Ghost in the Shell (manga)
Ghost in the Shell (manga)
Originally published in 1989
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The print that came for America is notably
mirrored so that it is read from left to right rather than right to left for
the sake of Western readers.
·
The first chapter is done completely in color
with some of chapter two done in color, which contrasts heavily with the cheap
black and white print manga is used to.
·
The comic is mostly centered around a female
cyborg agent named Major Motoko Kusanagi though very lightly as usually the
comic goes onto be social commentary on the status of the future Japan and how
robotics have changed the outlook of humanity.
·
The comic can be extremely pornographic along
with violent at the time, as with the example of several ladies playing with
each other’s private parts below the waist (Chapter 3, Page 5 or Page 56).
·
As a futuristic manga, the setting is
surprisingly contemporary save for the fact that people have implants to become
cyborgs. This is prevalent with the cityscape as seen on Page 4 at the
beginning narration. This is a huge contrast with a series like Astro Boy or Battle Angel Alita where human geography changed in order to
accommodate the future look like adding a flying city or making entire
steam-punk slums where the destitute of humanity live.
·
Major Motoko is notably lighthearted in the
manga series (like on Chapter 3, Page 38 or 89) where she almost gets herself
killed yet exchanges witty banter with her battalion. This is a huge contrast
to how she is depicted in the anime.
·
They go onto define future terms in articles in
the manga, like robots as with Chapter 4, Page 1 or Page 98)
·
Turning women into attractive robots seem to be a
more common theme than turning men into more anatomically appealing men, as
with the case of Chapter 6, Page 32 or Page 141)
·
Makoto does not get her iconic costume in the
anime until Chapter 7, as up to this point she had less revealing battle armor
for most of her depictions.
·
Normal women are rarely seen in the manga and in
their place men commonly have love doll cyborgs and clones of women they
killed.
·
Makoto is in a relationship and is a strong
independent woman as established in Chapter 8.
·
They don’t take the name of the series into
account until Chapter 9 where a scientist places his dying mind into a robot
girl’s body to live indefinitely
·
The manga is more self-contained in its original
setting where Makoto is seemingly killed off yet cheats death by putting her
brain into another robot body.
·
Overall, the manga is okay but the “death” of
Makoto makes the entirety of the series a very self-contained story: where
Makoto cannot return to her old body after the events of accidently shooting
one guy, leaving her previous life behind as she merges with a Zen AI thing. It
was an okay read but the variations of the anime series makes the series a lot
different with each incarnation.
Bibliography:
Shirow, Masamune, Frederik L. Schodt, and
Toren Smith. The Ghost in the
Shell. New York: Kodansha Comics, 2009. Print.
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