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.