Review of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex 220
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."
For the good of humanity... (Score:4, Funny)
Heavy Anime Vs Light Anime (Score:5, Insightful)
I still own and enjoy many anime series, however. As I'm sure all slashdot readers are familiar with, Shinichiro Watanabe [wikipedia.org] has two series that are particularly well done. Cowboy Bebop [wikipedia.org] and Samurai Champloo [wikipedia.org] 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 [wikipedia.org]. 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 (Score:2)
Of course, Hellsing is totally sweet. It has a Scottish Paladin!
Re:Heavy Anime Vs Light Anime (Score:2)
Re:Heavy Anime Vs Light Anime (Score:2)
Re:Heavy Anime Vs Light Anime (Score:2)
Personally, I'm a dork. The OVAs at the top of my list are Excel Saga and all of the Tenchi series.
Re:Heavy Anime Vs Light Anime (Score:2)
Which is a shame, because the manga itself is much much better.
Re:Heavy Anime Vs Light Anime (Score:3, Interesting)
I also think that many anime pieces fall flat when they try to make an extensive (and often ludicr
Re:Heavy Anime Vs Light Anime (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:Heavy Anime Vs Light Anime (Score:2)
I meant "The Glassy Ocean" http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime .php?id=1942 [animenewsnetwork.com]
No go on netflix (Score:2)
*snap*
Re:Heavy Anime Vs Light Anime (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:Heavy Anime Vs Light Anime (Score:4, Interesting)
I thought that was pretty damn cool.
Re:Heavy Anime Vs Light Anime (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Heavy Anime Vs Light Anime (Score:3, Insightful)
Movies like Nekojiru-so (Cat Soup) [imdb.com] for example. Surreal, dreamy, cute and grotesque. Or, as mentioned in the article, FLCL [imdb.com].
A series I enjoye
samurai champloo (Score:2)
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.
Re:Heavy Anime Vs Light Anime (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Heavy Anime Vs Light Anime (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Heavy Anime Vs Light Anime (Score:2)
Sounds like that one sorority party I went to once in college.
Re:Heavy Anime Vs Light Anime (Score:2)
I can deal with a little girl throwing a temper tantrum like in The Ring. Alien worms give me the creeps though.
Re:Heavy Anime Vs Light Anime (Score:2)
Re:Heavy Anime Vs Light Anime (Score:2)
I still haven't seen the last few episodes of Season 2 yet.
GitS:SAC is one of those series that I've already watched a few times. It's very well done and the animation is almost always spot-on.
Inaccessible by design... (Score:2)
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 knowle
Re:Heavy Anime Vs Light Anime (Score:2)
bebop vs champloo (Score:2)
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 i
Re:Heavy Anime Vs Light Anime (Score:2)
Madlax is extremely enigmatic and enticing, but I've only seen the first dozen episodes. I usually have the desire to go play FarCry or Call of Duty: United Offensive after watching Madlax.
Bebop is excellent anime. A bit more humourous then some would like, but similar to Trigun in intensity / emotion / comedy. (The music
Re:Heavy Anime Vs Light Anime (Score:2)
I'd have to say Champloo and Bebop are among the best. Rahxephon had a couple of good episodes, and I liked the ending. Bleach is an ongoing series.
However, a lot of the main character devices are the same. Protecting others/loved ones, or becoming better. Almost all of them kind of rotate around thos
Re:Heavy Anime Vs Light Anime (Score:2)
I'm sure I'm missing some others as well......
Re:Heavy Anime Vs Light Anime (Score:2)
Re:Wardrobe malfunction? (Score:2)
We are talking quasi-super hero. In leather and lingerie.
BTW, in my opinion, season one ROCKED! So far, season two is boring. Too much story, not enough action. Looking ahead at the plot summaries, upcoming episodes may have more action. I hope so.
Re:Wardrobe malfunction? (Score:2)
Hang on to your hat...
Re:Heavy Anime Vs Light Anime (Score:2)
About time (Score:2, Interesting)
Interested in watching more.... (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
Tha
I wouldn't worry to much about it (Score:5, Insightful)
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:Interested in watching more.... (Score:5, Informative)
First, watch the first and second Ghost in the Shell movies. Watch the older Ghost in the Shell first, in which Motoko encounters the Puppet Master and merges with him. Then, watch Innocence, which deals with how Bateau handles her disappearance and reveals a lot about how they feel about each other. Great quote from the second movie: "let a man walk alone, let him commit no sin, with few wishes, like an elephant in the forest". This quote is partial; it comes from Buddha's Dharmapada Sutra. The full passage is:
"329. If a man find no prudent companion who walks with him, is wise,
and lives soberly, let him walk alone, like a king who has left his
conquered country behind,--like an elephant in the forest.
330. It is better to live alone, there is no companionship with a
fool; **let a man walk alone, let him commit no sin, with few wishes,
like an elephant in the forest**."
My understanding of this is, Motoko was Bateau's "prudent companion" and since he can't travel with her, he would prefer to live alone. No one else can fill that role for him. Deep.
Once you've enjoyed the two movies, then I'd tackle the series. The series is basically about Section 9 prior to the disappearance of Motoko. Some people think it's an alternate universe, but I like to think of it as simply the period before she merged with the net. If you read the original manga, there was a huge amount of activity before she merged. Lots of those stories haven't found their way into anime yet. And the second manga volume deals with the period after she merges and splits off into a number of different artificial intelligences. So I like to think about it this way:
Period 1: Before merger with Puppet Master: Section 9 has various adventures, ultimately leading up to the puppet master incident. Many of the adventures are unrelated.
Period 2: After merger with Puppet Master: Motoko has merged with an AI, and has split into a number of AIs, and is being studied by her former bosses, who think there are going to be serious ramifications of her change, and that there's some kind of cosmic transcendence about to occur (this is in the manga, not the movies or series).
I view the series as taking place in period 1, the first GITS movie in period 1, and the second movie (Innocence) as taking place in period 2, but not at the same time as the second manga, which would have been years later.
Enjoy! It's some of the best sci-fi available anywhere.
Re:Interested in watching more.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Interested in watching more.... (Score:3, Informative)
In the movie universe, the events in the first movie (GITS) happen before the events in the second movie (GITS:Innocence), so it is best to watch in chronological order. Ditto for the episodes of the TV series. The TV series, however, is premised on a what-if-this-event-did-no
The obvious: Read Salinger (Score:2)
You cannot fully understand the series without understanding these works.
Re:Interested in watching more.... (Score:2)
GITS (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:GITS (Score:2)
Tachikomas! (Score:2, Informative)
Let me be the first to admit it (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
NOOOOO!!! (Score:2)
Re:NOOOOO!!! (Score:2)
Damn my timestamp format!
Re:Let me be the first to admit it (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Let me be the first to admit it (Score:2)
Re:Let me be the first to admit it (Score:3, Informative)
That said, the English dub is actually really well done - it sticks to the script (at least, as translated in the subtitles), which is no easy feat considering how thick the script can get; and with the exception of a few odd pauses here and there to sync up with mouth movements, it's orders of magnitude better than English anime dubs f
Re:Let me be the first to admit it (Score:2)
Then you should really look up the Tachikoma specials series. It's a series of very short bits (under one minute per episode), and I have no idea how long it runs. I found about 30 episodes in fansub circles.
Each episode is basically an amusing skit featuring Tachikomas exclusively, often inside their own virtual network. They are chock-full of everything you probably love about them, ranging from existential debates to a humorous instance of a too-curious-for-its-own-goo
Re:Let me be the first to admit it (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Let me be the first to admit it (Score:2)
Will anime ever be sanely priced? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd buy more anime if it was priced sa
Re:Will anime ever be sanely priced? (Score:2)
Joke about previewing comment here.
Re:Will anime ever be sanely priced? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Will anime ever be sanely priced? (Score:2)
I find, if you measure your purchases in hamiltons instead of benjamins, things suddenly seem a lot more affordable.
Re:Will anime ever be sanely priced? (Score:3, Informative)
Lastly, anime licensing companies have a lot of fixed costs per show that they must offse
Japanese pricing (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Japanese pricing (Score:2)
Re:Japanese pricing (Score:2)
Since a few years ago if industry reps are to be believed. GITS:SAC is a perfect example of this, the show is primarily made for an American audience (when it was being started GITS wasn't that popular in japan, it may be now because of the show but it wasn't the 'brand' that it is in the states) and the reason it has such a high budget is from American co-financing.
I don't know if it's still the case since i really don't keep up with the market anymore but a few years ago just about every sh
Re:Japanese pricing (Score:2)
Re:Japanese pricing (Score:2)
Re:Will anime ever be sanely priced? (Score:2, Informative)
Stand Alone complex season 2 discs run 8154yen (around 80 dollars) a DVD at most stores, and 6552 yen on Amazon.co.jp
1st season seems to run around 5040 yen/DVD
Re:Will anime ever be sanely priced? (Score:2)
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 am aware of how expensive anime is in Japan, which is why I pointed it out by saying "Americans can buy it for much cheaper than in Japan"
Re:Will anime ever be sanely priced? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Will anime ever be sanely priced? (Score:2)
Unfortunately, most of the anime DVDs (and, increasingly, other DVDs) that people buy from Hong Kong are bootlegs. For example, the legitimate HK versions of Stand Alone Complex Season 1 are sold in 2 boxsets of 4 DVDs each, for about $45 US [dddhouse.com] a pop [dddhouse.com]. True, it's cheaper than the ~$120-$150 that the first season will run you in the U.S., but it's definitely not $40. Legitmate releases are also typically (but not always) R
This Price *IS* Sane (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Tachicomas (Score:2)
Slightly off-topic, I just found you can buy the Babylon 5 Complete Universe [amazon.co.uk] box. All the series, all the films in a single, reasonably priced package. 41 DVDs in all. *drool*
Re:Babylon 5 Box-set (Score:2)
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.
GITS and Complexity (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:GITS and Complexity (Score:3, Informative)
Huh? If all you want to read is children's stories than maybe, but there are about 2000 "everyday use" characters determined by the government, and well over 1000 of them are taught before grade 6. Chinese meanwhile has well over 2000 characters(though the government eliminated many more when organizing the
Re:GITS and Complexity (Score:5, Informative)
The "standard" set of Japanese Kanji, as taught in schools, is around 1200 (depending on which version of the various standards you're using). This is usually referred to as the Toyo Kanji or the more modern Joyo Kanji ("Everyday Chinese characters"). Everybody knows these inside-out (with the possible exception of those educated around wartime, who may have had limited access to schooling).
To be a functional adult in some kind of specialised field takes a bit more than that - 2000 kanji being about a minimum, and if you're into things like period literature or heavily technical material, that can easily be far more.
In terms of computing-related standards, the JIS level 1 and level 2 standards cover nearly 7,000 kanji, while the level 3 and 4 standards (which are admittedly rarely implemented) provide for another 4000+.
500 kanji is about end-of-primary-school level.
In any case, the reason GitS was hard to follow was not because of the kanji used - the vocabulary was fairly technical, making it difficult for those without the applicable education to follow. The kanji used were nothing particularly unusual.
Re:GITS and Complexity (Score:2)
Well, whenever kanji comes up, there is always an argument about how many are needed
Re:GITS and Complexity (Score:3, Insightful)
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
Re:GITS and Complexity (Score:2)
Everyone else is griping about your BS language knowledge, but I'd like to gripe about this:
Why the hell would you use 2010: Odyssey Two as an example of an inspirational movie and not 2001: A Space Odyssey!? Criminy, the second movie is complete dreck compared to the first. (Although really not that bad stand-alone.)
Fansubbing and faith (Score:2)
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 fe
Re:Fansubbing and faith (Score:2, Insightful)
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 t
Good series are precisely the ones (Score:2)
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=l
Again, you are listing a bunch of famous series (Score:2)
Re:Fansubbing (Score:3, Insightful)
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 th
Re:Fansubbing and faith (Score:2)
I can do better than anecdotal. I do that. I use fansubs as a filter method, to determine which ones I actually would like to own. For instance, I saw the Cowboy Bebop movie as a fansub first, and still saw it in the theater 3 times with various people. And I own the DVD.
I first watched Elfen Lied as a fansub, and am in the process of rounding up all those D
Again, another popular example (Score:2)
Re:Fansubbing and faith (Score:2)
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?
I'm probably not too representative of all anime fans, but I can definitely provide anecdotal evidence. I've downloaded about half a terabyte of fansubs in all, and also have hundreds of anime DVDs (all legit nonbootleg R1's).
The real distinc
Questions (Score:2)
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 decr
Re:Questions (Score:2)
You raise good points. I'm pretty sure I'm an outlier and in no way representative of anime watchers as a whole, but your earlier post specifically asked about anecdotal evidence of someone who watches lots of fansubs and still buys lots of DVDs, and as someone who meets that description, I wanted to reply to it.
As for your questions, without the benefit of fansubs, I would still buy a frightning amount of anime. I'd wind up with a few more volume 1 of series that I decide not to pick up the rest of, a l
Reviewer didn't watch the end? (Score:2)
That's the issue that the end of SAC focuses on, and it carries over into 2nd Gig.
continuity? (Score:2)
the real GITS 2: man-machine interface (Score:2)
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
Re:Where When (Score:5, Interesting)
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).
Re:Where When (Score:2)
Re:Where When (Score:2)
A side note: your homepage that you have listed is disabled [homestead.com]. So I couldn't use that to figure out where you live
If you're in the states and you only get basic cable, you'll have to wait until adult swim [adultswim.com] starts airing them again. That's a lineup of shows that the Cartoon Network has late at night. I saw the first season a long time ago on there and that's the limit of my exposure to it.
Now, if you're in Canada, you'll have to wait until YTV [ytv.com] starts airing it again. They used t
Re:Anime and Akihabara, the long slide (Score:2)
"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.
Re:Anime and Akihabara, the long slide (Score:2)
Re:T and A ruins SAC (Score:2)
Re:T and A ruins SAC - I dunno (Score:2)
Re:It's Shirow's style, deal with it. (Score:2)
Honestly i've never liked any GITS media. I didn't like the first movie and from what i've read i've not liked the manga. I gave SAC a chance but i found myself laughing at the camara angle choices more than enjoying the show.
MOD Parent UP (Score:2)
Then again this is a US centric site, if it's new to them it's news for the world.
So... (Score:2)
Re:CN Lineup GITS:SAC-2nd GIG and FullMetal Alchem (Score:2)
Re:CN Lineup GITS:SAC-2nd GIG and FullMetal Alchem (Score:2)