Stand Alone, Yet Complex

Upon finishing Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex this past Saturday, I realized again that not all anime is that bad. Along with Planetes, it's a great futuristic series that's wholly steeped in realistic situations, though it admittedly isn't as much of an ominous foreboding as Planetes.

GitS eschews realism for suspense; no one believes that machinery and cyborgs would realistically be roaming around in a mere 23 years. By punching realism in the face, though, GitS is that much more interesting and entertaining. It's not as educational as Planetes, but who always needs education with their entertainment?

Planetes is so realistic that I decided to base my website for Design for Journalists about it (which I'll post to that blog in hopefully less than ten hours). It's so fine-tuned to reality that anyone reading news based around it would find it believable. The design itself is OK too, but I'll leave that to the real judges (the instructors).