I just watched Ghost in the Shell for the first time. Talk about Shadowrunish.

I know, I'm a little behind. Is it a series?

What is the difference between anime and manga if there is one?

Manga is written (books, comics, etc), anime is animated (movies, TV, etc.).

There is a GitS series. I've only ever seen the movie, though.

Manga, anime...its all Japanese to me:)

Fixed. I irked my friend (who knows Japanese) when we were in Japan last week when I kept saying all the characters and symbols was all Greek to me.

Ok, what do you want to know about the Ghost in the Shell franchise?

The author, Shirow, first made the Ghost in the Shell manga. Let's call this the first universe, he has since also came out with two more manga sequels. All of which you can get from Dark Horse.

Then came the movie. They made a sequel to that movie also. Let's call this the second universe. They also came out with a novel for this universe which you can pick up at amazon, it's focused on Batou and takes place between the movies.

The television series has two seasons and a sequel movie that takes place ~5 years after the second season. The writers for the series has also came out with 2 novels that takes place between the seasons I think, well during the series, etc. This is the third universe.

When you read the manga you can see some plots/scenarios that are used in the tv series. Overall, the manga is okay, it kinda gets wonky in the second book, the third book is interesting since they focus a lot on the rest of the unit with the Major popping in and helping out but at least the others get more facetime. The movies, well, they're okay, but the second one was a bit much at times. The tv series and subsequents stuff I like the most, it also pulls a lot of stuff from the manga and repackages it in a better way in my opinion. One example was the sniper standoff from the movie, that was in the third manga book, it was interesting and folded into an intriguing plot of the movie.

watch the series . . both of them actually . . the tachikomas are just too good to pass ^^
they get a real personality instesd of just being a legged tank O.o
and yes, it is that damn good! ^^
Anime= animated pictures/cartoon series . .
manga=drawing book or coloured pictures in an older analogous form of data-storage called paper-sheets in book form *g*

I've never understood why the line developers didn't make SR4's art direction lean more toward anime. SR4 _is_ Ghost in the Shell, with magic. Totally anime. I saw GitS only a couple years ago myself and was blown away at how well it and SR gelled, especially SR4 with the wireless matrix/AR/cranial cyber/etc.

GitS is really a must-see for all SR players in the post-cyberpunk era.

I like Shirow and I've read Japanese comics for years but the manga GitS 2.0 completely lost me even after three readings. Pretty art and plenty of fan service shots but... man alive! It was nonsensical! GitS 1.5 was readable but you could see how Shirow was starting to go completely metaphysical with his cyberpunk. Personally I found Appleseed and Tank Police a lot more accessible as a Westerner.

I liked how the animation team on SAC pulled bits from the first manga that weren't in the first film and spliced them into the TV series. The second feature film rocked the house. I haven't seen the SAC movie though I own seasons 1 and 2 on DVD.

When I ran CP2020 campaign years ago I made at least watching first movie a must to help get the point of "cyberpunk" across. Works almost as well with shadowrun, except for the awakening.

Did'nt like second movie as much but still a must see if you like GitS, both tv series still play on animondays scifi and sometimes on cartoon networks adult swim night time lineup.

Appleseed good just with some big full borgs, tank police was a riot, seen most of those episodes on cinimax years ago...giant inflatable dildo roadblocks priceless.

The first Appleseed movie from the late 80s/early 90s was horrid. Stay away. The two newer cell-shaded CGI movies are a vast improvement and they bring the boom-boom but they only utilize the visual trappings of Shirow without any of the emotional or philosophical depth.

the first two films are kind of arty. the 2 TV serries and 3rd movie should be required viewing for SR

the second GITS Movie(Innocence) was shit . . that was mostly to show pretty graphics and oh how dep philosophical dilemma we have in the world . . not enough real story, not enough action . . and it was too damn windows vista compared to windows 2000 . .
the new Appleseed movie was too bubbly and bright too . .
Bubble Gum Crysis would be good for Shadowrun

people complained that with year of the comet, and especially the surge effects introduced there, the game have turned to much towards anime.

mostly it seems to boil down to the interview with a girl that had surged into a feline hybrid, and was using that to get ahead in the world as a exotic dancer or something.

basically, there was a very vocal minority around sr2/3 that viewed anime as the plague of sr...

me, i dont mind. there are good anime and there are bad anime, just like anything else of entertainment out there.

trying to watch full metal panic right now, and i dread the out-of-combat social moments. give the guy a break damn it! still, its the first series where a guy have crashed into the girls locker room without going into a state of panic

and he did not get beaten up? O.o
intriguing o.O
try watching pani poni dash . . it will give you diabeetus with the intro alone x.x . .

well, there was a whole lot of flying objects aimed at the door, but he just stood there while it happened. no panic, no bleeding nose, nothing. but then he approach everything as if its a military op...

Static art (SR4 illustrations) vs. cultural animation style (anime) is an apples and oranges argument. If you're asking why the SR4 developers didn't push for manga-esque art...? It would be too big a shift for most (Western) players to accept.

the artwork of SR is good as it is . . fugly as hell for the most part, but fitting for the game *g*

What RPG doesn't have its share of bad art? There was some real shit around the time of 3rd ed. (Rigger 3 I'm looking right at you!) but overall it's been consistently professional looking, especially recently.

To date, I've only seen one image in a SR book that I haven't liked: the picture of someone rappelling down a monowire on BBB p.313. Where is her face and what is strapped to it? Aside from that one detail, I like the style of nearly all the images. They're not MoMA material, but they convey what they need to, and that's what pictures in a roleplaying rulebook are supposed to do.

Bwah? Is that the only page you've looked at in the only SR book you've ever seen? Its worse than pg 112 or 136? No accounting for taste, I suppose.

Gas mask, if I recall.

Damn ravers.


Shirow's manga (Appleseed and GITS) are good, both for high tech shadowrunning flavor and for that elite strike team feel. Dominion Tank Police is one of my favorite animes, showing that distopias don't have to be depressing. Plus, it has android catgirl strippers!

Bubblegum Crisis is great, but the Knight Sabers are on a whole different level than shadowrunners. Shadowrunners are the pawns of the megacorporations - the Knight Sabers keep them in line. When an executive (Mason) goes after them, they respond by fighting their way to the rooftop of the office building and killing him, then signing the crime scene.

Despite being futuristic sci-fi, Cowboy Beebop, to me, really captures a shadowrunning feel - crew of hard bitten misfits doing shady jobs, seedy locations and colorful characters, etc.

on the topic of shirow:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_Drive

I have always felt that Black Lagoon is the Shadowrun of anime. Granted the cyber is missing, but the mood, theme, and characters are Shadowrun.

Totally, yes ... I know two separate SE Asia pirate campaigns inspired by the show. I also have a number of Episodes converted into SR adventures (my fave being a slightly twisted Rückkehr des Adlers episode).

GitS SAC is definitly SR4 according to Unwired. GitS movie 1 is slightly more 80s, lacking Motoko's apparently totally superior wifi hacking moments, and going for a mich grittier look in general. GitS movie 2 is ... 2001, a space oddyssey, part 3. Honestly. That's about how accessible it is to me. Prettier pictures, it doesn't torture you to death by moving at a snail's pace, but it's so highly esotheric, it makes the final NGE episodes feel down to earth in comparison.

SAC is a good watch in terms of SR feel, though. Transports the shirowesque esotheric cyber philosophy while not being totally out of this world. I like 2nd Gig better than the first episode, though. Have yet to get me SSS. Lots of artistic inspiration from GitS SAC went into SR4 art, though; like the AR windows' shape in most art (the few rectangular ones look like straight out of Ergo Proxy, by the way).

Appleseed, the newer movies, are nice and fun and much more easily accessible to the western viewer, but are also much more SciFi than cyberpunk. The old one is a but dull, though not the total crap as some make it out to be, if you ask me.

Personally, I find Ergo Proxy's early episodes almost as much SR4, purely by look and design, as GitS SAC 1 and 2.

100% agreed, Starglyte. I just wanted to mention Black Lagoon myself. Of course, it has no magic, no cyber, no trolls, elves, etc. - but the whole mood is really Shadowrun... I really felt the wish to start a southeast asia campaign after watching the anime...

They both draw heavy influence from the Cyberpunk genre of fiction, so it is no great surprise that there are similarities.

Both had their initial publications in the same year, if I recall correctly (1989?).

GitS certainly adopted the "everything is wireless" concept much earlier, however.


-karma

Im in the process of creating a black lagoon inspired mini campaign, wich will resemple the episodes quite close since none of my players have watched any episodes of black lagoon.. =)

Oh, come on. He shot a smiley face into the target. That's hilarious. You've got me on 136, though. That's just terrible. I suppose I can only plead "bland palette" for that sort of thing. It was a simple "guy being shot at and shooting back" image that I didn't pay any mind to. I was paying more attention to the eight page references (between nine paragraphs, plus flipping back to check the difference between Action Phases and Initiative Passes) in the text to really notice how badly the gunfire was represented. (Seriously, what are those shiny bolts on the left supposed to be?) Since I've never had to refer back to that page, I've only seen that image three times ever, including checking it just now.

I haven't even seen Black Lagoon yet but you are right,Black Lagoon is very Shadowrun. also Funimation is release the first season in a boxed set as well as the first volume of the second season on the 19th of next month so thats something I plan to pick up.

on the topic of ergo proxy, texhnolyze:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texhnolyze

Never really thought the GitS series was anything special, something has to make sense to be "deep" as far as I care - and it doesn't even compare to Battle Angel Alita - but SAC is quite fun once you ignore the more obvious plotholes and problems (like the schizophrenic oscillations of cyborg strength and weight).
Battle Angel may be more dystopian and futuristic, (way past SR power levels, so not very SRish - although Last Order has psuedo-magical biological abilities) but it's also way more consistent - though far more important is that Alita would rip Kusanagi apart in a fight

Anyway, enough Battle Angel advertising - if you like your SR dark as sin there's Mnemosyne. It starts in 1998 IIRC but as the plot centers on an immortal a decade or more passes between each episode the later ones have very SRish technology - DNI (or at least 'trodes), VR addicts, AI, augmetics and so on. Incidentally, now that I'm reminded of it - a friend of mine has lots of piercings, I may make him watch episode one...

Yuo want dark, try Gunslinger Girl, an italian security agency turns young girls into CZ's. The more cyber they get the less memory they have, the less human they are.

Eh, I like Ghost in the Shell better, but if one likes watching a prebuscent looking character having over the top power levels that munchkins love in an over the top unrealistic dystopian future then yeah battle angel should be suffice. What I really enjoy about the series is the rest of the team and how they work together and the level technology being somewhat within our near-future.

Gunslinger Girl, ugh, yeah, that's a dark one, I couldn't finish watching the series. I did hear that a second series is coming out.

Great series but yea, GSG is pretty dark and I have mixed feelings about it. One moment I feel sorry for the girls for what the Social welfare agency is doing to them the next I'm cheering them on as they storm a terrorist safe house.

Am I going to have to be the one to mention Dennou Coil?

Seriously; AR, hackers and pseudo-technomancers. It also contains kid hacker gangs and AR pranks.



What are you talking about? There is no second season of Gunslinger Girl!



Sort of it's intention; GSG is not meant to be a series of clear right and wrong. Even the political dissidents that they're facing have valid and sympathetic concerns, as they're taken from real life.

GSG is meant to draw forth complex reactions because it's an exploration of the subject instead of a statement on it. It's intended for an adult audience instead of kids, just as Lain is a more adult series.

My favorite example of adepts comes from Tenjho Tenge, a manga / anime series drawn by Oh!Great!

You've got normal adepts, mystic adepts, a kickass example of a weapon focus (Reiki, the cursed no-daichi) and maybe a shaman or two, plus a little cyberware tacked in. Stick with the manga because the anime really goes nowhere and because the manga is just...well, beautiful is the word that I would use, but YMMV. If you're willing to do a little digging, find the original Japanese scans translated by fans - the first ten or so volumes of the domestic released stuff got censored heavily (but then, what do you expect when it was created by a porn artist?). It's violent, bloody, a little risque, but even the backstory is sufficiently shadow-y for your favorite runners.

And if you're interested in street culture mixed with pro wrestling, check out his other series released here in the States: Air Gear.

...here you go, found the fight from the first episode for Tenjho.

I might be mistaken, but I thought that Gunslinger Girl -Il Teatrinowas was the second anime of gunslinger girl to be made.

Suprised Silent Mobius was not mentioned yet.

Sure, go ahead and mention dennou coil, it's been talked about before around these parts.
http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?show...p=0&#entry0

Oh, as for your gunslinger girl argument... please take a look around first and research before you fire off the hip. Unless they're smoking the same hard stuff I am, there will be another one, in fact it came out already in Japan this year.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Gunsl...trino-_episodes
http://funimation.com/gunslingergirl2/ where funimation says it will release to the US market for 2009.

Oh I understand that,thats what makes both the anime and the original manga so great instead of things being black and white you got conflicting groups who believe their in the right and have a "the ends justify the means" attitude. Also as other have stated there is indeed a second season coming out, as a single boxed set with all 13 episodes.

I don't think you understand. There is no second season of Gunslinger Girl! NONE! Begone with claims of this "Il Teatrino", for it certainly has not been made and will never be made. Even if it did get produced it'd undoubtably be terrible, with horrible direction and a totally inappropriate high-saturation art style. Thank goodness it does not exist.

Hmmm... okay now I really don't care of what you think. Your previous statement before made you look like you were uninformed, but now it appears that you did but didn't care to enlighten us and made us all take the time to post and look it up to see that there was. Sheeesh. Guess what? It's a second season, accept it, or don't, I don't care, for everyone else, there's a second season coming out! And it's been made, already aired in Japan.

I don't think you're understanding what's going on here. There is no second season of Gunslinger Girl. Just like there are only three Star Wars movies (and Lucas never got around to digitally remastering them or anything, that would've been cool so long as he didn't change any actual plot elements), The X-Files was canceled after three seasons, and they never made a sequel to The Highlander, The Mask, The Neverending Story, or Jurassic Park. Come on, people, where do you get these silly ideas from?

OK I think I understand now, you like many people including my self don't like the new art style for the second season so your pretending that it doesn't exist. Me I'm still probably going to get it,I might find it too be not that bad plus I already have the first season so might as well get the whole series.

It wouldn't just be the art style; the basic quality of the series would be lower, the first episode would diverge from the manga events temporarily to include a stupid chase scene involving a moped and some pretty "meh" choices in actions and so on. These would be pretty much the nature of future direction decisions and the voices would horribly high pitched (need I mention how I thoroughly loathe the squeeky trend in female voice acting?) for the girls. On the other hand, the opening music would probably be pretty nice.

Not to mention that they would almost certainly cut some extremely nice dialogue that epitomises the views of the staff of the PWC towards the girls from the second episode.

Thankfully it doesn't exist.

Just don't tell me that the Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy and Santa aren't real either.

Oh, they're real. Santa was put on a bus when he asked for some time off to see his wife. The Easter Bunny was in a tragic car accident shortly after getting braces. The Tooth Fairy mysteriously disappeared years ago, but we're searching high and low.

C.O.P.S.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=6KmGtW6kQt8
nuff' said!

ah, 80's cartoons. if its not over the top, its not fun to watch

yeah, good stuff . . silverhawks, robocop, thundercats, saber rider, galaxy rangers, mask, marshall bravestar, transformers . . i miss those shows . . ok, i got some of them on DVD, but not all of them sadly <.< . .

iirc, saber rider was a anime that got the "robotech" treatment...