Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex Official Log 1 DVD/Guide Book Review
Until recently, I had no idea this hardback book/DVD combo even existed — it completely passed me by upon its release in 2005. That’s been the problem with my attempt to be as exhaustive as possible when reviewing everything Ghost in the Shell (GitS)-related — the internet rabbit hole is deep, even more so when considering the seemingly endless number of Japanese-language art books, guide books, and other random things. In Japan, Official Log 1 was but the first in a series of six high quality factual releases offering detailed episode analyses, character guides, and other behind-the-scenes material on the production of the Stand Alone Complex (SAC) TV series. Unfortunately in the West, only the first volume was ever released — although Bandai Entertainment promised to release an English translation of Log 2 sometime in 2006, it never materialised.
Official Log 1 covers episodes 1–19 of SAC’s first season, while Log 2 covers episodes 20–26. 2nd GIG is also divided between two comparable volumes, while Solid State Society gets an Ultimate Archive volume, and the Tachikomas even get a book to themselves. It’s really such a shame that these never got a proper English translation — in addition to being really nice, sturdy books, they’re dense with information and incomparable insight into the production process.
First, let’s cover the DVD that’s bundled with it. The version I have is Region 1, US NTSC format. I’m unsure if the UK got a PAL version, I suspect it may not have. I did not realise this when I bought it, but thankfully I have a hacked PS3 Slim that functions very nicely as a multi-region DVD and blu-ray player — I’d recommend this as a cheap option for anyone who’s interested in importing foreign blu-rays, as multi-region players are otherwise prohibitively expensive. (Also the option to rip your game discs to play them direct from the hard drive is wonderful.) The image is in 4:3 aspect ratio, so looks pillarboxed on a modern display. Footage from the show is generally shrunk down to appear in an even smaller box in the centre of the image. Audio language is Japanese, but it’s fully English-subtitled.
The 90-minute DVD comprises three features — the 37-minute Highlight Flash that provides a thematic overview of the series, examining scenes from particular angles. It’s basically just a clip show and is completely skippable. Next, the 33-minute The Interview Archive presents interviews mainly with writer/director Kenji Kamiyama and most of the main Japanese voice cast. This is a lot more interesting, and they all seem to genuinely love their characters. It’s cool that the 1995 movie’s voice cast returned to voice their SAC counterparts, though at this time they seem to have treated SAC as a prequel, with them being told to play their characters as younger versions.
The third and final 20-minute section, 9th Studio Digital Works, is perhaps the most interesting. It provides a tour of Production I. G.’s rather scruffy-looking, densely-packed offices, while providing an insight into the production and design ethos of the animators. Many of the episode directors and animators were unused to CG, and SAC ended up utilising far more CG than was initially planned — not just for cars, but for the Tachikomas, other mechs, helicoptors and tiltrotors, armoured suits… The poor CG animation chief was initially told to provide 40 CG cuts per episode, but then in episode 2 the order jumped up to 100! The DVD footage was recorded in 2002 during production of the first season, so the animators discuss the challenges facing them as they work on the final few episodes.
SAC had a comparatively enormous budget and leisurely production period compared to other TV anime — each episode cost three times as much to produce compared to the average, and it only broadcast two episodes per month compared to the more punishing weekly broadcast schedule for other anime. Although every scene was composited digitally, many of the components remained hand-drawn on analogue materials, such as the backgrounds and characters. Then they were scanned and rendered in HD resolution, four times the broadcast standard resolution at the time. Production I.G were clearly looking to the future with the series, and the DVD provides ample proof of their forward-thinking and continual experimentation.
Next, let’s look at the book itself. It comes with an extremely thick card cover, probably so it can function as a mount for the accompanying DVD. It’s wrapped in a clear plastic slipcover, and then fits inside a thin cardboard slipcase with an obi band. Inside its extremely dense 148-pages there are several sections. The first gives a detailed overview of GitS’ history, from its first manga chapter publication in 1989, to the movie’s release in 1995, up until the release of the Human Error Processor e-manga CD in 2003. There’s a detailed examination of the links between Shirow’s manga and SAC, including confirmation that Kenji Kamiyama deliberately based SAC’s focus and structure on the then-uncollected Human Error Processor chapters. (The staff had to make do with decade-old magazine photocopies as reference material!)
There are also portions on Oshii’s movie, the subsequent PS1 videogame, and Yoko Kanno’s SAC soundtrack. Important production team members are interviewed, like director Kenji Kamiyama, writer Dai Sato and executive producer Mitsuhisa Ishikawa. They each provide anecdotes on their previous experience with Masamune Shirow’s manga, and the daunting task of adapting his work for television. This first section is fascinating, full of little personalised nuggets of information.
Following this, the book focuses on each main character, providing examples of important moments of development during the first nineteen episodes, which is interesting, but the text is so unbelievably tiny my eyes strained trying to read it! I must be getting old, I clearly need reading glasses now… Following this, we get a breakdown of each of the first nineteen episodes, with each installment getting two or four pages depending on complexity. While the main body of the text is concerned with recanting the plot, multiple little sidebars give extra insight and details to the story, many of which were new to me. The episode analyses make up about a third of the book’s page count.
Next we shift focus to character and mecha design. I love a good production sketch, so this is a great section. I particularly like how the character designer Hajime Shimomura shows his early heavily Shirow-influenced character designs, and how they evolved into more simplified yet still recognisable TV versions. This section also includes interviews with mechanical designers Kenji Teraoka and Sinobu Tsuneki, background artists Hiroshi Kato, animation director Takayuki Goto, art director Ysuke Takeda, and Sound director Kazuhiro Wakabayashi. Although the interviews are brief, they are packed with valuable and fascinating information, not to mention more production pictures.
Finishing off the book is a lengthy essay by self-declared “Anime Gear Geek” Stapa Saito, who writes reams and reams of gushing material on the technology of Ghost in the Shell. I have to admit I found this a little tiresome, though the second part of this section compares the then-modern technology of the early 2000s with what’s depicted in SAC’s 2030. It’s a little quaint now, referencing ancient early 2000s online tech like Yahoo! Chat and Ultima Online, but it also highlights how different SAC’s 2030 technology is from the 2024 technology in our world, at least in application. We don’t quite have cyberbrains yet, but AI technology is progressing rapidly, and the internet has penetrated its way into every aspect of our lives. Kusanagi and colleagues don’t have shiny smartphones like we do, but then they can access the web via cyberbrain.
Stand Alone Complex Official Log 1 is a superb companion to the TV show. It’s not that easy to find now, and seems to have retained its value. Releasing at a price of 50 USD, I purchased mine secondhand for around £30, which seems about par for the course. Now I’m off to pine for the English translation of the other five volumes that we’ll never see. I’ll be back with yet more Ghost in the Shell-related material soon…
Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex Official Log 1
JP distributor: Tokuma Shoten
JP release: 25th October 2005
US distributor: Bandai Entertainment
US release: 25th October 2005
UK distributor: Manga Entertainment
UK release: 14th November 2005
Languages: Japanese audio with English subtitles
DVD runtime: 90 minutes
Region: 1
Translator: Shoko Oono
Page count: 148
RRP: $50
