Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex The Laughing Man DVD (Unrated) +Movie Reviews

A great story with just one flaw for hard core SAC fans

M. Sewell | 10/08/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

"If you think you might be interested in Ghost in the Shell SAC this would be a great introduction to the series beyond the film, however, I could not give it a 5 star rating because the english voice cast is not the established voices from the SAC series. I would rather recomend the 26 episode box set or individual disks from the SAC series first because while the Laughing Man story arc is great, the additional stand alone stories from the 26 episode series are equally entertaining. In summary I would not recomend this disk to established fans of the series but, I would to anyone who is interested to a great story outside of the movie and has a mild curiosity about Ghost in the Shell SAC."

You may already own this

Alonzo | Cincinnati, Ohio | 11/18/2007

(2 out of 5 stars)

"If you are a fan of Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex, and you already own some of the DVDs from the series, DO NOT BUY THIS DVD!

I bought The Laughing Man and as I was watching it, I kept thinking, "I've seen this before. I've seen this before too. Wait a second. I've seen ALL of this before!"

If you own any of the DVDs from this series, you already own The Laughing Man because this "new" DVD is nothing but a compilation of all of the previously released Stand Alone Complex programs. All they did was blend them together into a feature-length DVD. You do get a few changes in dialog and a totally new (and not nearly as good) voice-over crew, but otherwise you get nothing new here. The only good thing about this special version is the DTS sound. A step up from the other DVDs.

If you have never seen the series before, this would be a great introduction to the series. Otherwise, save your money."

Still a good buy, but original voices would have made it wor

B. Brown | Chicago, IL USA | 10/12/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex is one of the highest quality anime series of the past few years, and to an extent "The Laughing Man" lives up to this quality. This DVD isn't really a must buy, as all of the material (except for one Tachikoma Days short and one interview) is taken directly from the first season. Thus the animation quality is just as good as the television series, and as such is a joy to watch. The laughing man story arc of the first season is well modified to fit into feature length movie structure, with segments of some of the stand-alone episodes still present to provide introduction and characterization. Although the plot is harder to follow in this format then it was as a television series, it is still rich and complex.

So far, so good. The place where it doesn't live up to my expectations is the voice acting. I went in expecting the tried-and-true cast from the television series, but instead it sounds like a bunch of cheap knockoffs. Most of them aren't bad, per se, but they all leave a lot to be desired. The Major's voice actor doesn't have the intensity that the television series voice actor had, and the movie suffers for it. The Movie voice actor for Batou is also a factor that detracted from my enjoyment, as the television series voice actor was made for that role. Any substitute can't live up.

Overall a good addition to the Stand Alone Complex series, but if only the voice actors from the television series had returned this film could have been a great deal more enjoyable for me."

Pass on it, get the episodes instead

Brian C. Miller | Everett, WA United States | 01/27/2008

(1 out of 5 stars)

"To paraphrase another movie, this is not the DVD you are looking for.

The series was edited and basically slaughtered to make the Laughing Man "movie." The editing leaves out too much of the original Laughing Man episodes, and makes the story very choppy. The voice actors are not from the original cast, and their performance and dub-in is not good.

I bought this 2 DVD set because I thought that it would be neat to see the whole Laughing Man story arc as one complete movie. Unfortunately, the editing leaves out too much of the story line, and the voice acting is not good. I couldn't watch it at all with the English soundtrack, and I had to switch to the Japanese and subtitles."

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	Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex - The Laughing Man Genres: Television, Anime & Manga, Animation UR 2007 1hr 46min Studio: Starz/sphe Release Date: 10/02/2007 Run time: 160 minutes Rating: Nr
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