Koukaku Kidoutai: The Ghost in the Shell (The Ghost in the Shell)

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Alternative Titles

Japanese: 攻殻機動隊 THE GHOST IN THE SHELL

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Information

Type: Manga

Volumes: 1

Chapters: 11

Status: Finished

Published: Mar 1989 to Sep 1991

Genres: Sci-Fi

Themes: Psychological

Demographic: Seinen

Serialization: Young Magazine Kaizokuban

Authors: Shirow, Masamune (Story & Art)

Statistics

Score: 7.95¹ (scored by 13,914 s)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #882²

² based on the top manga page. Please note that 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #433

: 43,497

Favorites: 1,422

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Kodansha USA

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7.95

Ranked #882Popularity #433 43,497

Shirow, Masamune (Story & Art)

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Volumes: /1

Chapters: /11

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The Ghost in the Shell

Volume 1
€15.99

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Synopsis

The year is 2029. The world has endured four world wars and ushered in a new age of technological advancement that has largely transformed society as humanity knows it. Cybernetic enhancements, robotic AIs, and cyborgs have now become the norm in a world where humans are more machine than man. However, with this modern change, crime started evolving as well: hackers, corrupt officials, and other opportunists have found ways to sneak into innovative systems for their own personal agendas.

In Japan, where such crimes run rampant, the government establishes Section 9—a clandestine team of highly trained operatives—to counter these threats. Major Motoko Kusanagi, a woman of impenetrable caliber and bravado, leads Section 9 on its mission to tackle cyberterrorism and ensure that the nation's stability does not falter in the pace of the rapidly progressing future.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Background

Koukaku Kidoutai: The Ghost in the Shell was published in Japan as an English-Japanese bilingual edition by Kodansha on September 6, 2002. The series was released in English by Dark Horse Comics into eight comic issues from March 1, 1995, to October 1, 1995, and later into a single volume on December 1, 1995. An uncensored version was published on October 6, 2004. Kodansha Comics USA republished the censored version on October 13, 2009. It was also released in Brazilian Portuguese by Editora JBC in December 2016.

A video game based on the series was released on the PlayStation on July 17, 1997, developed by Exact and Production I.G. The manga was also adapted into a Western live-action film that premiered on March 31, 2017.

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Characters

Kusanagi, Motoko

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Batou

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Togusa

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Aramaki, Daisuke

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Project 2501

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Ishikawa

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Reviews

Sep 17, 2008

xMatronxMalicex

Recommended

I bought GitS over this last summer. I had already been such a huge fan of the movies and the series, I was eager to see where it all began. I had never read through a Shirow manga, with the exception of bits of Appleseed. When I got home, it was damn near 3 in the morning, and I still ended up getting to sleep at like 5.

Why?

Because this book is frickin amazing. I'm shocked at how few people have actually picked it up, given the near fanaticism the show inspired. One of the main reasons this might have happened is because there are some ... extremely graphic things that happen in the manga. Given that Shirow also dabbles in drawing hentai, I can expect this now, but I was a little unnerved when I first read it. Don't worry about it, because it only really lasts like 3 pages and if you read the massive amounts of extra information in the back it makes sense.

The art in this is beautiful and brutal at times. Shirow is an absolute master at creating realistic and detailed backgrounds. His city scapes and his mechanical designs seem as though they could actually work in real life. You can certainly tell that this was done in the early 90s though,if only because of some of the inking styles and color portions of this book practically scream it.

The characters, I'll it, aren't exactly as fleshed out as they become in the show. However, they did lay the groundwork. Togusa is still a father and husband, Batou is still the smart ass, and Motoko is still cold and efficient. One of the things that fans of the series will notice is a lack of Tachikomas. Their predecessors, the Fuchikomas are essentially the same thing, except with noticeably different mech designs.

The story is mostly random crimes and special ops that the Section 9 crew goes through, making this seem like a cop story first and foremost. Eventually it gets to the Puppeteer, and fans of the movies already know how that turns out. Some twists and turns in the story make it more enjoyable (at least to me) than the movie that was based off this, and some of the more sci-fi stuff does get explained in greater detail. Again, this is where that directory in the back comes in handy. Without reading it, this story will probably not make sense unless you're a scientist, military specialist, or an extremely well read religious practitioner.

My enjoyment of this manga is obvious, and overall I think that any fan of the series, movies, or scifi and cyberpunk in general should check it out.

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Dec 11, 2022

AzoreanEve

Mixed Feelings

I must say that my first interaction with the universe of GitS was the 1995 film. So when I first started reading this I was put off by how much of a different character the major was. The whole book is much more light-hearted than the film.

For the most part it is more of an episodic work. We start in-media-res and the feeling of that only really goes away at the end as we go through snippets of life in section 9 and in this sci-fi future. You don't really get to understand all the context, and there's some small (author or translator's?) notes explaining ...

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Sep 14, 2022

okapgaming

Not Recommended

Damn, I feel like I've read something else than people. This title is overrated af, it's basically the first GITS, this legendary BEST cyberpunk manga ever. No, it's not. It's just a 300 page compilation of 11 chapters with story like "oh, there's a new bad guy and we have to beat him cuz he bad!!". The very first pages of this manga really got me, it started from a nice action scene, but... at first sight I couldn't even tell what's going on in the s. Art in GITS is just... bad. It's not a "masterpiece art whatever" like everyone says. It's awfuly drawn ...

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