Ghost in the Shell: Comic Tribute Review
We’re really getting into the weeds with this one. Up until now I’ve done my best to cover everything Ghost in the Shell published in English. Apart from a couple of super-expensive out-of-print artbooks that I’m no way spending a fortune on, I think I’ve been pretty exhaustive. To accompany the 2017 Hollywood movie, several books were published — a movie novelisation, a short story collection from five prominent Japanese novelists, a colour comic anthology from Western writers and artists, and finally this volume of manga skits from Japanese artists, many of whom are well-known internationally. Bizarrely, this is the only volume unavailable in English. The Japanese edition is still available to import — for a fairly steep price, however there are editions published in French by GLENAT and in Italian by Star Comics. I own the French version, but unfortunately I don’t actually speak any French. What to do?
Thanks to the magic of the internet and the availability of (Russian!) scanlations, I have done my best to decipher each story using Google’s online image translation service. This is hardly satisfactory, but for now it’s the only way to get anything at least semi-coherent as a monolingual English-reader. Of the nine chapters, the first and last have an English scanlation, so I’ll use those. The rest, however… yeah, take my interpretations with a pinch of salt, as I can’t imagine the Japanese>Russian>English translation pipeline is without its kinks. As I own a physical copy of this manga anthology, I feel no guilt using a scanlated version. I have done my best to contribute financially to the authors, and if Kodansha can’t be arsed localising this officially in English, then I say screw ‘em.
Chapter 1 — A Day In The Life by Yu Kinutani (GitS: Stand Alone Complex)— 24 pages
Eagle-eye readers may recognise Kinutani as writer and artist of the 5-volume Stand Alone Complex (SAC) manga I reviewed recently, plus a 4-volume SAC — Laughing Man manga that is sadly unavailable in English, even as a scanlation. This is a short story that depicts an early interaction between Major Kusanagi and sharpshooter Saito back in their army days. It shows how Saito lost both an eye and an arm. This story does completely contradict Saito’s recollections from SAC 2nd Gig episode 14: POKER FACE, but then they were always potentially fabricated anyway. Seeing Saito more or less shrugging off the loss of his eye and arm is a little jarring, and Kinutani’s version of Kusanagi still looks a little too cute, but overall it’s a decent start to the book.
Chapter 2 — GHOST IN THE SHELL INFLUENTIAL PERSON IN SHADOW ~A Man in the Dark~ by Boichi (Dr. Stone) — 26 pages
In terms of cuteness, Kinutani has nothing on Dr. Stone manga artist Boichi, who, by the way, previously illustrated some exceedingly explicit hentai manga. Honestly you’d never guess from this chapter, which is… erm…, well let’s say choosing suitable images to use for this review (that won’t get me banned from Medium) proved to be somewhat challenging. Boichi’s depiction of Major Motoko Kusanagi is at once both infantile, with massive eyes and pouting lips, but also heavily sexualised. Chief Aramaki sends Kusanagi to infiltrate hacker “Double S” who has moved their consciousness to an extremely strong artificial female body (that seems to be equipped with what can only be described as… superpowered nipples, and a groin-tentacle strap-on. Yes, you read that correctly, and no, I’m not cutting and pasting it here. Togusa correctly identifies it as an ABOMINATION.) Obviously, the hacker is only vulnerable to infiltration during orgasm. Oh dear. Major’s teammates confirm she is “perfect for this job”. She rationalises her mission with the phrase “Time to think about the bonus, Chief.”
The resulting extremely moist threesome sex scene (involving Kusanagi, the female with the… appendage, and the prime minister (?)) makes the cut scene from Shirow’s first manga volume look like a particularly tame Disney movie. I really don’t know what to make of the translation, but the dialogue goes something like this: “Yes, ummm, the chakras are open! Will we reach the depth’s of Heaven’s Abyss?”, uttered by characters clearly physically exerting themselves to dangerous levels, while fluid droplets splash everywhere. There’s high heels, levitating bosoms, electrical discharges, orgasmic screaming, and bodily fluids of many different types… before one female character splits down the middle to reveal inside her now open torso is an enormous… cybernetic penis… I think…? It all becomes a bit nightmarish, with gunfire, blood splatter, eyeballs erupting from sockets, and heads exploding. Maybe this chapter was the reason Comic Tribute never got an English release?
Anyway, Boichi’s art is amazing, but I can’t really share most of it here. The story’s clearly meant to be a piss-take, and it is hilarious, but not something you want lying around your house for relatives/friends/children to find. The prolonged cybersex scene where Major Motoko Kusanagi cyber-shags the corrupt prime minister to death is a bit much, after all. During the eventful orgasm, Kusanagi has some kind of Puppeteer-like encounter with beings from “The Abyss of Spirits” which causes an almost religious euphoria which brings her to tears. I have no idea what’s supposed to be going on here, but it looks incredible, and very moist… and nubile. Maybe I should go have a cold shower now.
Chapter 3 — Closed City by Tomonori Inoue (Coppelion) — 28 pages
Inouoe’s art in this story is also very cute, but not in a sexual way like Boichi’s. Kusanagi and Batou have been sent to a walled-off city on an island where none of the residents have accepted cyberisation. This makes it much more difficult than usual for Section 9 to do their job of tracking down a serial killer. Kusanagi makes a new friend, a small girl she protects from a sniper. She’s later surprised to find a group of nine children, identical to the little girl, who turn out to be the ones behind the serial killings.
They apparently have android brains, but biological bodies, and were perhaps grown for spare parts? They don’t have cyberbrain ports in the backs of their necks, and it’s unclear if they retain any memories from their original brains — if they had them. Anyway, if you ever wanted to hear Batou shout “It’s time to punish bad children!” while blasting a group of super-cute kids apart with a Bloody Massive Gun, then this is your manga. A weird mix of cute and grotesque with a side order of existential horror, this story is quite unsettling.
Chapter 4 — Meeting Again by Masayuki Yamamoto — 12 pages
In one of the shortest pieces, we find that Batou, now 10 years after leaving Section 9, is a bounty hunter, still paired up with a Fuchikoma. Both badly need maintenance, with every paycheck going towards the upkeep of their expensive bodies. A fight against a weak-looking girl cyborg goes unexpectedly, and Batou meets an older Togusa, now Section 9 commander. They both end up viewing the cherry blossoms at an impromptu Section 9 reunion. Retired Ishikawa now has old man white hair, Pazu is now a taxi driver, Borma is a wandering monk, bow-tie-wearing Saito is the owner of a small bar. Major Kusanagi looks the same as before, and even very old man Aramaki’s still around… sort of? It’s a very sweet, somewhat melancholy skit about ageing, the passing of time, and the importance of maintaining old friendships.
Chapter 5 — NEET-Major by Yu Imai (The Witches of Adamas) — 16 pages
This is definitely one of the stranger chapters. Motoko Kusanagi appears to be either in her late teens or early twenties, and is a NEET (Not in Education, Employment, or Training), spending all of her life in her bedroom surfing the net. Her father Aramaki (?!) is sick of this, and is determined to force her to get a job. He bursts into her room, declaring “You are just like a bird in a cage, you have no place to run. Today you will become a gear of capitalism!” You know, I have a fairly similar situation with my own daughter. I wonder if I’d be successful using that line on her?
Motoko jumps out of the window to escape Aramaki, but he reassures her mother not to worry, as “The hermits have nowhere to go.” Her mother’s name seems to be “Beautiful Operator”, as she’s one of Section 9’s blonde-haired androids… Anyway, Motoko spends a couple of days hiding in the park, sitting on the swings, until her elder brother Batou tries to get her to go home using thermoptocam and violence. She beats him, so he announces he’ll also become a NEET… Eventually they go home to find that Aramaki’s wife has left him… It’s weird seeing the normally work-obsessed characters we know in a domestic setting, interacting like a family with normal concerns. Motoko is hilarious as an exasperated teen who sees no benefit to ever leaving her bedrooom.
Chapter 6 — Classic by Nokuto Koike (Serial Killer Land)— 22 pages
This story has beautiful art, but unfortunately due to the terrible machine translation, it’s impossible to follow. It’s got something to do with music, and Batou’s memories from when he was younger, but really I have little idea. I’d like to read a properly-translated version of this, Kodansha!
Chapter 7 — A Cage Full of Pleasure by Nobuaki Tadano (7 Billion Needles) — 12 pages
Similarly, this story has clarity issues because of poor translation. Pazu is instructed by the Major to protect a doctor, who is an important witness in a terrorist case. A random patient wanders into the clinic with a sword stuck in his back, bleeding. Pazu says “it’s a day off, come back tomorrow,” but then the patient’s assailant walks in, and Pazu ends up with two bodies on the clinic floor. Taking the doctor to another, hopefully less messy location, they keep being attacked, and Pazu leaves a trail of bodies behind him. The artwork is quite noirish, with lots of deep blacks and heavy shadows. It does look pretty cool, but I don’t really understand the ending to this one, as Pazu leaves the doctor to the mercy of a killer.
Chapter 8 — Hopeful Monster by Takumi Oyama (Ghost in the Shell Arise ~Sleepless Eye~) — 31 pages
Hopeful Monster focuses on a very bishonen Togusa. When his shoulder is injured and he’s told it’ll take a month to recover when compared to his prosthesis-using colleagues who can get same-day replacements, Yogusa feels he’s a burden on his team. However when facing up against a bomb-laden cannibal terrorist who electrifies everyone’s prosthetic bodies, disabling their cyberbrains, only the mostly-organic Togusa comes through unscathed, achieving what his higher-specced comrades could not.
I think this one is probably meant to be set before Section 9 is formed, as it seems to function as the first time Togusa is spotted by Aramaki, who comments “The organisation needs exceptional staff, capable of doing something if the standard system suddenly stops working. In other words, we need diversity.” There’s some interesting stuff about the differences between people’s brains, and how unusual thinking patterns can benefit a group who might otherwise stagnate. From an evolutionary perspective, Togusa’s one of the small minority whose brain is different enough that he can avoid extinction-level events and keep the species going.
Chapter 9 — Tony Takezaki’s GHOST IN THE SHELL by Tony Takezaki (AD Police, Genocyber) — 40 pages
Finally, we come to what may be one of the most demented parts of the book — which may not come as a surprise to anyone familiar with manga artist Tony Takezaki. His single-volume Evangelion parody manga, published in English by Dark Horse, should give potential readers an idea of what to expect. This is a quick-fire collection of lots of shorter comedy skits, many of which drawn in a style eerily similar to Masamune Shirow’s own late 1980s/early 1990’s output — i.e. Ghost in the Shell Volume 1.
We have a Section 9 brainstorming session for ways to improve funding (including selling everything from Major Kusanagi “oppai” mouse mats, to hug pillows, sexy trumps card packs, nipple gummies, and butt-shaped cushions). Suffice to say, Kusanagi is not impressed, and lethal violence ensues. Much of the humour is very specific to the original manga, and only those readers familiar with it will get most of the jokes. There are even jokes about the censored scene, complete with lashings of dripping fluids…
The Major’s iconic jumping-off-a-skyscraper-before-becoming-invisible routine goes horribly wrong as her rope snaps, and she plummets to the ground, bouncing off vehicles, being run over, and generally getting the crap beaten out of her. An extended Manzai comedy skit featuring the Fuchikomas falls a bit flat partly because a lot of the time I feel that type of humour just doesn’t translate well into English. Otherwise this segment is a huge highlight of the book and leaves it on a high.
Overall, Comic Tribute is a pretty good collection and it’s a real shame there’s no official way to read this in English. Relying on a poor machine translation makes some parts nigh unintelligible. I can imagine the sexual content in a couple of chapters may make it problematic to publish in the US, but somehow the Italians and French managed to cope with it, so…
Unbelievably, there are still a bunch of GitS-related things I’ve not yet reviewed, so I’ll be back again soon with more!
Ghost in the Shell: Comic Tribute
Authors: Yu Kinutani, Boichi, Tomonori Inoue, Masayuki Yamamoto, Yu Imai, Nokuto Koike, Nobuaki Tadano, Takumi Oyama, Tony Takezaki
Cover by: Akira Hiramoto
Translated by: Our New Most Benevolent AI Overlords
Based on: Ghost in the Shell by Masamune Shirow
Pages: 246
JP publisher: Kodansha
JP publication date: 28th March, 2017
JP ISBN-13: 978–4063931846
Italian publisher: Star Comics
Italian publication date: 20th November, 2019
Italian ISBN-13: 978–8822615671
French publisher: GLENAT
French publication date: 18th March, 2020
French ISBN-13: 978–2344040263
