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."

Comments

Heavy Anime Vs Light Anime

[eldavojohn]

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?.

This question was about the only thing that I liked about the show. Maybe I'm the only slashdot reader who feels this way, but the Ghost in the Shell material always seemed pretty heavy and kind of inaccessible to me. I liked the issues posed by the above question but the technical jargon they use and details they go into sometimes causes me to turn the channel. There are other anime series (like Evengelion) that I feel suffer greatly when they are bogged down by a lot of pseudoscience explanations.

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.

Re:Heavy Anime Vs Light Anime

[Crizp]

Cowboy Bebop is great, as you say Watanabe has a flair for mixing genres and making it work (although I haven't watched Samurai Champloo yet). One of the things I love about anime, that you might disagree with, is the really advanced and varied story lines and concepts often seen. Topics and ideas that usually are not even dared experimenting with in American animation.

Movies like Nekojiru-so (Cat Soup) for example. Surreal, dreamy, cute and grotesque. Or, as mentioned in the article, FLCL.

A series I enjoyed immensely, although many might think it slow, was Oniisama E (Brother, dear brother). A sad, sad story - and I'm usually not easily moved by such things.

These are just a couple of examples. I don't know what makes the Japanese market open to this kind of intelligent and often beautiful storytelling. Maybe it's because of Zen concepts deeply rooted in the collective psyche, the ages-old sense for simplicity and beauty (just look at their flag), or something else.

What many see as cheap shortcuts to animation making - few FPS and much relying on extended "pauses" in the animation when there's action - I, and many others view as emphasizing the moment, the beauty of the scene. Think about the established standard "person just hacked with a katana" scenes - the action pauses, stands still, before one of the duellants eventually fall.

Americans (and many other peoples of the western world) need to grow up and realise animation can be a valid medium for delivering deep concepts and creating visions and vistas not possible with conventional film-making. 3D CGI moviemaking is not the answer to everything.

Re:Heavy Anime Vs Light Anime

[Stan Vassilev]

"This question was about the only thing that I liked about the show. Maybe I'm the only slashdot reader who feels this way, but the Ghost in the Shell material always seemed pretty heavy and kind of inaccessible to me."

This is an overall trend in Japanese sci-fi and horror.

Basically, Japan authors are not afraid that their audience won't 100% "get it". The way our brain works, you need to think about what's happening, and what you do NOT know is sometimes the best part of the experience, it makes you involved in the story than just a side spectator of a well laid out story.

In the real world you never know everything, that keeps you moving and progressing through life. Japanese authors simply bring this element in their films. We can't expect to jump 150 years into the future and instantly know everything.

Imagine someone from 1850 having to deal with our transportation system, credit cards, software, mp3 players and what not.

In the case of horror films, what is scarrier: that some alien worms are just spread around town squirting nasty things into people which makes them die while spraying alien jelly stuff over everything (Slither) or the silent, spooky and mysterios characters of Japanese horror films like the Grudge and Ringu.

For the latter, you'll notice the originals are better than their US counterparts for the most part. The US movie makers simply felt the need to have more CGI and dumb down the story into something everyone can understand. Each approach has its benefits, but I'm certainly a fan of the Japanese approach.

Similar with GITS, do I understand 100% of all the tech slang and philosophical references? No, but this doesn't mean that I didn't enjoy every second of it. It also increases the replay value of the series incredibly.

Will anime ever be sanely priced?

[antifoidulus]

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

I wouldn't worry to much about it

[SmallFurryCreature]

The feeling you might get with the first movie that you landed in the middle of something bigger is a plot device. The real story, what is live or however you want to phrase it, sits within the movie BUT the conspiracy and the agents fighting it sit outside it.

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.

Re:GITS and Complexity

[kahei]

Hrm, you're not very good with the Far Eastern languages, are you?

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.

The average Japanese preteen, possibly. It ain't exactly rocket science, though.


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


2000 for basic literacy. More if you want to read books for fun, or if you just want to avoid appearing a bit dumb.

, resorting to hiragana and katakana the rest of the time. The common Chinese needs 1200 (Since it's all chinese characters).

I can't even begin to express what an extraordinary insult to the Chinese language this is.

This is very normal of Shirow's style as his writing and stories and a partial reason of why his stories are quite intricate.

Not good with English grammar either, hm?

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.

Ah, perhaps broader reading might help...

Ok, I'm just bashing now. I'll stop. Man, those Japanophiles!

Wardrobe malfunction?

[Stachybotris]

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.

Re:Fansubbing and faith

[InsaneLampshade]

I think that the general opinion is that it can be good, and bad.

For a good series, a fansub will generate a lot of interest, and mostly people (well... at lease most of the people i know) will go and buy it on DVD when it comes out. Because it is a "must have" in their collection.

But, for an average series, the opposite tends to happen, people will watch the fansub, then they probably won't bother to buy it on DVD when it comes out because they've already seen it, and it wasn't good enough for them to spend money on.

Re:Interested in watching more....

[lidocaineus]

You might've wanted to put a SPOILER WARNING SINCE YOU DID IT IN THE THIRD SENTENCE! You want people to see the movie, then you kill it right away? Nice.

Re:Fansubbing

[vertinox]

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.