This past weekend at NYCC I had the very sincere pleasure of sitting in on the Ghost in the Shell: Global Neural Network Anthology panel featuring Alex de Campi, David Lopez, Genevieve Valentine, Brendan Fletcher and editor Alejandro Arbona, Moderated by Kodansha USA’s Ben Applegate, it was an hour-long celebration of the joy of being able to contribute to the iconic Ghost in the Shell canon.

Immediately after the panel, I went and bought the book at the Kodansha booth – it sounded that good. And, having read it, I can say with all honestly that it is that good. 

Ghost in the Shell: Global Neural Network is not an attempt to copy the original Ghost in the Shell manga. Only one entry has art that is reminiscent of Shirow’s work, while the other stories consciously reach for a out-of Japan look. Giannis Milonogiannis offers a consciously manga-like effort, with many notable nods to the original, including chibi characters  (as de Campi pointed out in the panel.) Lopez focuses on China for a more realistic look;  Brent Schoonover went full-on American comics for Valentine’s moving look at the remnants of The United States in the GitS universe (a story in which Section 9 never appears, but is nonetheless brilliant.) And LRNZ’s art is recognizably European for the final story that, in many ways, is one of the most profoundly Shirow-esque stories of the post-original-manga variations, right up there with Ghost in the Shell: Innocence.

None of the stories have the hyper densely crammed word balloons of the original and I frankly do not believe we in the west will ever truly be able to capture that until GitS is transformed into a neural network-shared media stream. Then we will understand Shirow’s point, I think.

Aside from that, I felt that every story in the anthology really grabbed onto one or more aspects of the original and ran with it. Issues of access to information, healthcare, safety; the meaning of identity in a world were you can be  – and are – multiple people; the meaning of borders, of ageing, of family all were highlighted in extremely smart ways. Every story took these concepts and delved into them for the rest of the world, people outside Section 9 and outside the borders of Japan.

There were no stories I didn’t like, although, of course, your mileage may vary. But the thing I found the most refreshing was that the members of Section 9 sounded like the people I remembered from the manga. Snarky-funny, loyal to each other, but always joking, picking on one another, poking at each other like siblings. That was the thing I loved best about Section 9 and it was fully represented here. 

The final story, “Star Gardens” by Brendan Fletcher and LRNZ focuses deeply on identity – the idea that Kusanagi is all the personas she has shown us over the decades, not one or another but all of them at once – and this really rang true for me especially in the light of Innocence, when Kusanagi no longer exists as a physical entity. This story also has a magnificent panel where we see the many fragments of Kusanagi from the movie, the manga, the TV series, the OVA, even the recent live-action movie, simultaneously. It was a fantastic image, which spoke volumes about the range of the canon and how we each have our own idea of the “real” Kusanagi. This story also contains an homage to the lesbian sex scene of the original manga, but with more meaning and emotion contained in those few panels that the original, where it was meant to be gratuitous.

Every story had strengths and weaknesses and, for any fan of the larger body of Ghost in the Shell I think this must be considered a meaningful addition to the canon, as Shirow has overseen and approved all of it. 

Ratings:

Art – 9 Variable, but I say damned good.
Stories – 9 Also damned good.
Characters – 10  Listening to everyone bust Batou’s chops made me so happy.
Service – 4 Some, but not half of Shiro’s ass fetish.
Yuri – 3 There’s a thing, yes.

Overall – 9

If you only like one version or another of Major Motoko Kusanagi, it might miss you, but if what draws you to Ghost in the Shell is the larger questions of identity and access, memory and reality and perception, it’s a must-read.