Search - Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Volume 05 (Episodes 17-20) on DVD

"I mustn't act out of personal feelings..."

Marc Ruby? | Warren, MI USA | 06/28/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"

I've been away from this series for a while, due mostly to the slow release of the DVD's and a sudden interest in Chinese fight films. Since this is one of the best releases in the series, I wish I had been a bit more impatient. Or maybe not. One thing that's good about coming late to a series is that the anguish of cliff hangers (and this DVD sports a doozy) is easier to relieve.

The first three episodes focus on Arimaki, and his peculiar sense of duty that compels hime to announce that he can't misuse his position for friendly reasons. Of course, he goes on to do exactly that - 'accidentally' needing to investigate the exact thing he just refused to look into.

Angel's Share introduces an old lady friend of Arimaki, who is now the manager of a wine investment fund. She realizes that the fund has been used for money laundering by the mafia and promptly becomes a target for both some mafia renegades and the real criminals, who engineer what is supposed to be a 'fatal' rescue

In Lost Heritage A visiting Chinese Vice Minister is the object of a death threat. Arimaki takes a short break to visit the grave of and old war buddy who died of cyberbrain sclerosis and discovers that the son of his friend is somehow involved with his father's ghost. The result is an eerie story of revenge.

Captivated. This time the daughter of former Prime Minister Kanzaki's vanishes in a fashion identical to a series of organ-legging kidnappings attributed to a group called blind Ivan. But the odd thing is that Kanzaki was one of politicians who helped cover up the crime. Batou finds himself facing an old enemy as Kanzaki must decide whether his political life is more important than his daughter.

Re-View returns to the escapades of the Laughing Man. Togusa, still bothered by his failure at the vocational center fixates on the Laughing Man - especially as a reflection of Catcher In The Rye. He finds an unexpected clue and discovers a list of individuals who were treated for cyberbrain sclerosis by an experimental vaccine. This treatment was suppressed in favor of another and a government agency is very anxious to keep everything hush hush.

All of these episodes are tightly written little masterpieces, and this DVD might very well be the best of the series so far. Laughing Man episodes tend to be a bit too philosophical, but this is hardly the case here. Everything moves at a very satisfying pace."

A Review of the Special Edition Features

David Stilley | Santa Cruz CA USA | 09/26/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I would rate the show as 5 stars, this is a review of the extras and features of the Special Edition issue.
I recently bought all the Special Edition releases of "Stand Alone Complex" after trying to research what I was going to get as extras not included in the regular edition. I found the listings on Amazon's product details to be a little confusing and incomplete on some of the volumes so I decided to write this guide for others trying to decide. I'm not going to review the "Ghost in the Shell" episodes or the series in general because there are so many excellent reviews already on this site, and most of you probably know about this great anime TV series already. There are various other reviews that say that some of the DVD's and CD's have errors on them and Bandai will replace them with corrected discs if you send them in for exchange. I have not ran into problems yet, although I haven't gone through the whole series either. And I will also state that I love the TV series as well as both movies, but I would recommend the Imported Region 2 version of GITS2:Innocence if you have a region free DVD player. Dreamworks really messed up that release omiting the English dub and putting Hard of Hearing subtitles instead of regular ones on the early issues of that movie. Most people find them very distracting and annoying.

First off the discs themselves, you get two DVD discs in each volume with the same episodes on both discs. Volumes 1-5 have 4 episodes each, 6 and 7 have 3 episodes each making 26 episodes total in the series. Both discs are Anamorphic wide screen encoded directly from the High-Definition Masters. Both Discs also have English subtitles. Each set also has two interviews with voice cast or someone associated with the production of the anime, and a printed DVD insert pamphlet or booklet with different interviews and such for each volume. All discs are Region 1.

Disc one has Dolby Digital 5.1 in Japanese and English, and Dolby Digital 2.0 in English and Japanese.

Disc two has DTS 5.1 in English and Japanese and a Dolby Digital 2.0 English track.

Volumes 1 and 2 include soundtrack CD's of the music of Yoko Kanno, the most excellent and versatile composer of the music in the TV series. Anime lovers know her work from the many fine soundtracks that she's done for countless other anime movies and TV series.

Volume 3 has a Black XL Fruit of the Loom Tee-Shirt with the section 9 logo on the front and a Major Kusanagi graphic on the back. Nice shirt!

Volumes 4 and 5 have a collectable I.D. cards for a section 9 member.

Volume 6 has a Black XL Fruit of the Loom Tee-Shirt with the section 9 logo on the front and a Batou graphic on the back, and another I.D. card. Nice shirt again!

Volume 7 has another Tee-Shirt! This time it's a White XL with the section 9 logo on the front, and the Laughing Man logo on the back! Once again nice shirt! It also comes with a tin box that's supposed to hold all 7 volumes of the DVD set. I was excited about getting the box but when it arrived I was disappointed with the design. It's kind of like the rectangular lunch box that you used to take to school as a kid, without the handle and latch. Its also of a thinner metal that dents easily. It has marketing type of printing on the backside that pertains to vol. 7 only, and the DVD cases stack inside one on top of the other. The spines of the cases are not visible when you open the box, only the front of the last case you put in. So you have to take all the cases out of the tin to get to a specific volume. There's also not room for the cardboard sleves that the DVD's were in when you got the individual volumes, and no room for the soundtrack CD's either. All said, I was disappointed with the box. Because of it's odd dimensions it doesn't stack in well with my DVD library. I would have much preferred the normal five sided box that usually comes with DVD sets.

Overall I'd say it's worth it to buy volumes 3, 6 and 7 new to get the shirts if they interest you and pick up the others used if you can to save some money on the series. That is if you're interested in the DTS soundtrack options. I much prefer the DTS mixes to Dolby Digital and wanted the soundtrack CD's as well. Also the cardboard boxes that come with volumes 3 and 6 are better than the tin box to store your set in when you complete the series, if you stack them on shelves one row of DVD's on top of another row, and you can fit the movies into those boxes as well to fill them the rest of the way."