Ghost in the Shell; Manga vs Anime

[Project Akira]

For those who have seen the movie and read the original manga, what are your opinions regarding both? Do you like one over the other? Do you despise the film adaptation? Discuss!

[EVA fiend]

I prefer the manga version of Ghost in the Shell..., I do like Mamoru Oshii vision of the anime..., but I've been a big fan of Shirow's manga works for a long time..., so I'm probably biased on that score...,

I like the quirkiness of Shirow's story-telling..., & the addition of the comic elements to bring light relief on what is a very complicated manga to read...,

One of my little gripes about the movie is that the characters seem rather colourless, & wooden..., they don't have much of a personality.., & it's rather difficult (for me at any rate) to warm to a 2D character..., oh.., & there were no fuchikomas in movie, which was a little disappointing..., but all-in-all, I still enjoyed the anime...,

[DarkPrimus]

Manga owns the movie.

[oppa]

In no way was the movie bad, but the manga (like any other piece of literature adapted to a movie) had so much more detail in it that the movie couldn't fully incorporate. Given that this was Masamune Shirow, losing a little detail can become quite a lot too.

Also, as Eva mentioned, the characters have so much more flair in the manga. You get a stronger emotional feel for the core characters. Ya just can't do that in 70 minutes (or however long the movie was... I remember it was rather short for a movie).

Now, if the movie was 3 hours long.... and was the first of a trilogy...... ooooo..... *wipes drool off mouth*

[PurpleYume]

i must agree with oppa, the movie lost all details from the manga AND they even altered the story to be less complicated which is not so great :s
i'm a great fan of both shirow and oshii but the movie was indeed too short, however the action was a lot more spectacular

btw i recently bought Ghost in the shell 3: Man Machine Interface
Is it just me or was that really crap? I mean, were is the deep and immersive storyline? And why did they have to colour it with a computer? It's not a comic as far as i know. That was a real let-down, i expected so much more from Shirow.

[HIC Knight]

Although I really like both, I prefer the movie, simply because of it's darker and more serious tone. I'm not a big fan of comedy, but it's just my personal taste. I also prefer the anime's character designs over that of the manga, ESPECIALLY that of Motoko Kusanagi. I appreciated it even more after watching the part of the "Making of" documentary on the DVD where they explain why they changed her character design.

However, I will agree with the points that the movie is a bit less complex than the manga. That's the only downside from my POV - but this was only a movie, what can you expect? The movie, IMO, is still brilliant, and it did exactly what it set out to do.