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Before we begin our foray into Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex - The Laughing Man, you need to know something very important:  I love Ghost in the Shell. I own all the movies, each season of the anime, multiple editions of each volume of the manga, art books, wall scrolls, figures, the whole shebang.  I could literally go on for pages and pages about it.  No other series has captivated my mind like the many adventures of Section 9.  When I heard they were releasing a new title based on the story from the first season of the anime series, I because extremely excited.  I knew going in it was merely a re-edit of something I had already watched dozens of times, but I was still excited.

Now I am extremely disappointed. 

I didn’t start out extremely disappointed, merely very confused.  I had heard that they had redubbed the dialog for this release, and that they had been forced to recast the voice actors.  I dismissed it, so some of the original American cast had been busy: not a real problem if some of the minor characters have a new take on the dialog.  It might even give me a better understanding of the story!  About fifteen minutes into my viewing I realize that every character, from the entire Section 9 team to the minor one-line passerby, has been redubbed.  Not only have they been redubbed, but they have been redubbed badly.  It seems that the only qualifier for the new voice actors was could they sound somewhat like the old ones.  Most of the dialog, even the parts I felt where a little clunky in the original series, has been redubbed verbatim by a cast that doesn’t have the abilities of the old ones.  I’m confused because I don’t understand why.  I understand that the dialog needed to be changed in places, but why redo the whole thing?  There are characters that have been re-recorded that have three lines in total, was it cheaper to redub these line than to pay the old actor’s royalties?  That seems to be the only logical option, but even then it doesn’t seem to add up.

I moved from confusion almost seamlessly to disappointment.  The voice cast has been changed, but I can deal.  So the voices aren’t the iconic ones I’ve known for so long, the story should still be top shelf!  Then they started editing things.  When you try to trim down a twenty-sex episode series into a movie, cuts will be made, side stories will be forgotten, and things will be edited for time.  So much has been cut from The Laughing Man that I struggled to keep up, despite already knowing the story by heart.  Too much has been trimmed, in one seen we see Section 9 take on the task of tracking down the Laughing Man, in the very next scene we see the Major take herself off the case in order to do something else.  Another scene has the Major claiming she going to “shake up” the local government officials, the next scene has the officials holding a press conference, with no mention as to how they were “shook up.”

It is a distinct possibility that I am not the target audience for this release.  After all, someone who isn’t as familiar with the story as I am might not notice the changes in flow or the alterations made to the story.  They might not notice the new voices, or the altered soundtrack.  However, if the release isn’t for the hardcore fan, than who is it for?  For people new to the series but not wanting to take the plunge and by an entire season, the recent movie Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex – Solid State Society is a much better viewing experience, despite taking place after both season of the series.  To put it bluntly, no one should buy this release.  Fans are going to be disappointed at the edits and changes, and new viewers would be better off either picking up the first season on which this film is based on, or trying the afore mentioned movie: because those are actually fun to watch.

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