I've read the second edition of Masamune Shirow's manga Ghost in the Shell (basically the same as the first but with a graphic lesbian threeway included), bought at Grey Region during a recent sale, again. Three thoughts.
The art and storytelling is truly excellent.
The Puppeteer's argument that individuality doesn't exist, inasmuch as one's identity is always mixed up with other people and there is extensive feedback horizontally (with other people) and vertically (with one's body, with one's larger environment) is well-presented. Back in the late 1980s when Shirow wrote Ghost in the Shell, this might have been a radical new insight.
In his annotations, Shirow comments that assassinations occur whenever the established political processes have failed to work, and that their presence in a society augurs a difficult future. Ghost in the Shell's late 2020s are grim indeed; and, it seems, grim futurology is increasingly proving itself correct.
