Like most folks, I never watched the original Ghost in the Shell film when it was released in theaters.  And like most folks, when I first watched it on VHS from my local video store, I foamed at the mouth and couldn't get enough.  Written in part by Masamune Shirow (who also created Appleseed) and directed by Mamoru Oshii (who did Patlabor, Jin Roh and Stray Dog), Ghost in the Shell became the anime film for the mass audience and a heroine in "The Major" Motoko Kusanagi unlike any other anime released yet.  Akira can be argued as the greatest anime ever made, but it was made for a very specific audience.  Whereas, Ghost in the Shell was something that most folks could enjoy without getting into too much philosophical arguments.  Let's see, there's a super bad-arse female cyborg cop who beats criminals down in her panties.  There's her more-muscle-with-equal-brains partner who's just as cool as she is, and then there are the villains.  The integral part of what makes Ghost in the Shell work so well is the fact that the villains that Motoko and her Section 9 crew face seems to get more worse as they appear.

As fans of the series know, it took a really, really, really long time after the first film was released before Mamoru Oshii and his production company began to remotely revive the series.  And obviously, when he did, the World was waiting with all eyes and ears - waiting for the return of The Major.  Oshii gave us Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, a completely brand new TV series that had no beginning or ending and no connection with any of the films or the comics.  Each episode started as a segment in the lives of the members of Section 9, their battles and investigations, etc. and when the episode ended, that was it.  Then the next episode would start up anew.  Many folks will tell you that the Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex is one of the most ingenious animes ever made.  You didn't have to get caught in the middle of an episode and you didn't have to follow last week's episode to know what's going on.  Although a few of the episodes did get linked and continued to one another.

Batou here sports a completely custom head.  I sat down and sculpted his head over about six different sessions using Apoxie clay.  The body is Hot Toys' new 2.0 body, heavily customed by adding lots of muscles around the abdomen and arms as you can see.  The pants is from some military figure and the shirt is custom sewn by me.  His jacket is from a Word War II figure made by Dragon.  I think it was from the General Patton figure if I remember correctly.  I have so many of these loose military parts I could make a whole army.  All of his guns are from the Takara Motoko Ghost in the Shell figure.