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A review by roxanamalinachirila
Ghost in the Shell Volume 1 2nd edition TPB by Shirow Masamune
3.0
In humanity's cyber-future, cyberwomen will occasionally wear underwear with chain straps. What can I say? Scantily clad women with weird lingerie seem to have been all the rage in the future we never got to have (possibly because, after the 80s, programmers started making silly things like the internet and we gave up on memorable haircuts).
Aaanyways, fashion aside.
"Ghost in the Shell" is less of a unified whole than I was expecting. Knowing that there are only three volumes in the original manga series, I was expecting them to tell a single story and tell it well. Instead, what we get are several episodic stories which tie in together, but not seamlessly - and they're a bit hard to follow. Maybe it's the art (although the occasional colored pages help), or maybe it's the fact that I didn't feel for any of the characters very well. And besides, Ghost in the Shell does that thing hard sci fi occasionally does, namely expect you to fill in the blanks regarding world-building.
After seeing the 2017 movie, I felt that this was a very different sort of story: Scarlett Johansson creates a character who is palpably different and who feels cyber indeed, while the manga's Major is very much like a normal woman who occasionally wonders if she's actually human, considering the fact that she's a brain+spine in an artificial body.
It's an interesting story (and different from the movie), but I'm happy I didn't get it at full price.
Aaanyways, fashion aside.
"Ghost in the Shell" is less of a unified whole than I was expecting. Knowing that there are only three volumes in the original manga series, I was expecting them to tell a single story and tell it well. Instead, what we get are several episodic stories which tie in together, but not seamlessly - and they're a bit hard to follow. Maybe it's the art (although the occasional colored pages help), or maybe it's the fact that I didn't feel for any of the characters very well. And besides, Ghost in the Shell does that thing hard sci fi occasionally does, namely expect you to fill in the blanks regarding world-building.
After seeing the 2017 movie, I felt that this was a very different sort of story: Scarlett Johansson creates a character who is palpably different and who feels cyber indeed, while the manga's Major is very much like a normal woman who occasionally wonders if she's actually human, considering the fact that she's a brain+spine in an artificial body.
It's an interesting story (and different from the movie), but I'm happy I didn't get it at full price.