World Famous Comics: Ghost In The Shell Volume 2: Man-Machine Interface (Ghost in the Shell)
Ghost In The Shell Volume 2: Man-Machine Interface (Ghost in the Shell)
By: Masamune Shirow Publisher: Dark Horse Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Dark Horse Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 312 Publication Date: January 19, 2005
Product Description: March 6, 2035. Motoko Aramaki is a hyper-advanced cyborg, a counter-terrorist net security expert heading the investigative department of the giant multi-national, Poseidon Industrial. Partly transcending the physical world and existing in a virtual world of networks, Motoko is a fusion of multiple entities and identities, deploying remotely controlled prosthetic humanoid surrogates around the globe to solve a series of bizarre crimes. Meanwhile, Tamaki Tamai, a psychic investigator from the Channeling Agency, has been commissioned to investigate strange changes in the temporal universe, brought about by two forces, one represented by the teachings of a professor named Rahampol, and the other by the complex, evolving Motoko entity. What unfolds will be all in a day's work...a day that will change everything, forever.
Great addition to the GitS series After reading many of the reviews about a convoluted story, I was interested to check it out myself. I really like the technological aspect of MMI. I thought GitS 1 and 1.5 were a little heavy on the detective work, and far too light on the technology. Artwork is amazing and the story keeps a good pace. Great addition to the GitS storyline.
excellent manga GiTS 2 is a great manga, with alot of full colour pages and very high quality drawings with amazing digital rendering. It's also a long, intelligent and complex story that takes a good few sessions to get through. When the first volume was released, it was ahead of its time, and concepts like 'the internet' and 'hackers' were not as well understood as they are now. This volume has gone a step further and introduced more original concepts in the advanced, networked world of ghost Ghost in The Shell. I'm sure it will all make sense in another 10 years time.
I'm glad I bought this, it's a different style to the animated series as it focuses on Motoko rather than section 9. If you can't grip the hectic pace of the story, at least the artwork is awesome.
The only one? I might be the only one but my biggest turn off was not the convoluted story , but the art. His hand drawn back and white art in the middle was amazing as always, but the digital environments used in so much of the book just did not look good. It all looked like screenshots from a badly rendered CGI movie that had people drawn over top of it. It just looked bad. Now, I admit two things. One, the digital art looked EXCELLENT for the scenes that took place in the Net. It would have been incredible he had drawn more in the B&W style of the first GitS and then CG'ed the Net parts. Anyway the second thing is that I am definitely in the minority with my opinions on the art, and its very possible I am just missing something or being plain ignorant.
Either way, I bought this volume based on everyone's ravings about how good the art was, and it was my a big let down. So this is my counter-point to the other reviews.
Ghost in the Shell Volume 2: Man-Machine Interface Well this book is set four years after the events in the original "Ghost in the Shell" but, it was created 10 years after the first one. So while Shirow discusses many of the themes present in the first work, the look is completely different. His style has become crisper and at times almost baroque in the density of details he can place into an image. For me it was visual overload a few times and took me awhile to process this book. Themes in this book are similar to the other works in the Ghost in the Shell franchise: identity, technology, privacy, society and so on. This would not be the best place to start with the Ghost in the Shell series but if you're already in their universe then this another excellent addition.
Don't bother I got this at Anime Expo for $5 and even at that I feel it was a waste of my time and money. This manga is horrible. Remember how great the first GITS manga was? Exciting stories, terrific art? Well Masamune Shirow brought back the "terrific art" part for Man Machine Interface but he forgot to write a story worth reading. The plot, or whatever it was, was buried under a huge pile of meaningless techno-babble drivel. I mean, maybe a hardcore cyberpunk fanatic can get into this stuff, but an ordinary otaku like me could not understand it at all. And I read Marcel Proust in my spare time, for God's sake, so it's not like I have poor reading comprehension. A year after reading this pile of crap, I cannot bring myself to remember a single plot detail or scene from this book. It's completely forgettable. I tried selling it on ebay and couldn't even sell it for a lousy 3 bucks! I guess other people have realized how bad this stinker is.
It's a perfect example of all style and no substance!
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