The Definitive Ghost in the Shell Franchise Review Guide
Apart from my long-running Monogatari review-marathon, I’ve never attempted such a large writing project as reviewing my way through everything Ghost in the Shell-related. During the writing of this series, I’ve covered more GitS manga, novels, art books, and anime than I realised existed when I first set myself this task. There are still a few books I’ve not covered, mainly the English-language README 1995–2017 art book that goes for silly prices online, and the Japanese-language Ghost in the Shell Archives that, although looks good, costs around £50 to import and I don’t want it that much.
Every time I look online I find yet more obscure JP-only art books or guides or other random material, but I must draw the line somewhere. The second SAC_2045 movie The Last Human isn’t yet released in the West, so I’ll no doubt review that when Netflix eventually streams it. SAC_2045 Season 1 finally got a physical release (sans dub, sadly) courtesy of Anime Limited earlier this month. I already reviewed that show four years ago, but I’ve acquired my own copy of the blu-ray, mainly for completeness.
All that’s really left, then, are the video games. I lost my PS1 Ghost in the Shell disc years ago during a house move (along with all my other PS1 discs — I was very unhappy), but it works really well emulated on Duckstation with all the extra bells and whistles increasing the resolution and getting rid of the awful texture warping, polygon judder, and ubiquitous dithering. However, I am really crap at the game, and it would take me too long to complete the thing to give it a fair review. I’ve never owned the PS2 or PSP games, but I can emulate them on PCSX2 and my hacked PS Vita respectively. I don’t care enough about either game to play them long enough to review, though. Not when I still have so many newer PS4 games to play, like Fate/Samurai Remnant, Unicorn Overlord, SMTV: Vengeance, Tsukihime: A Piece of Blue Glass Moon, and the upcoming Episode Aigis for Persona 3 Reload, let alone the mega-hyped Metaphor Re:Fantazio, due in October. I don’t have time to play ancient games that weren’t that well-regarded even on release!
Part of the reason I decided to embark on this ill-advised journey through the depths of GitS obscurity was my work on a complete guide to the franchise for Anime News Network. Executive editor Lynzee asked that I “be exhaustive”. I do wonder if she regretted these words, as the completed document almost reaches 9000 words in length. I’d been thinking of looking at Masamune Shirow’s works in detail for a long time, so this assignment gave me the impetus (or perhaps merely the excuse) to re-immerse myself in a franchise I love. Perhaps eventually I’ll look at Shirow’s other manga like Appleseed, Black Magic, Dominion, Orion etc, and hopefully the anime they inspired.
You can read my complete guide at the link above, it covers a few more things that I decided against covering with complete reviews, mainly for my own sanity’s sake. Even after submitting it, editor Richard Eisenbeis and I kept finding yet more things to add. I think the guide now covers around 55 different items, which is bonkers. I decided against including only-vaguely-associated manga/anime Pandora in the Crimson Shell: Ghost Urn, partly because I don’t think it’s very good, but also because the manga isn’t even written by Shirow — he merely provided the basic story concept. It’s written and drawn instead by Excel Saga author Rikudo Koshi.
Pandora in the Crimson Shell’s 12-episode 2015 anime isn’t even available to stream legally any more — previously you could stream it on Funimation NOW, but since it was eaten by/merged into Crunchyroll, it’s become a casualty along with a myriad other shows they’ve failed to transfer across, despite their promises. I’ve never watched it, but I have read some of the manga. It creeps me out, as it features a loli android with an access port in her groin flap that her female friend inserts her fingers into to “upgrade” her skills. Yes, this is indeed as skeevy as it sounds.
Some volumes are now impossible to find, which makes it difficult to read the 25-volume series in its entirety to make a proper assessment. While it purports to take place in the same world as GitS, its scatty, comedic tone is so different that I generally choose to ignore its existence, I certainly can’t be bothered expending much time, energy, and money tracking down all those volumes, reading, and reviewing them.
Listed below is a directory of all 36 individual reviews I wrote for AniTAY while preparing my GitS guide for ANN. There isn’t any crossover in terms of written content, so these work in addition to the guide for those readers who want more detail on each entry. I’ve listed them in the same order as they appear in the guide, rather than the rather chaotic and random order I reviewed them in!
Main Manga Continuity
Main Movie continuity
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex continuity
Ghost in the Shell: Arise continuity
2017’s Ghost in the Shell live action movie, and associated books
Thanks very much for reading my work, and be rest assured I’ll be back soon with more reviews another lengthy guide on a different topic for ANN, plus my usual random things for AniTAY here on Medium!
