REVIEW: Ghost in the Shell (film)

Ghost in the Shell (film)

By Masamune Shirow,

Ghost in the Shell (film)

Originally aired in 1995

·         The film deviated from the manga mostly towards the end where Makoto in the manga was part of a manhunt and pretended to be killed by the police due to the accidental killing of a surrendered criminal. In the film, Makoto merged with the Puppet Master before her old body is destroyed and her death had no bearing on her being on trial.

·         They included a completely non-cyborg companion to Makoto who unfortunately played no major role in the film other than to note that not everyone in their universe are enhanced. However, this officer is noted for pointing out things the more by-the-program cyborg police fail to note.

·         Makoto in this film is noted to be much more philosophical and mature than her manga counterpart who is more bubbly and silly towards her colleagues until her merging with the Puppet Master.

·         The film focused on the first and last chapters of the manga and skipped out the parts with child trafficking and the narcotics trade that Makoto tackled in the manga.

·         The film notes the details of Makoto's body being made in the beginning of the film and the details of the environment that the characters live in. It is to note that like the manga it appears that they are in a world where though there are cyborgs about the rest of the world's architecture and social structure did not change in the slightest since the introduction of such technology.

·         The film ends with Makoto's head/ a likeness of Makoto's head being in a body that resembles a younger version of her, which contrasts with her obtaining a male body by the end of the manga. This younger version resembles the original's personality more than the male body of the manga.

·         The talk of identity through augmentation and the talk of genes and memory happen in narrative in the film alongside the relevant portions of the plot whereas in the manga most of it is exposition dump towards the end when Makoto merged with the Puppet Master.

·         The film makes clear that Makoto is NOT seen as a criminal by the end of the film and that she is choosing to work in the shadows as Section 9 has too many restrictions on her being free to do what she wants. It appears that she still has good relations to everyone that isn't Kusanagi. With the manga, on the other hand, Makoto is branded as a criminal and even her likeness is not allowed to be seen by those who she previously cared for save for Kusanagi. She also wasn't disgraced publicly in the film as her killing a surrendered criminal was excluded.

·         The VHS forced us to sit through by the end an exposition dump on how the film was made, which would have been extra content if this was done on VHS.

·         Although the manga and the anime ended on similar endings with Makoto going into hiding and operating from the shadows to fight cybercrime, the film's ending felt like the story could continue on while the manga's ending made the original Ghost in the Shell story feel self-contained. It could be that Makoto is in a drastically different body by the end in the manga which would give this feeling.

·         Makoto is noted to be extremely flat chested when in clothing in the film and have more female traits when nude in the film. This contrasts to the manga where her body maintained a base female form.

·         Makoto's dive into the Puppet Master's body does not result in her exploring the meta feel of sensory where she sees an "angel" before the Puppet Master's demise. Rather, in the film they simply switched bodies and the merging of their forms makes the angel appear.

·         Overall, this is an excellent film. There are many iterations of the Ghost in the Shell series, each with its own interpretation of Makoto. With this, however, Makoto is not seen as a childish figure like in the manga and serves as a good basis for the other Ghost in the Shell stories in other adaptations, as this film is literally the first anime done on the series.

Bibliography

Ghost in the Shell. Dir. Mamoru Oshii, Perf. Atsuko Tanaka, Akio Ōtsuka,Iemasa Kayumi. 1995. Manga Entertainment (international release). VHS.

REVIEW: Tekkon Kinkreet

Tekkon Kinkreet: Black and White

By Taiyo Matsumoto

Tekkon Kinkreet: Black and White

Originally published in 1994

·         The first few pages of the manga is printed in color while the rest of the manga is printed in black and white, no pun intended

·         The main characters have been literally translated as Black and White for the manga

·         The dialogue of the manga is mostly nonsense save for the last parts as the actual substance of the conversation is too slice of life to explain the nature of the city Black and White live in and the background of the two characters. Examples of this would be like in Page 35 where they talk about putting “shiny money” in a piggy bank.

·         Fittingly Black has the kanji or Chinese word for Black on his shirt while White mostly has white clothes on

·         Despite the protagonists being children it is clear that they run the underground of the city like in Pages 168-169 where they beat up a professional yakuza to prove a point that they run the down in a most violent manner.

·         There are notably few women in the manga, noting the coming of age boyhood nature of Black and White’s journey in life and the masculine nature of the manga. This is unusual for any manga as it is uncommon for manga to depict anything center completely around hetero normalcy with a cast mostly dominated by men.

·         Despite the assassins being “alien” in nature as introduced in Pages 295, the assassins are noted to speak in a dialogue that is similar in grammatical syntax to Chinese and wear notably Chinese clothing. It could be that the author intended the assassins to be caricatures of “evil” Chinese men.

·         Cats are usually used to symbolize Black and White and their relationship to the environment. An example would be like Page 189 where stray cats, appropriately being black and white cats, interact with the environment that clearly is out to get them.

·         Unlike most manga, there is rarely a single page in Black and White that does not have a form of background to it. While it is common manga conventions to establish backgrounds and continue the narrative without them as so to have the image of the background be in the subconscious of the reader’s mind, in this manga there is always a background of one form or the other to the characters. This could be seen to remind us of how each portion and individual in the setting of the city is so distinct and unique onto itself.

·         As previously stated before, the substance of the characters dialogue does not seem to carry much weight as much as the actions, which could signify the unconscious development male children, develop in doing rather than in saying.

·         Overall, I liked this manga a lot though I cannot consciously pinpoint what it is about it that appeals to me.

Bibliography:

Matsumoto, Taiyō. Tekkon Kinkreet = Black & White. San Francisco, CA: Viz Media, 2007. Print.

REVIEW: Ghost in the Shell

Ghost in the Shell (manga)

By Masamune Shirow

Ghost in the Shell (manga)

Originally published in 1989

·         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.