Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex: The Lost Memory

An awesome display of story and art working in tandem to lay the reader flat. The art has a kinetic energy that flows through the pages with a power that just sweeps one up. The story, meanwhile, exerts great crossover appeal to fans of the cyber-punk, tech-noir fiction of the likes of Neal Stephenson and William Gibson. In the not-too-distant future of 2032, the frontier dividing humans and machines has been crossed. Crimes comitted by flesh-and-metal cyborgs are investigated by Section 9, an elite counter-terrorist squad run by Chief Aramaki and his cyborg assistant, Major Motoko Kusanagi. Section 9 has faced countless adversaries in the real world and in cyberspace, but none like 'The Awakened.' It is believed that this lethal group of terrorists can take over the minds and bodies of almost anyone. Used as tools to commit crimes against the state, the victims are unaware of who or what is controlling them. When Major Kusanagi captures one of the victims, she hacks into his cyberbrain to learn the ringleader's identity-what she discovers leads her on a journey deep into the heart of cyberspace, a journey that shakes her to the core.

I bought this book a few days ago and I almost finish it. What I like thi most about it is that I can imagine every scene as I read through the pages. The story is as complex as what you would expect from an episode of the SAC series. Basically this is just like another chapter of the series, but in the form of a book; it even mentions the Laughing Man case. The book has some typos in it, but it's not a big thing. For example, one of the characters name is Shikawa, at some point the book uses this name to refer to Ishikawa, obviously a typo. Other than that, I have no complaints whatsoever about this book. I'm glad I bought it. I ordered the other books, so I'm waiting for them to arrive. I highly recommend it to GITS fans.

It's like reading another chapter of the Stand Alone series. If you like it, you will probably enjoy the reading, if you're waiting for some mind bending phylosophy story, you will be disappointed. It could be a little longer too, and the ending is a little predictable, but the book is very fun to read and I recommend it.

When I originally started watching Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex on Adult Swim, I was rather pleasantly surprised to find a tightly-plotted political drama. GitS:SAC is very much not the average anime, so I was pleased to find out that the tie-ins marketed around it were a bit left of center as well. Taking up the tradition started by Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence: After The Long Goodbye, The Lost Memory is a prose novel that takes the reader a little bit deeper into the GitS world. This novel focuses on suicide bomber teenagers and their possible threat to a world peace leader. (The theme of teenagers as a group being such a cause of alarm to the greater populace seems to be paralleled from the film Battle Royal. Being from a Western country, it is interesting to take note of the small but telling and important differences in philosophy and social tension.) Unlike After The Long Goodbye, The Lost Memory is sheer adventure fun. It is set during the series' first season and generally does a great job of building on the show's established universe. The characters are spot-on (helped, I'm sure, but the author being one of the series writers), and the prose is above average for other media tie-ins that I've encountered. Basically, it's worth the $9 to revisit the GitS:SAC universe. I very much plan on buying the other books and hope there are quite a few of them. The series is addictive and intense, and if the rest of the books are on par or better than this one, I shall be a happy, happy girl.

Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex - The Lost Memory by Junichi Fujisaku is a novel set in the SAC universe series. Good Morning Terrorists, young adults who keep committing crimes every few years, seem to be linked to the Red Sands. The Red Sands are drug traffickers who have been put out of business by the peace that broke out in the Middle East and their target is the man who brought it around - Osmal Najif. But why would Japanese teenagers, who don't remember anything afterwards, become terrorists and WHY are they linked to a drug ring from the Middle East? The story expands on the SAC universe and, being written by one of the writers of the series, really has the feel of one of the episodes. Great cover and a smooth translation.