Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex - The Laughing Man
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Movie Reviews of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex - The Laughing Man
Movie Review: Nothing new
Summary: 1 Stars
I was disappointed to find that this was every episode that had anything to do with the laughing man plot from season one spliced together and nothing more. So if you own season 1 save your money
However if you are new to the series and want to save some cash vs buying season 1 this is a cheap alternative to get the 1 major focal point of the complete 1st season without any diversions or sub plots.
The rating is because i got ripped off buying a watered down version of what I already had. However Id rate the 1st season 4 stars.
Great voice acting if you like dubs vs subs
Amazing animation- picture perfect
Contagious story line
Either version Id reccomend picking it up... just once though.
Movie Review: J.D. Salinger is big in Japan
Summary: 5 Stars
"Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex" is one of the greatest anime series of all time. Like the two impossibly cool Mamoru Oshii movies that preceded it (the first of which was the main inspiration for "The Matrix" trilogy), it's based on the fantastic manga series written and drawn by Masamune Shirow. This movie, "The Laughing Man", is actually a distillation of the first season of the show, condensing the main story arc into a coherent feature-length movie.
Every facet of this production is first-class. It's beautiful, exciting and very thought-provoking. There's political drama, gun-fights, fist-fights, sexy cyborgs, awesome music by Yoko Kanno, and my favorite book "The Catcher in the Rye" features prominently in it as well.
Watch this movie and I guarantee you'll want to buy the whole season. While you're at it check out the second season, "GITS: SAC 2nd Gig", which is actually even better, and was also condensed into an excellent movie called "The Individual Eleven".
Movie Review: Pass on it, get the episodes instead
Summary: 1 Stars
To paraphrase another movie, this is not the DVD you are looking for.
The series was edited and basically slaughtered to make the Laughing Man "movie." The editing leaves out too much of the original Laughing Man episodes, and makes the story very choppy. The voice actors are not from the original cast, and their performance and dub-in is not good.
I bought this 2 DVD set because I thought that it would be neat to see the whole Laughing Man story arc as one complete movie. Unfortunately, the editing leaves out too much of the story line, and the voice acting is not good. I couldn't watch it at all with the English soundtrack, and I had to switch to the Japanese and subtitles.
Movie Review: You may already own this
Summary: 2 Stars
If you are a fan of Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex, and you already own some of the DVDs from the series, DO NOT BUY THIS DVD!
I bought The Laughing Man and as I was watching it, I kept thinking, "I've seen this before. I've seen this before too. Wait a second. I've seen ALL of this before!"
If you own any of the DVDs from this series, you already own The Laughing Man because this "new" DVD is nothing but a compilation of all of the previously released Stand Alone Complex programs. All they did was blend them together into a feature-length DVD. You do get a few changes in dialog and a totally new (and not nearly as good) voice-over crew, but otherwise you get nothing new here. The only good thing about this special version is the DTS sound. A step up from the other DVDs.
If you have never seen the series before, this would be a great introduction to the series. Otherwise, save your money.
Movie Review: Still a good buy, but original voices would have made it worlds better
Summary: 4 Stars
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex is one of the highest quality anime series of the past few years, and to an extent "The Laughing Man" lives up to this quality. This DVD isn't really a must buy, as all of the material (except for one Tachikoma Days short and one interview) is taken directly from the first season. Thus the animation quality is just as good as the television series, and as such is a joy to watch. The laughing man story arc of the first season is well modified to fit into feature length movie structure, with segments of some of the stand-alone episodes still present to provide introduction and characterization. Although the plot is harder to follow in this format then it was as a television series, it is still rich and complex.
So far, so good. The place where it doesn't live up to my expectations is the voice acting. I went in expecting the tried-and-true cast from the television series, but instead it sounds like a bunch of cheap knockoffs. Most of them aren't bad, per se, but they all leave a lot to be desired. The Major's voice actor doesn't have the intensity that the television series voice actor had, and the movie suffers for it. The Movie voice actor for Batou is also a factor that detracted from my enjoyment, as the television series voice actor was made for that role. Any substitute can't live up.
Overall a good addition to the Stand Alone Complex series, but if only the voice actors from the television series had returned this film could have been a great deal more enjoyable for me.
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