Ghost-in the-Shell:-Stand-Alone-Complex-The-Laughing-Man
February 18th 2011 04:07
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex - The Laughing Man - Anime Review
Information:
Format: Animated, Color, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
Language: English
Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Number of discs: 2
Rated: Unrated
Studio: Manga Video
DVD Release Date: October 2, 2007
Synopsis:
The OAV Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex--The Laughing Man (2005) consists of footage from the 26-episode Stand Alone Complex TV series (2002), recut to tell the story of a police battle with an über-hacker. Writer-director Kenji Kamiyama oversaw the re-editing and rewrote some of the dialogue for greater clarity. The main arc of the first season of SAC, The Laughing Man is complicated tale of cyber-espionage and government corruption. Major Kusanagi, Batou, Chief Aramaki, and the other officers of Public Security Section 9 must untangle an intricate web of deception to discover a hidden scandal involving a bogus cure for the debilitating disease of "cyberbrain sclerosis." In the original series, this story was interwoven with brief adventures involving the black-market sale of human organs, the growing consciousness of the Tachikoma robots, and Chief Aramaki's colorful past. The Laughing Man, a title borrowed from J.D. Salinger, is interesting enough to stand on its own, but at two hours and forty minutes, it feels very long. Bandai has re-recorded the dialogue with a new cast, which sounds jarring to audiences familiar with the series. The Laughing Man may appeal to viewers who didn't see SAC in its initial release: otaku who know the original may find the reworking feels like a gimmick.
Review:
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex is one of the highest quality anime series of the past few years, and to an extent "The Laughing Man" lives up to this quality. This DVD isn't really a must buy, as all of the material (except for one Tachikoma Days short and one interview) is taken directly from the first season. Thus the animation quality is just as good as the television series, and as such is a joy to watch. The laughing man story arc of the first season is well modified to fit into feature length movie structure, with segments of some of the stand-alone episodes still present to provide introduction and characterization. Although the plot is harder to follow in this format then it was as a television series, it is still rich and complex.
So far, so good. The place where it doesn't live up to my expectations is the voice acting. I went in expecting the tried-and-true cast from the television series, but instead it sounds like a bunch of cheap knockoffs. Most of them aren't bad, per se, but they all leave a lot to be desired. The Major's voice actor doesn't have the intensity that the television series voice actor had, and the movie suffers for it. The Movie voice actor for Batou is also a factor that detracted from my enjoyment, as the television series voice actor was made for that role. Any substitute can't live up.
Grade - A - Overall a good addition to the Stand Alone Complex series, but if only the voice actors from the television series had returned this film could have been a great deal more enjoyable for me.
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