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Ghost in the Shell: Laughing Man
The Movie:
Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex Laughing Man is, like Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex Individual Eleven, a feature movie version made out of episodes of the Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex television series. More specifically, Laughing Man's content has been culled from the first half of the first season of the show, whittled down in this format to roughly three hours in length with some new animation done to clean up certain aspects of the storytelling and to help smooth would have otherwise been a fairly choppy flow.
The story is set in the Japan of 2030 where, six years ago, a mysterious criminal known only as The Laughing Man was responsible for a rash of cyber attacks against many of the country's leading nanotechnology companies. He disappeared without a trace and the authorities never caught him, nor did they even have any legitimately worthy suspects. In the meantime, some new evidence has made its way to Japan's anti-terrorism task force, Section 9, lead by Major Motoko Kusanagi, who, for those who haven't followed the series, is basically a human brain inside a cybernetic body. Motoko and her team set out to find out the truth behind The Laughing Man and bring him in before he can strike again, but they soon find out that they're up against one of the most brilliant hackers on the planet, one who has the ability to hack into the eyes of the operatives who have had cybernetic adjustments made to them, operatives like Motoko herself.
Like pretty much all of the stories that have been told in the Ghost In The Shell universe so far, Laughing Man takes a fairly highbrow approach to what is essentially a sci-fi cop story. Section 9 are tasked with bringing in the bad guy to save the day, just like so many other stories, but here director Kenji Kamiyama shows no fear in exploring more interesting themes and ideas than just standard good buy versus bad guy police procedures. With Motoko herself being more machine than human in many ways, it's interesting how the storyline plays with her fear that she's losing her humanity all the while the antagonist of the storyline is exploiting the weaknesses of cybernetic amendments which should have, in theory at least, been improvements. Again, the story gets a bit political at times, what with The Laughing Man's initial batch of targets being big corporations with strong ties to the government itself, and with the Section 9 operatives being put into a bit of a conundrum in regards to how far they can stretch the law to do their job.
Those who have seen any of the Ghost In The Shell films that came out before this storyline will know what to expect in terms of visuals. Smooth and fluid lines bring to life an animated world that was obviously very influenced by films like Blade Runner and the dystopia seen in the science fiction of Philip K. Dick and Aldous Huxley, but while those influences are clear this is very much its own unique work. There's plenty of detail in the character designs and in the various backgrounds and settings that have been whipped up for the feature to keep your eyes busy, and enough action and sex appeal to cater to your id. This is, by and large, however a cerebral mind twisting story, the kind that makes you think, that demands you pay attention to get the most out of it and that layers conspiracy theories and interesting plotlines over top of each other to make for a dense, layered film, and quite a rewarding one at that. The film isn't perfect, as there are aspects of it that are just a bit too choppy and that don't fill in as many of the subplots as the serialized version did in the Stand Alone Complex series. This does hurt things here and there, but thankfully this is an infrequent issue and overall, Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex Laughing Man is another worthy addition to the Ghost In The Shelllegacy.
The Blu-ray Video:
The AVC encoded 1.78.1 1080i high definition transfer for Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex Laughing Man looks pretty good on this BD50 disc. The transfer can only bring out the detail that is in the original animation and so this doesn't offer quite the same level as some more recent anime offerings but those who have seen the title before on DVD should be pleased with the improvement in picture quality here. Lines are well defined, there are no problems with anything but the slightest of shimmering while there are no issues at all with print damage, dirt or debris. Colors are bold and crisp while black levels remain fairly strong from start to finish. The 1080i factor will probably irritate some but there weren't any obvious interlacing issues noticed during playback.
Sound:Audio options are provided in English and Japanese in Dolby TrueHD 5.1 with subtitles provided in English. This isn't the most bombastic mix that will ever grace your surround sound system but it generally sounds pretty good. More surround usage could have come into play during the action scenes but there is enough rear channel action throughout that you'll notice if. Bass response is strong and the score in particular sounds quite good here. Levels are well balanced, there are no problems with hiss or distortion to complain about, and all in all if this isn't a reference quality mix it still sounds pretty good.
Extras:All of the extras from the DVD release of Laughing Man have been carried over to this Blu-ray release, but don't expect to see anything new. The Stand Alone Complex Archive featurette is a thirty-two minute that features interviews with some of the people who made the feature and which gives some welcome background information on the project and how it came to be. Also found on the disc is a short bit called Tachikomatic Days, another comedic short animated movie ininvolving the robots from the feature. A few trailers, animated menus and chapter stops are also included, as are credits for the Blu-ray disc and alternate English end credits for movie.
Final Thoughts:Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex Laughing Man isn't the best of the Stand Alone Complex material and in this re-edited form it feels a bit choppy and incomplete - but even in this film, it's still pretty intense stuff. There's certainly more than enough about it that works that fans and collectors will no doubt want to add it to their collection. Hopefully Bandai and Manga will work together and release the series version on Blu-ray sooner or later, until then this release comes recommended.
Ian lives in NYC with his wife where he writes for DVD Talk, runs Rock! Shock! Pop!. He likes NYC a lot, even if it is expensive and loud.
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