Manga Review: Ghost in the Shell (Shirow Masamune)

"It is the near future.  The world has become highly information-intensive, with a vast corporate network covering the planet, electrons and light pulsing through it.  But the nation-state and ethnic groups still survive.

And on the edge of Asia, in a strange corporate conglomerate-state called Japan..." - Shirow Masamune

More and more, as information technology continues to evolve at accelerated rates, I often wonder how much prophesy there actually is in the Ghost in the Shell saga. Originally published in 1989, under the title of Kōkaku Kidōtai (Mobile Armored Riot Police), this manga presents a complex, convoluted, confusing world where minds and machines often merge, human flesh is often augmented with cybernetics, and people often fight and die for the pursuit of information.  The manga follows a unit of highly-trained and well-equipped special forces operatives:  Public Security Section 9.  Their mission is to hunt cyberterrorists with extreme prejudice.  This comic covers several episodes, many of which reveal startling implications and revelations concerning the evolution of technology.

This manga definitely offers its share of thrills and action.  It can get fairly pulpy, but it's still a very high-brow thriller with heavy emphasis on politics and technobabble.  It can actually be a bit dry and confusing with such in-depth concepts - it can be quite a challenge to understand the nuances of this futuristic Japanese society, with its multiple ministers and departments all scheming and pulling off their own covert ops and dirty double-dealings.  It's even more challenging to comprehend the technical aspects - terms like "barriers," "autistic mode," "ghosts," "dummies," and many more are tossed around liberally.  Even the core premise - having cyberbrains that can connect directly to computers and the Internet - is a trippy concept, and the book takes every advantage to explore its many implications.  Surely, if you can connect your consciousness to the world wide web, you can pull up all the information you want, track down anybody you want, hack into any thing - even hack into other people, or perhaps "fuse" with their consciousness.  As the book goes on, things ultimately become highly metaphysical, with the concept of an actual artificial intelligence born and evolved in the web.  With concepts like these, GITS is every bit as smart and prophetic as the works of William Gibson or Phillip K. Dick.

Fortunately, the comic is never a bore, for it is evenly-paced and it never lingers long on the heavy stuff.  In fact, I was surprised to find a lot of cheeky humor littered throughout the comic, keeping the tone balanced.  It is populated with colorful, fun, and badass characters; they aren't tremendously deep, but they are an endearing bunch.  The stories seem pretty random, but they build up some interesting connections that lead to an interesting conclusion.

This comic features great artwork.  Designs for the characters, settings, vehicles, machines, and weapons are awesome, and everything is well-drawn.  The actual writing is pretty good; I probably would have preferred a little more exposition to sort out the hardcore politics and technical stuff, but as it is, it definitely feels authentic and well-researched.

Ghost in the Shell handles some seriously fascinating concepts.  With computers constantly becoming faster and more intelligent, some of the ideas in GITS may become a reality some day.  What's really neat is that GITS is not a grim future necessarily; scary perhaps, but the comic never really condones or condemns cybernetics.  It shows what futuristic law enforcement, espionage, and terrorist-hunting could look like, in addition to showing the evolutionary direction of human technology, and perhaps the human spirit.

Recommended.

4/5 (Entertainment:  Good | Stories:  Pretty Good | Book:  Perfect)

   

Manga Review: Clover (CLAMP)

"They say a four-leaf clover brings happiness." - commonly held belief referenced on cover page

I was drawn toward this massive volume of manga, partly because of its cover, partly because of the acclaim of the writers (CLAMP is a highly-tutted group responsible for such series as X, Chobits, xxxHolic, and more), and because this is a series that went out of print for the longest time, and was finally assembled in full by Dark Horse Manga.  This volume is also notable for presenting the complete series in its proper back-cover-to-front-cover, right-to-left format as was originally intended.  It also contains a number of pages with bonus full-color artwork on glossy paper, making the volume even more worth the money.

The manga itself is a pretty decent and fun read.  It's not too dense or complicated at all; it took me just a couple of hours to read all five hundred pages.  Most of the action will be in the first volume, which represents the main bulk of the story's conflicts.  It portrays an interesting universe that's highly futuristic, but also very retro, like a cross between cyberpunk and steampunk.  There are quite a few pursuits and fights in the first volume, building up a a simple yet thrilling storyline.  I found it a little tricky trying to understand the characters and what was going on, but then the remaining volumes of the manga goes backwards to reveal the full background of the events.  The action dies down substantially as the drama increases in the later volumes; it makes for a rather anticlimactic story arc.

However, it does prove to be a rather strong story, thanks to the flashbacks provided.  The later volumes provide so much to the characters, story, and concepts that it makes the first action-packed volume all the more compelling.  Above all, I realized that the characters are compelling, and I grew to care for them by the end of the book.  It helps make the more tragic scenes stand out stronger, so the manga does have a fair amount of emotional punch.  It also helps that the story boasts a number of interesting concepts and ideas, and plays off of them to support the overall story.

My only real complaint is that the story could have been arranged differently.  I felt it would have been more prudent to provide the flashbacks either before the main story, or intermixed with it.  As it is, with all the background shoved at the end, it left me feeling a little lost during the main conflict, and it felt like it trailed off at the end.

The manga has decent writing.  It gets a little melodramatic, especially with its constant repeating of the clover song sung by the main characters, and the constant repeating of phrases like "I want happiness."  Still, the book does strike an appropriately poetic and dramatic tone, which I suspect could be adapted into a really awesome anime or film.  Artwork is phenomenal, featuring plenty of fantastic-looking scenes and settings.  Characters are well-drawn and quite distinctive.

Overall, I was quite happy with this compilation.  Recommended.

4.5/5 (Entertainment:  Good | Story:  Very Good | Book:  Very Good)