Paprika

Ghost Stories

English Dub

Lupin the Third: Mine Fujiko to Iu Onna

Gunslinger Girls

Princess Resurection

Type: Manga

Status: Ongoing

Premise: The royal family of demons is in a state of civil war among itself, each of the heirs are wagging a bloody war to determine the next successor to their realm. Hiro Hiyorimi is killed in a freak car accident but is resurrected as Hime's blood worrier, an undead bodyguard with amazing regenerative abilities that can continue living as long as it periodically receives blood from its master from the royal family. Now Hiro, Hime and her personal ndroid attendant Flandra must survive the the attacks of Hime's siblings with the help of several retainers they recruit along the way.

Notes: Vary much influenced by the classic monster movie genre we follow along with the main charters as they investigate things like fish men and ghost stories. The plot slowly advanced independently of the episodic style of the manga giving this entire story an old fashioned feel.

Prose: Several interesting characters a re born into this setting giving us a reason to root for them.

Cons: This manga starts off well enough but begins to drag as the issues wear on, and after a while there is virtually no plot development to speak of. Basically a decent concept ruined by a writer that doesn't want to let go.

-Notes: I have read up to chapter 63 before giving up on this one.

6.5/10          (I like the support staff better than the main character....)

Ghost In The Shell

Type: Anime & Movie
Status: Complete (52 episodes + movie)

Premise: In a distant future robotics has outstripped medicine and it is now possible to replace any part of the human body with a mechanical prosthetics which is stronger and more durable dramatically increasing both physical and mental capabilities. In this era of advanced computers and android bodies cyber-crime has flourished and cyber-terrorism has become the name of the game. To combat this new breed of law breakers a special unit of police has been established to fight against the hackers at their own game, they are called Section 9.

Thoughts: This anime is thought provoking which is what attracted me to it in the first place, it presents us with a vary possible future scenario where humanity must re-evaluate what being human entails and at what point does "the ghost in the machine" stop being valid. It poses us the question "If every part of your body is now a machine, from your feet to your face, even your memories are now digitized into your new cyber-brain, are you still human? Knowing that your consciousness is now just a compilation of 1's an 0's how do you know that what you remember is your own memory at all and not something added in later? (or even that it wasn't a copy to begin with?)"

Prose: Beautifully animated and voice acted, along with dynamic action and strong character development. A pleasure to watch.

Cons: The main plot is sluggish to develop in both seasons, each episode is its own mini mystery with overtones relating to the season wide plot but it does become frustrating at times when there is little advancement over an entire episode. You should watch every episode closely to gather clues and hazard guesses for the final episodes but it takes time.

-Notes: "Ghost in the machine" refers to philosophical argument over the presence of a soul over a purely biochemical life form. In short are human beings merely highly complex biological machines going about their preassigned routines based off of preprogrammed instructions, or is there a "spark of life" a soul which governs our self awareness and individual personalities?

8/10          (The ghosts that haunt us all)