Nut Ink. Mini reviews of texts old and new. No fuss. No plot spoilers. No adverts. Occasional competency.

Sunday, June 10, 2012

Ghost in the Shell : Stand Alone Complex : Episode 003 : Idolater (2012)

Author: Yu Kinutani | Page Count: 208

This is a pain in the ass!  Why not do a ghost hack and find out for sure?

Books 001 and 002 of the manga were episodes one and two of the anime, respectively. I'd expected that to continue and 003 to be a retelling of episode three, but it isn't. Instead it’s a retelling of episode seven. For those of you that watched the anime it's the episode with Marcelo Jarti.

Marcelo Jarti the Jenoma revolutionary leader, drug dealer and one of the most wanted men in the world is in Japan. He’s been visiting periodically for a number of years. Section 9 want to find out why and if he poses a threat, so the Major and her team tail him and discover something very unexpected, forcing them to make a difficult decision.

Yu has been drawing the Major for so long that she and the rest of the team are represented perfectly. The lines are drawn with almost machinelike precision. If being too perfect can be considered a criticism then it qualifies.

I have a few other problems with this one. The story isn't as well suited to the manga form as the previous two volumes. There's a lot of action that gives rise to an excessive use of speed lines that get irritating after a while. It gives Jarti a new scene but overall suffers from not having enough dialogue throughout.

2½ jumping out of windows is fun out of 5

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