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Battlestar Galactica – Echoes of New Caprica (Tokyopop)

Now that BSG has quite literally gone of our our screens and into the sunset we need something to battle the withdrawals that we will all be feeling looking at that gap in the TV schedule. Thankfully the comic book world has stepped up to the plate on both sides of the globe and here BSG goes east – Manga Style. In the first ever BSG manga title what we have are three different stories set around season three , in fact these were plots that had to be cut from what we saw on TV due to running time.

The first is I think the weakest, not to say that its terrible but merely average. It focuses on President Roslin’s school that she taught on New Caprica under the menacing glare of the Cylons. The main thrust is that some one in the school is giving intel to the toasters and the path leads to one of the children in the class being a Cylon collaborator. Like I say this is an average story and it feels like the bog standard comic book tie in filler in between what we saw up on the screen. The plot is very basic and to be honest unimaginative but the artwork is of good standard and manages to make it look like BSG and traditional manga at the same time. But my mine gripe is there isn’t that much new in this tale it feels like going over old ground and if you wanted so interesting background info into the whole New Caprica affair then give this a miss otherwise it will pass away an hour or so.

Much like a good three course meal we started with a light entry and now we get to the meat and potatoes. The second volume is a Zarek centric story about the early days of the Cylon conspirator trials held on Galactica immediately following events on New Caprica. This story more than the other two does give us something new and that will enhance your viewing of the TV show. Zarek has always been one of the most intriguing players in the BSG mythos. There is a neat twist to this story when Zarek has to face one of his best friends and hand him over to the mob rule and this does have genuine impact. In the time line this follows immediately on from the liberation of New Caprica during Zarek’s very brief stint as president. Overall this is great little story whilst you could see why it would be dropped from the TV it does add something to the BSG story as a whole.

Like the three course meal we get to the sweet which is probably the best way to describe the third and final story of the book. This time the focus is on Starbuck and the child she accepted as her own on New Caprica. There is nothing much ti write home about here storywise and you won’t learn very much about Starbuck or anything else. Simply put Starbuck is haunted by visions of the child and tracks her down where she sees her on her own, abducts her then child returns to her mother and thats about it. Scrub what I said earlier this is in fact the weakest story of the book as nothing new or exciting happens.

Overall the book is a patchy affair but a decent start as there will be more on the way. I feel though that given the Japanese style of fleshing out characters to the maximum, maybe if the writers stick to the supporting cast of BSG for story lines then we will have something to look forward to in the future. The manga fails when the stories focus on the principal charcters as they seem unable to add anything new to what we know already. Overall I would say this book is for the seasoned BSG fan as the casual fan won’t gain that much from it.

Rating – 5/10

After talking about it on the pod-cast, I thought I had better give you a review of Ghost in the shell to mull over.

The first film, simply called Ghost in the Shell came out in 1995 and was one of few Japanese Anime films to ever grace western screens. It did well at the time but was never gonna break box office records in a part of the world where people stop watching cartoons at an early age (didn’t happen to me obviously), but it did however gain a cult following in its VHS (remember those?) and DVD format.

The origional film is set in a futuristic Hong Kong and is based on the comic book of the same name, written by Masamune Shiro.

The film follows the adventures of an elite new anti terrorist unit set up to deal with crimes involving cybernetic and internet born terrorism, called Public Security Section 9. Set in a future cyber punk world, where the majority of people have been cyberneticly enhanced, be it with a cyber brain or full prosthetic bodies.

The unit stumble onto a crime involving someone remotely hacking into peoples cyber brains and planting codes into their mind to make them carry out assasinations and various duties. Nicknaming him the Puppet Master, the team soon find out there is more than meets the eye.

If you have not seen the movie then, i really don’t want to give too much away as the plot twists are the beauty of the film… alongside the stunning animation. Even today, the animation still looks cutting edge, mixing hand painted cells with a slight hint of CGI used just the right amount to complement each other. It is also easy to see just how much this film has influenced film makers since its release, most notably The Matrix. If fact, some of the action shots in the Matrix are pulled frame for frame right out of Ghost in the Shell. It has been said by the Wachowski Bros themselves that when they went to try to get the Matrix green light, they showed the studios Ghost in the Shell to give them an idea as to how the film should feel.

The strange thing is, even though its an animated film, Ghost in the Shell is a far more in depth film with a intricate plot filled with emotion and ground breaking new ideas. The film asks the question, what will humanity do with the absolute freedom given to us by the internet in the future? In a world where you can swap bodies and access the net directly via your own brain. It does so with a flare that only the cutting edge Japanese seem to be able to produce. A culture that is so far into the future from the rest of the world even in todays reality.

I recomend that you watch this film at least twice as its hard to grasp the complexity of plot if you are not used to Anime. The Japanese seem content to watch and enjoy… where as us in the west need every little detail to be explained to us.

I have gone on to watch the 2nd film, Ghost in the shell 2: Innocence and both series of the TV series, Ghost in the shell: Stand Alone Complex. I have found them also to be just as rewarding and mind blowingly complex…

It can be a hard slog but worth the hard work when you begin to understand the films message. Give it a shot, even if you don’t get the plot the 1st time round, you will still be blown away by the animation.

Rating: 10/10 Makes me want to be a cyborg… even more than Robocop did when i was 7.

McFlee AKA Moaning Martin Petrie.