommend seeing the first movie before the series, but the second movie is so bad that it will spoil the general mood that GITS and GITS:SAC work so hard to present.
I love Ghost in the Shell.
It's a very good show.
Oh ya, fuck slashdot.
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How much anime would you have bought without fan-subbing? Do you really think that you could not get the same information from teasers, reviews (internet and magazine), and word of mouth? That is how I do it. Strangely enough, I seem to know about the series everyone here keeps listing as things they discovered because fan-subbing.
Second, for every one of you, there are at least as many people who download like you but buy little or nothing. Does your hypothetical increase in buying offset their decrease?
You can always watch the new episode on Saturday. It doesn't matter if it's "new" on Wednesday or "new" on Saturday, it will still always be the "newest" episode on Saturday. The holidays fucked up the schedule for a little while but I didn't have any trouble missing any new episodes.
Fan-subbing is a form of viral marketing, which is a positive thing for the company. However, free downloads of an entire series can have the opposite effect and reduce sales by a "free-rider" effect. How do these effects stack up?
First, I would say it is a matter of scale. A small bit of viral marketing can go a long way. However, viral marketing does not scale. If you double the number of marketers, I don't think you get double the effect. You surely don't need 250,000 people downloading each new episode of Naruto in order to spread the word to the three anime fans that would have never heard of Naruto without fan-subs.
On the other hand, the "free-rider" problem scales the other way. When viral marketing is small scale, it usually occurs in the hands of people like you, who are hard-core enough to buy even after you receive the freebies. However, as the marketing spreads, it inevitably winds up in the hands of less fanatic and honest people - mostly free-riders.
Hence, I would argue that the positive effects of fan-subbing are sub-linear with scale, while the negative effects are super-linear with scale. Hence, at low-volumes, fan-subbing could be beneficial, while at high volumes, it is negative for the anime producers. This is what has changed in the last ten years. Fan-subs used to be small scale, pain-in-the-butt phenomena that due to their limited scale probably had positive effects (and definitely weren't worth fighting). However, on the massive scale the phenomena has grown to, the free-rider effect has probably outgrown the positive viral effect.
The movies and the series are (in my opinion) detached from one another. The plot doesn't really coincide (timeline wise, anyways). I couldn't tell you more without ruining the plot, but, there are major inconsistencies. In my opinion, I think the movies (both) occur after the series ends (mainly due to plot consistency) though are meant to be seen first (The movie came out before the series).
Though both movies are, again in my opinion, not really meant to be part of the series' plot so much as being little tidbits of insight into understanding the plot of the series better and character development. If you go by release dates, (for the sakes of not fitting the movies in the middle of 2nd GiG, I'll put it in this order):
Ghost in the Shell (Movie),
GITS: Stand Alone Complex,
GITS: Innocence (Movie),
GITS: Stand Alone Complex 2nd GiG.
If you want to go in chronological order (which would make a little more sense):
GITS: Stand Alone Complex,
GITS: Stand Alone Complex 2nd GiG,
Ghost in the Shell (Movie),
GITS: Innocence (Movie).
Nobody's gay for Mole-Man.
I for one am a fan of both GITS and Perfect Hair Forever, and would like to see them back to back.
That's how I do it - it works just fine. No need for fan-subbing or downloading. Also, companies can release full teaser episodes and get all the benefits of viral marketing without the negative effects.
As for these two series, I find it implausible that no execs at the normal anime distributors know of their existence. I therefore assume they feel the series will not turn a profit.
Yes, it's a hard to comprehend series, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. I've found that I don't really get a sense of each of the episodes in context until I re-watch them a second or third time.
I was a little annoyed at first at how much it bit content from the movies. Motoko jumping off rooftops. Motoko trying to rip the top off a tank. Motoko trying to dodge machine gun fire from a cloaked adversary inside a building. I'd seen it before.
However, being that it's based on the same source material (the manga), this can be forgiven, especially since they kept much more faithful in spirit to the manga than the movies.
Decent voice acting, decent plot lines, cyberpunkish atmosphere -- what more could you want, really?