This is the book that, in my opinion, closed down cyberpunk as a literary current, in 1991. It is what the matrix tried to become, a meld of style, futurism and religious take on that basic cyberpunk question, what it means to be human.

It is a very dense book, difficult to follow and with lots of subtext and unreliable narrators. It is also incredibly well drawn and laid out. It is self contained, which is also rare on this genre.

It still feels fresh and up to date, which just pays homage to its More...

GiTS, the story of an anti-terrorist group of men and cyborgs, as they prevent cyber crimes. And this is not even the tip of the iceberg. GiTS stands as most likely the best in overall and most influential cyberpunk work in manga and it is still a concept that was never surpassed in detail and attention by any other. Seriously, the Matrix trilogy looks like elementary school before it. Here is a list of all the awesome things you can find in this manga.

1) Great artwork and cinematics. Masamune S More...

Cyberpunk, the Matrix, virtual worlds, science fiction at the fin de siècle (this past siècle). The themes that this book hit in particular are that regarding the boundary between artificial life and natural life. At what level of robotic sophistication does something become alive? How much of a human being can you alter or remove and still be left with a human being? Hence the title. regarding "ghosts" and "shells." I think the book is at its strongest when simply presenting its futuristic worl More...

Oh where do I start, hang on a minute here as I will just ask my ghost for some advice........

I'm back! well I guess like a lot of people I first came across Ghost in the Shell when I was watching the DVD's, the films are master pieces and the series is definitely a stand alone in a sea of predictability the Ghost in the Shell stands out for its sheer plots and its absolutley first class story telling. the graphic novel is equally illuminating even though it covers the same stories as the serial More...

Ghost in the Shell is more of an accumulation of stories printed over several years instead of a deftly plotted piece, so it reads more like an anthology than a series.
In the future, "highly information-intensive, with a vast corporate network covering the planet, electrons and light pulsing through it." People can change some or most of their bodies parts into machine, becoming cyborgs and can access the vast network of information via implants. The big problem this world is having is the blu More...

hideちゃんが担当した音楽をサントラにしていたことから興味を持って、読みました。
セクシーなヒロインが主役で、一見エッチな漫画みたいな印象ですが、内容はかなり奥深くて面白かったです。
映画は『攻殻機動隊』と『イノセンス』と両方観ていたんですけど、映画の重苦しい（あれはあれで好き）内容とは違い、かなり軽快なテンポで、個人的にはこっちの素子の方が好き。

彼氏とのエピソード「08」と、人形使いのエピソード「09-11」が特にお気に入りです。

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This turned out to be the one of the best comic books that I've ever read..
If you like SF, then this is a 'must read' kind.

I watched both movies "The Ghost in the Shell" and "Innocence", and also liked them somehow, but this comic is way more interesting More...

After being a fan of Ghost in the Shell through the television series Stand Alone Complex (SAC), I've been going back through the earlier stuff. I am saddened that I missed out on this as a teenager.

It was interesting to read the manga because it has more comic relief in it than any of the movies or the TV series. The characters have some significant differences, or show other traits that the "screen" versions of the characters don't show. Kusanagi has a love interest from Section 6, which I fou More...

I have to say that I’m honestly surprised. Not so much disappointed, just surprised.

GitS is probably one of the few anime/manga worlds which I hold in high personal regard. This isn’t to say that I’m championing it above others, it was just simply one of the very few that appealed to me as a teenager and lasted through the years as my whims and tastes solidified into what they are now.

I suppose my take on the manga was pretty much dependant on how I took each issue in. I instead read this strai More...

"Ghost in the Shell" is regarded, I believe, as a landmark work in manga, and there are some definite strengths here. Shirow creates a compelling futuristic world, peopled with androids, cyber communicators and other augmented humans.

For his story, he presents an anti-terrorism squad on a series of loosely linked jobs. The tension is real, as is the "realpolitik" of their barely sanctioned work. The art is excellent, with branching circuits and beautifully detailed cityscapes. "Ghost in the She More...

I love the entire GitS franchise, so I found it a little odd that of all it's works, I like Masamune-sama's least of all, and it was the inspiration for everything in the franchise. While there is some brilliant philosophizing sprinkled throughout the work, and his chara-designs are more sensual than those in the Oshii films (and more humorous), the plot is fragmented and difficult to follow at times, and there is a LOT more sexualizing of the Major and other female characters that reminds one l More...

"Como era de esperar pela série, bom worldbuilding, assim como exploração da condição humana relacionada com a tecnologia. Deficitária na criação de empatia entre o leitor e as personagens."

Comentei isto ao ler os primeiros capítulos e ao longo do volume pouco aconteceu que me tenha levado querer corrigir. Facto, a partir do capítulo 3 há um esforço mais acentuado para ligar o leitor às personagens, porém, não forte o suficiente.

Creio que os principais causadores deste distanciamento são os More...

I was completely confused from page one, I felt I had come in half-way through a hard sci-fi series. The Plot was all over the place and the characters were hard to keep up with.

The sexy-lesbian-android bit wasn't even a smutty little offshoot, it was just porn for porns sake and the artwork went from absolutly beautiful to something my little brother could draw. At one point Masamune actually writes 'After this, there's a scene where Mokoto takes over the driving and Togusa checks his gear and More...

I picked this up because of how much I enjoyed Akira and the Ghost in the Shell movie, and figured if I read the book it would make the movie a little easier to follow.

As good as the book was, certain parts of the book are pretty difficult to wrap around, like the movie adaptation.
That said there's an appendix at the end listing page numbers and explaining certain things on the associated page but I didn't notice it until after I'd finished the book. There are also notes in-between many of the p More...

Wow. Well, let me put it this way: It's almost entirely very dense philosophy and politics, broken up with the occasional blast of gunfire or flash of nudity. I hate to say it though... I probably like the movie a bit better. This just felt a bit too fragmented and episodic for its own good. Peril of the medium I suppose. Anyway, it's still pretty much required reading for cyberpunk enthusiasts, it also serves as a decent intro to information theory and philosophy of machinery/cybernetics if you More...

Glad to have finally sat down with this seminal cyberpunk. It’s challenging and excites me to give the sub-genre more of a chance, as being relatively ignorant of it, much of these ideas feel fresh. Several of its chapters are overwhelming, though, as Masamune seemed happy to write so much character exposition that rather than grasping what characters had to do, I was frequently swamped by characters and intel. Throw in any culture clash I might have and I was still only guessing I’d figured it More...

In 1995, Ghost in the Shell, a cyberpunk animated film directed by Mamoru Oshii, made its debut with critical acclaim for its revolutionary design (the fusion of traditional cel animation with computer graphic imagery), intelligent story, and a level of artistic expression that was unheard of in traditional Japanese anime and animation in general. Less than 10 years later, a sequel by the same director and a few television and OVA series (with the subtitle Stand Alone Complex) directed by anime More...

I don't know. Maybe I'm stupid. Maybe it's an issue with the translations. Maybe Masamune Shirow is just an incredibly obtuse writer. Either way, I found these books (along with Appleseed) a bit muddled and indecipherable. I repeatedly felt that the books were written as though Mr. Shirow automatically expected us to understand certain things that were not explained - almost as if one were required to see the thought processes that went into the writing - the constant, unexplained references to More...

I knew this series was somewhat legendary when I finally picked it up from the library. I had seen the TV series and movie 8 years earlier while waist deep in 20th century "continental" philosophy and enjoyed it. When I read the book, I nearly came to the conclusion that no matter how much I love reading about interesting theoretical or actual scientific developments and their social, philosophical, and environmental implications, the cyberpunk genre, or at least its representation in Ghost in t More...

I have to admit, while the vast majority of movies based on novels (both literary and graphic) often fall short of their muse, I think the movie for Ghost in the Shell surpassed the graphic novel. The graphic novel includes much silliness and off-hand comments that seriously detract from the mood of the story. That one negative aside, this is a very good story! I really love the depth provided to the fictional future technologies by the explanations.

My friend Ben got this for me from Japan as a gift. Mostly sci-fi or cyberpunk with a lot of detail built in. I've seen the movie and both seasons of the Stand Alone Complex series so it was interesting to see the foundation material here in this manga. This was more episodic that I thought it would be and I can see how the SAC series used some of those stories. Overall I enjoyed it and made me want to watch the movie and TV series again.

One on hand, I can certainly see what all the fuss was about. GitS is a beautifully realized cyber-reality world and many of the characters are wonderfully realized. On the other hand, the plot was a bit confused at times, a lot of the art was, in my view, sub-standard, and I really dislike the way manga artists draw women. Happy I read it, though, even if the medium (graphic novel) isn't my favorite.

Compared to the anime, the manga has weaker structure and zero protagonist motivation. It's also silly, handles exposition very poorly and exploits female sexuality in a way bordering on the childish. However, the world is solid and the ideas are all there. Reading the manga and watching the anime is a case study of how to distill something good into something extraordinary.

It's crazy to think that this book was done in the 90's. the detail to cybernetic theology and theory is something that science has only caught up to proving recently and Shirow has inserted it into smaller bases in a more compelling story. After finishing this collection, it's easy to see why Ghost in the Shell remained a relevant series for over two decades.

The intricate artwork alone warrants a recommendation, but I also enjoyed the complex, political plotlines revolving around betrayals, misinformation, maneuvering and plausible deniability. As a work of cyberpunk fiction, this is head & shoulders above other comics. The imagery is serious and almost technically precise when depicting action.

On the other hand, the story occasionally takes a back seat to adolescent fan service. When the characters express political opinions they are consistent More...

un classico del cyberpunk a fumetti. Il tratto di Shirow � versatile e potente, dolce e rude, dinamico e architettonico, mischia elementi con cura e grande abilit� quasi a produrre un fumetto "multimediale". Di contro � lambiccoso, cervellotico, spesso criptico, dannatamente complicato, ma rimane un capolavoro del fumetto giapponese.

Though I enjoyed the movie adaptation of this graphic novel, I found the story a bit difficult to follow at times. I can appreciate the science fiction elements in some graphic novels, but the science in the storyline here seemed to detract from how enjoyable the read was. I know this is a classic, but it just didn't do it for me.

I was torn about Ghost in the Shell - it has a lot of great action and art, and it's generally acknowledged as a classic, but it just wasn't a 4-star book for me. The problem, I think, is the way Masamune sometimes assumes the reader knows things that he's essentially made up. That tends to interfere with the philosophical aspects of the book, which is really the thing that's supposed to set it apart. Overall, definitely worth reading - but don't feel bad if it doesn't make sense in the end.

The manga felt a lot more like the Stand Alone Complex series than it does the movie. The art is quite different, as it doesn't take itself as seriously. It's full of short stories and they're a great read for science fiction fans. Heck, it's a must read just for how forward looking and genre defining this book is.