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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."
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?
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.
Cartoon Network Adult Swim is running episodes on Saturday nights at midnight and 3am Eastern currently, along with another great series running right after it: Fullmetal Alchemist.
However, both shows are currently in the middle of their second seasons in the rotation on AS. Stand Alone Complex's second season (aka "2nd GIG") has a plotline relatively unrelated to the first season, so you don't necessarily have to watch the first season first, but there are plot elements that will make more sense if you watch a particular season from the start.
Fullmetal Alchemist's two seasons are almost all arc episodes, meaning that if you plan to start watching it, you should start from the beginning of the first season (in other words, at this point you'll have to rent or buy the DVDs).
Check out Serial Experiments Lain.
Geeks will love it (especially the Mac/NeXT crowd) as it's filled with more or less obscure geek/hacker references. Beware though, SEL is pretty fscking weird.
If you really are "a stupid american who wants cheap entertainment", then I'm guessing this isn't for you. But I'm also guessing that you aren't, so maybe it is.
I actually watched Lain just recently. I thought I was going insane when I thought I saw a "car" (as in Lisp car) fly by. Apparently they bothered getting some real source code from a code walker and an implementation of the game of life in Common Lisp to show on Lain's handheld computer scheme. Plus the chalkboard at one point has printfs et al on it...
I thought that was pretty damn cool.
And I'm glad they got rid of the ridiculous outfit, for the most part, the Major had in the original series as I felt it detracted from the overall effect.
Kusanagi has had quite a different personality in all instances she'd showed up so far. In the manga she is good looking (cute face, great body, big tits) and has a spunky, playful personality. This is going to appear quite strange, I suspect, to people who only ever saw the movie or the series. But it falls in line with many of Masamune Shirow's female characters. Think of Leona in New Dominion Tank Police.
In the first Ghost in the Shell movie the guys that made it went with a very serious Kusanagi, and they made her not quite a beautiful, she has a much more common face and features compared to what you usually see in anime. It was great, IMO, because it matches the mood of the movie much better.
Finally, in both series Kusanagi is once again a bombshell, but she keeps the serious personality. This production had yet another different bunch of makers (director, screenwriters, character design).
To each their own, I say, I consider they succeeded in giving each production their own life. It's hard to imagine the Major in the movie or the series laughing or saying "neeeh!", but then I wouldn't want to even if I liked the manga imensely.
i ate crayons when i was a kid and now i have two braincells and the blue ones taste nicer