The year is 2030 and six years have passed since a criminal known only as ''The Laughing Man'' swept through top medical nanotechnology firms committing acts of cyber-terrorism, kidnapping, extortion, and corporate espionage leaving no known suspects. New information is revealed to Japan's top homeland security force, drawing Major Kusanagi and Section 9 into the hunt for a suspect capable of hacking the eyes of every operative, obscuring all details of his appearance and leaving behind a trail of copycats and hacked cyborg citizens.

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5294 in DVD
• Released on: 2011-06-21
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Animated
• Original language: Japanese
• Subtitled in: English
• Running time: 160 minutes

Most helpful customer reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful.
Fantastic
By B. Oliver
I got this on Blu-ray and while I know this is only a compilation of "The Laughing Man" storyline with a few scenes thrown in to make it complete, I still loved every minute of this. The animation is of course beautiful and the story itself compelling, so much the 2 hour 40 minute running time went by in a flash.

Now I'm a firm believer in watching a movie (or series) with the original language so that's what I did here, watching it with the Japanese dialogue and English subtitles. Just to see, I did briefly switch over to the English dubbing and wasn't impressed and quickly switched back over. I would highly recommend that if you can read subtitles while watching, definitely watch it with the original language.

In terms of the Blu-ray, the audio is quite good especially with the score and certain action sequences which gives the audio depth while the dialogue levels were also loud enough. This comes with a Dolby TrueHD track (for both the Japanese and English tracks). The picture (1080i) meanwhile was good, though when it comes to anime and animation, it generally looks looks great in high-def, there's always exceptions but here it does look alright, although I did notice some interlacing.

The features as expected are a bit lacking but for the feature on the disc, I'm not overly disappointed and if you can have it at a decent price, then it's worth picking up. If you already own it, I think it'd make for a modest upgrade though again the price needs to be right.

I will confess, I am not a big Ghost in the Shell fan. I have seen the series and enjoyed it, but I know some fans did not like the change in voice acting (edit: I guess the complaints is for the English dubs? If so, then I agree). For me, I didn't notice it and was able to watch the feature with no trouble. So, take it for what you will, I as more of a casual fan didn't feel much was missing with this. However, I will say that you couldn't go wrong watching the series as there's so much more...