Josh Killcrop

While I truly love the world(s) of Ghost in the Shell in all of it's often fragmented forms, this one is a serious miss. First off, there the characters are suddenly all zany and cutesy on ever other page (and the use of chibi is cranked up to eleven as well), undercutting the more serious stories that the other iterations of Ghost in the Shell tell. This feels like they decided to write this with 13 year olds in mind. Also, a psychic character? Who does a lame incantation before psychically reading the memories dead cybernetics? That is incredibly out of place, and really is only the second most annoying thing about that new character (though I assume that maybe is supposed to link to the similar character in Man Machine Interface, which was, story-wise, that series' weakest link). Also the art direction is all over the place. This series is billed as a continuation of Shirow Massamune's collection of stories from Ghost in the Shell 1.5, so one would expect that the artist would take the original source material as a starting point. I am fine with them going from there and doing their own spin on things, but we have: -Motoko drawn to look like the Hollywood/Scarlett Johansson version. -Togusa is almost unrecognizable as they drew him to look like an effeminate teen heartthrob character. -Batou at least looks more or less like himself (the hair feels a bit off, but hey, people change up their hair, it's a thing). The story-line itself is...okay. There are intriguing factors, and I do still want to see how things play out, but that said...it still somehow feels like familiar territory. I'm not as invested in this story as I could be, because it kinda just feels like a b-plot from Stand Alone Complex, without some of the more creative, tap-dancing-on-the-tables bravado of the original series that it is supposed to be a continuation of. I would only recommend this to either those who know nothing of the franchise and just are looking for some sci-fi fluff or those who REALLY know the franchise and will be able to eke out a little something out of it.