Ghost In The Shell


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Details At A Glance

General
Extras
Category Thriller Theatrical Trailer(s) Yes, 1 - 1.85:1, not 16x9, Dolby Digital 2.0
Rating Other Trailer(s) Yes, 3 - 1.33:1 or 1.85:1, not 16x9, Dolby Digital 2.0
Year Released 1995 Commentary Tracks No
Running Time 82:46 minutes Other Extras DVD-ROM Content
Featurette - Making Of (28:50)
Menu Audio and Animation
RSDL/Flipper No/No
Cast & Crew
Start Up Menu
Region 1,2,3,4,5,6 Director Mamoru Oshii
Studio
Distributor
Manga Entertainment
Siren
 Starring Vocal talents of:
Richard George
Mimi Woods
William Frederick
Abe Lassar
Christopher Joyce
Mike Sarich
Ben Isaacson
Case Transparent Brackley
RPI $27.95 Music Kenji Kawai

 
Video
Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame No MPEG None
Widescreen Aspect Ratio 1.85:1 Dolby Digital 5.0
16x9 Enhancement
Soundtrack Languages English (Dolby Digital 5.0, 448 Kb/s)
Japanese (Dolby Digital 2.0, 448 Kb/s)
Theatrical Aspect Ratio 1.85:1
Miscellaneous
Macrovision ? Smoking Yes
Subtitles English Annoying Product Placement No
Action In or After Credits No

Plot Synopsis

    Anime is a peculiarly Japanese form of entertainment that, like its equivalent printed form, Manga, had a huge domestic market but a very minor export market. Over the years, the advent of a few landmark releases outside of Japan has seen Anime become a little more mainstream with a burgeoning market. For me, it was the advent of Neon Genesis Evangelion on television that really brought Anime to my attention, and set me upon a little voyage of discovery that I am finding generally fulfilling. After watching Neon Genesis Evangelion on television, I started searching out other Anime and soon came across a film by the name of Ghost In The Shell that seemed to be held in some regard.

    Anime fans, and anyone with an interest in quality film of any genre, can now rejoice, for Siren have finally released Ghost In The Shell onto the local market. Has it been worth the wait? Well, since the added bonus is that we have got a PAL-formatted version, I would say so! The NTSC format disc that has been available in the United States for a little while is pretty good, but this is even better. The cover blurb starts off with "Mamoru Oshii's futuristic animated masterpiece...", and I for one am not going to disagree at all.

    Set in the near future of 2029, this is the story of Section 9, a police department set up to combat sophisticated criminal activity on the information networks of the world. Section 9 is predominantly populated by cyborgs, artificial beings of great strength and intelligence, skills necessary to chase such elusive criminals as The Puppet Master (Abe Lassar), a mysterious entity of unknown origin who is blamed for a whole raft of cyberspace criminal activity and terrorism. The central character in the chase of this elusive character is Motoko Kusanagi (Mimi Woods), a cyborg almost completely manufactured with only the brain remaining from the original body. She is having something of an identity crisis as a result, which is the essential plot here: the chase of The Puppet Master is secondary to Kusanagi's chase for some affirmation of her identity. Ultimately, their worlds collide as Kusanagi chases down The Puppet Master for a non-erotic merge that reveals an awful lot about what constitutes a human being. That is the cerebral story going on here. The non-cerebral story involves a fair deal of action as Section 9 battles the bad guys, who seem to be mostly from Section 6 or in the clandestine employ of Section 6, another branch of the government.

    To be honest, the story here does not really matter - to my mind, the important thing here is the visual experience. This is quality animation the likes of which is rarely seen on either the big screen or the small screen, and the sort of quality that Disney can only dream of attaining. The only animation that surpasses it is the likes of direct computer animation as evidenced by A Bug's Life. The overriding impressions here are just of the intrinsic reality of the animation when it really wants to be. Naturally, some of the sci-fi elements are a little surreal, just as they are supposed to be, but the detail in the everyday scenery is just mind-blowing at times. This is a rare treat indeed and it certainly raises the question of whether we are slowly seeing the death of traditional acting. Bearing in mind that this is now 5 years old, and advances have certainly been made since then, such is the quality of the animation on offer here that I do begin to question whether animation may well be the way of the future. Sure, it is an expensive and time-consuming exercise, but given the time and money it takes to put together a sci-fi adventure like Armageddon, is it approaching the time when directors will prefer the freedom of animation over the petulance of over-paid actors?

    Forget the plot, just savour the visual experience here. Even if you are normally not a fan of Anime, I would strongly urge you to add this essential film to your collection immediately!

Transfer Quality

Video

    I was always impressed by the NTSC Region 1 release of this disc, but to say that this is even better is perhaps to slightly understate the situation. This is a seriously good-looking transfer, in any genre.

    The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 and it is 16x9 enhanced.

    What immediately jumps out at you with this transfer is the generally gorgeous level of detail that it displays. This is crisp, clean and sharp animation that I have difficulty recalling ever seeing of this quality before - other than in the Region 1 release of course. The only time that this standard dips is in sequences that are intended to be slightly more diffuse, such as in the computer animations. There is basically nothing about the quality of the transfer that I could find fault with. Even with some of the intrinsically detailed sequences where the detail could have been expected to be just lacking a little in clarity, there were no problems. Perhaps the quality of the transfer (and the animation) can be demonstrated by one short sequence at around 29:08 where a small water droplet slides down the dive mask worn by Kusanagi - I have barely seen this as well handled in live action films, let alone animation. If you really care to look, the entire transfer is filled with such animation gems. This is a generally very clear transfer, and as far as animation goes is again only surpassed by A Bug's Life. There did not appear to be any problems with grain in the transfer at all. Low level noise was also not a problem here.

    The main difference between the Region 1 NTSC version and this PAL version is in the vibrancy of the colours. This is a generally very vibrant transfer with the colours holding their depths very well indeed. Again, the only time that this standard dips is where it is intended to. Some of the backgrounds are where the quality of the colours stand out here: the wood panelling colour in Nakamura's office for instance are especially vivid in their tonal quality. There is no real hint of oversaturation here, and colour bleed did not appear to be a problem either.

    There are no apparent MPEG artefacts in the transfer. There were no noticeable problems with film-to-video artefacts in the transfer, apart from a minor amount of shimmer in a couple of the signs hanging in a streetscape, and in the final credits. Film artefacts were barely an issue in the transfer, and those that were present were not in the slightest bit a distraction to the film.

Audio

    There are two audio tracks on the DVD, being an English Dolby Digital 5.0 soundtrack and a Japanese Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack. I listened to the English soundtrack whilst occasionally sampling the Japanese soundtrack.

    The dialogue was clear and easy to understand throughout the transfer.

    Naturally the film suffers from the usual "problem" of animation sync. This is about the only thing that the director did not manage to overcome in this exercise in quality animation!

    The original music comes from Kenji Kawai, who in the featurette had some doubts as to whether the music was worthy of the film. I think he was being a little humble, as this is a rather striking effort that certainly lends much to the feel of the film. A little dissonant at times, it remains nonetheless a major part of the impact of the film.

    Whilst the Japanese Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack is generally of high quality, it simply does not match the rather stunning English Dolby Digital 5.0 soundtrack as a listening experience. This is a rather nice sounding effort that really presents a wonderfully enveloping soundscape, with some rather nice rear surround channel usage. The use of a sound modulator adds an interesting dimension to the sound. Some may find difficulty with it, but I found it to be quite effective. Overall, this is a nicely presented soundscape that only marginally is diminished by the lack of a bass channel.

Extras

    This presents a reasonably decent package that adds somewhat to the overall experience of the film.

Menu

    This comes with some decent audio enhancement, although the animation enhancement could perhaps have been a little more dynamic. Themed pretty much in accordance with the cover, there is just the odd hint of shimmer here.

Featurette - The Making Of (28:50)

    This is a quite interesting featurette, although the presentation does make some of the written stuff a little illegible at times. Presented in Full Frame format, this is not 16x9 enhanced and comes with Dolby Digital 2.0 sound. The interview snippets have been well put together with the English translation, and this is one of the more unusual ways in which I have seen foreign language interview stuff handled. It would perhaps have been helped by having slightly larger fonts to improve the legibility, but it is a nice addition nonetheless.

Theatrical Trailer

    A decent, if slightly pompous advert for the film, presented in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1. It is not 16x9 enhanced, and comes with Dolby Digital 2.0 sound. Rather annoyingly, there is no timing information encoded here and the DVD player resolutely displays the message "play" throughout the trailer.

Other Trailers

    Three trailers for other titles: the Jamaican film Dancehall Queen, one of the best music films in The Talking Heads Stop Making Sense and the concert film of Baaba Maal Live At The Royal Festival Hall. The first two are presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, whilst the latter is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1. All three are not 16x9 enhanced and come in Dolby Digital 2.0 sound. They also have the annoying habit of having no timing information encoded and therefore the DVD player displays the less than informative message "play". The quality is not the best, especially for Stop Making Sense which suffers enormously from noise problems. Not exactly world-shattering (I definitely think that I would avoid Dancehall Queen based upon this trailer), and hardly an essential inclusion.

DVD-ROM Content

    Throw the DVD into your DVD-ROM drive, open up Windows Explorer (or its Mac equivalent) and click on the palm.exe file and you access the rather extensive content, not all of which is related to the film. The non-film related stuff is for what I am presuming are three other DVDs and a CD. Unfortunately my sound card decided to throw in the towel so what audio content there is I cannot attest to, and I confined myself to the Ghost In The Shell content in any case. Clicking on the Ghost In The Shell icon provides access to A Guide To Ghost In The Shell, which provides the following selections:     There is also an automated link to www.manga.co.uk where you can cheerfully indulge yourself in more promotional stuff about their VHS catalogue, on a site that does not appear to have been updated in over a year.

    This is not an especially gripping batch of content and to be quite blunt it would have been a lot better just being additional ordinary content on the DVD - as it is on the NTSC version.

R4 vs R1

    The Region 4 version misses out on:     Direct comparison indicates that the Region 4 version is noticeably more vibrant in colour and perhaps a little less prone to shimmer than the Region 1 release. The extras package on the Region 1 release is slightly better, and having the full Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack is a plus too, but overall I would not be able to strongly advocate one version over the other. After watching both versions back to back, as well as direct comparison of certain sections, I really prefer the Region 4 release, but your decision may be different.

Summary

    Ghost In The Shell is an essential anime film that should be in every collection. The PAL release has been blessed with a superb video transfer, and a hardly less comparable audio transfer, even without the bass channel. It is arguable that the Region 1 release has a slightly better extras package and is blessed with a full 5.1 soundtrack, but in broad terms I am a little happier with this Region 4 release than the Region 1 release. Just get this DVD! Oh, and the good news is that the slip cover shows some forthcoming releases: Ninja Scroll, Perfect Blue, Castle of Cagliostro, Macross Plus and Patlabor amongst them. Things are definitely on the up for the local anime fan - especially if these too have PAL formatting.

    A superb video transfer, almost of reference standard.

    A very good audio transfer.

    A good extras package.

Ratings (out of 5)

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Ian Morris (have a laugh, check out the bio)
13th August 2000

Review Equipment
   
DVD Pioneer DV-515; S-video output
Display Sony Trinitron Wega 84cm. Calibrated with the NTSC DVD version of Video Essentials.
Audio Decoder Built in
Amplification Yamaha RXV-795. Calibrated with the NTSC DVD version of Video Essentials.
Speakers Energy Speakers: centre EXLC; left and right C-2; rears EXLR and subwoofer ES-12XL