I started reading the Ghost in The Shell Man-Machine Interface manga I bought last week on my big Melbourne shopping spree. It’s set years after the events of the original story and we now have a new, equally cyberized heroine, Motoko Aramaki. It’s early days yet in my reading, but as she’s described as ‘a fusion of multiple entities’ it looks like she may have elements of the Puppet Master from the first story and Kusanagi herself within her. She’s working for a multinational called Poseidon (Appleseed, anyone?) and has acquired some goofy-looking servants who look like motorised pigs. I’m guessing they’ll stand in as comic relief for the Tachikomas from the original, which is a pity – I loved those guys. The art is amazing, in a combination of colour and black and white, but maybe Masamune-San has gone overboard with the fan service. Flicking through the manga, Motoko is virtually naked much of the time. There are some pretty deep concepts here, which I’m looking forward to exploring, along with the usual visceral action set pieces. I don’t know why it hasn’t had an anime adaptation yet, but I hope they do one.
I read a bit more of my Ghost In the Shell: Man-Machine Interface manga. Gotta say, it’s becoming a bit of a hot mess. I just read chapter three, where Motoko uses a clone called Clarise to hack an operator, and it goes on and on with so much technical jargon in a cyberspace that looks cluttered and ugly. I just wanted to know what information the operator had that was so important, but it took so long. I still like it – it’s Ghost – but so far all I’ve seen is semi-porn visuals and wilful obscurity in the narrative. I hope it gets better but, at this stage, I see why it hasn’t been made into an anime.
I finished the Ghost In the Shell: Man-Machine Interface manga. I liked the sequence where Motoko infiltrates a mega computer, while outwitting some cops she flirts with. And the addition of Kusanagi then Batou joining Aramaki near the end was a surprise, but maybe too little too late. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to unravel that damn plot. Occasionally Masamune adds some commentary to the chaos, but it doesn’t help. The illustrations were sometimes beautiful, but cyberspace still looks ugly to me as rendered by Masamune-san. Then there’s the thorny issue of naked Motoko EVERYWHERE, striking gratuitous poses that are downright pornographic. All in all, I’ll repeat what I said earlier about this: a hot mess.