5/5 What you would expect!
  by Tom E. Thompson (California)
This is what you would expect from the team that makes this awsome film and series! Visuals are as always, Top notch in the anime world, with thought provoking story lines, that make it so you can't wait to watch the next episode in the series. If you like you anime like i do with realistic looking charaters, and just alaround good damn movie. you have to have this in your collection, along with the whole series!

4/5 Good Episodes, but Lacking Extras
  by T. J. Burghardt
I got the special edition but to my unpleasant suprise the ID card was missing. At least the show is so good that I could overlook it.

4/5 A Review of the Special Edition Features
  by David Stilley (Santa Cruz CA USA)
I would rate the show as 5 stars, this is a review of the extras and features of the Special Edition issue.
I recently bought all the Special Edition releases of "Stand Alone Complex" after trying to research what I was going to get as extras not included in the regular edition. I found the listings on Amazon's product details to be a little confusing and incomplete on some of the volumes so I decided to write this guide for others trying to decide. I'm not going to review the "Ghost in the Shell" episodes or the series in general because there are so many excellent reviews already on this site, and most of you probably know about this great anime TV series already. There are various other reviews that say that some of the DVD's and CD's have errors on them and Bandai will replace them with corrected discs if you send them in for exchange. I have not ran into problems yet, although I haven't gone through the whole series either. And I will also state that I love the TV series as well as both movies, but I would recommend the Imported Region 2 version of GITS2:Innocence if you have a region free DVD player. Dreamworks really messed up that release omiting the English dub and putting Hard of Hearing subtitles instead of regular ones on the early issues of that movie. Most people find them very distracting and annoying.

First off the discs themselves, you get two DVD discs in each volume with the same episodes on both discs. Volumes 1-5 have 4 episodes each, 6 and 7 have 3 episodes each making 26 episodes total in the series. Both discs are Anamorphic wide screen encoded directly from the High-Definition Masters. Both Discs also have English subtitles. Each set also has two interviews with voice cast or someone associated with the production of the anime, and a printed DVD insert pamphlet or booklet with different interviews and such for each volume. All discs are Region 1.

Disc one has Dolby Digital 5.1 in Japanese and English, and Dolby Digital 2.0 in English and Japanese.

Disc two has DTS 5.1 in English and Japanese and a Dolby Digital 2.0 English track.

Volumes 1 and 2 include soundtrack CD's of the music of Yoko Kanno, the most excellent and versatile composer of the music in the TV series. Anime lovers know her work from the many fine soundtracks that she's done for countless other anime movies and TV series.

Volume 3 has a Black XL Fruit of the Loom Tee-Shirt with the section 9 logo on the front and a Major Kusanagi graphic on the back. Nice shirt!

Volumes 4 and 5 have a collectable I.D. cards for a section 9 member.

Volume 6 has a Black XL Fruit of the Loom Tee-Shirt with the section 9 logo on the front and a Batou graphic on the back, and another I.D. card. Nice shirt again!

Volume 7 has another Tee-Shirt! This time it's a White XL with the section 9 logo on the front, and the Laughing Man logo on the back! Once again nice shirt! It also comes with a tin box that's supposed to hold all 7 volumes of the DVD set. I was excited about getting the box but when it arrived I was disappointed with the design. It's kind of like the rectangular lunch box that you used to take to school as a kid, without the handle and latch. Its also of a thinner metal that dents easily. It has marketing type of printing on the backside that pertains to vol. 7 only, and the DVD cases stack inside one on top of the other. The spines of the cases are not visible when you open the box, only the front of the last case you put in. So you have to take all the cases out of the tin to get to a specific volume. There's also not room for the cardboard sleves that the DVD's were in when you got the individual volumes, and no room for the soundtrack CD's either. All said, I was disappointed with the box. Because of it's odd dimensions it doesn't stack in well with my DVD library. I would have much preferred the normal five sided box that usually comes with DVD sets.

Overall I'd say it's worth it to buy volumes 3, 6 and 7 new to get the shirts if they interest you and pick up the others used if you can to save some money on the series. That is if you're interested in the DTS soundtrack options. I much prefer the DTS mixes to Dolby Digital and wanted the soundtrack CD's as well. Also the cardboard boxes that come with volumes 3 and 6 are better than the tin box to store your set in when you complete the series, if you stack them on shelves one row of DVD's on top of another row, and you can fit the movies into those boxes as well to fill them the rest of the way.

4/5 Riveting.
  by Pillar Kim (Oakland Gardens, NY United States)
This may be obvious for many anime watchers but the wordiness of dialog may be a bit much if you're trying to read the subtitles when watching with the original Japanese audio track.
One of the Aramaki stand alone episodes drove me to laughing out loud, at the situation the robbers get themselves into and how they are following Aramaki's orders. It definitely showcases his leadership skills to complete strangers. The baddies in the last episode and other episodes not mentioned left me with feeling that the creators were going for. You not only feel for the victims but also the perps(in some cases).It just strengthens the riveting nature of this series. The whole watching experience was a joy and had me wanting more. On to DVD #6...

4/5 OLD FRIENDS
  by Sesho (Pasadena, TX USA)
Mixing business with pleasure, in a break from Section 9 business in London, the normally dour Chief Aramaki pays a visit to an old flame whose company has become involved with organized crime. He declines her request for help but the situation is decided for him when two thugs break in on him and his girl and the cop in charge of the rescue doesn't want any survivors! In an unusual move, the second episode on this dvd also puts Aramaki front and center as the son of one of his old friends is suspected of planning the assassination of a Chinese Foreign Minister. Episode 19, "Captivated" involves the abduction of a government official's daughter by a kidnapping ring that sells body parts and organs. The last episode goes back to the subplot of the Laughing Man which has become a little long in the tooth because it has been diluted by so many intervening episodes. Togusa takes it upon himself to follow a lead from a past episode in which he went undercover in a cyberbrain mental institute.

These episodes suffered a little from talking head syndrome, but nothing bad enough to bring them down to mediocrity. SAC is still one of the finest anime series out there. The animation flows and the characters are deep. It's cool that the background characters have a past as well, just like humans. Everyone we talk to in daily life has a lifetime of experiences that we don't know about. The best anime, like SAC, mirror real people, living human beings. The action sequences, when they happen, are equal to anything in live-action film. Great show.