So why did he dream the other night--and dream that he has a son?At one time, Batou had a human love for his partner, the legendary Major, before he witnessed her transfiguration into something beyond humanity. Now he has only his job, and his beloved basset hound, Gabriel. But when Batou has a near-death experience in an arranged car "accident," he returns home to find Gabriel has gone missing--perhaps, to go look for her owner's lost soul.Batou's desperate search for Gabriel leads him down surreal streets where homeless men fight tanks and yakuza racing hounds chase rabbits downloaded into their heads. Batou fears his poor dog has made a horrible mistake out of innocence--for Batou has taken a cold look inside himself...and decided that he never truly had a soul...Innocence, After The Long Goodbye is the prequel to the Ghost In The Shell 2: Innocence film, also available as a four-volume Ani-Manga box set from VIZ Media. The Innocence novel contains a special bonus discussion between the director, Mamoru Oshii, and the author, Masaki Yamada.

    It’s coming back to do it again and again… When the alien Gitai invade, Keiji Kiriya is just one of many raw recruits shoved into a suit of battle armor and sent out to kill. Keiji dies on the battlefield, only to find himself reborn each morning to fight and die again and again. On the 158th iteration though, he sees something different, something out of place: the female soldier known as the Bitch of War. Is the Bitch the key to Keiji’s escape, or to his final death?

    It is a dark time for the world. Humanity is just crawling out from under three hundred years of domination by the race of vampires known as the Nobility. The war against the vampires has taken its toll; cities lie in ruin, the countryside is fragmented into small villages and fiefdoms that still struggle against nightly raids by the fallen vampires-and the remnants of their genetically manufactured demons and werewolves.Every village wants a Hunter-one of the warriors who have pledged their laser guns and their swords to the eradication of the Nobility. But some Hunters are better than others, and some bring their own kind of danger with them...From creator Hideyuki Kikuchi, one of Japan's leading horror authors with illustrations by renowned Japanese artist, Yoshitaka Amano, best known for his illustrations in Neil Gaiman's Sandman: The Dream Hunters and the Final Fantasy games.

    When he rebuilds her body, Alita's only clue to her past surfaces-her deadly fighting instincts! And now she is determine to find out the truth about who she once was...

    The story follows the members of Public Security Section 9, a special-operations task-force made up of former military officers and police detectives. The manga presents individual cases that Section 9 investigates, along with an ongoing, more serious investigation into the serial killer and hacker known only as "The Laughing Man."When a high-ranking government official is kidnapped, the Prime Minister must call in his top crime fighting force known as Section 9.  Lead by the beautiful (and deadly) Major Kusanagi, the cybernetically enhanced squad must use all their skill to take down the kidnappers and rescue the hostages.  But that’s only half of the mission; can Kusanagi and company find out who’s behind the kidnapping, and, more importantly, just what they’re after?  Find out in this thrilling first volume of The Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex!

    This second edition of creator Yoshiyuki Tomino's novelization is redesigned for a new generation of fans.Yoshiyuki Tomino is one of Japan's best known science-fiction directors.Frederik L. Schodt writes extensively on Japanese culture and lives in San Francisco, California.

    They are of human origin, but have been genetically modified so that each Abh has superior talent, skill, beauty, and longevity.In the face of the Abh's awesome military power, Martine's president surrenders without any resistance. Through a bizarre twist of fate, his son Jinto becomes a nobleman in the Abh's vast, intergalactic empire. His new status thrusts him into a world of turmoil, political intrigue, and high-speed adventure.This pulse-pounding space opera is the first novel in the Seikai: Crest of the Stars series.

    Kino wanders around the world on the back of Hermes, her unusual motorcycle. During their adventures, they find happiness, sadness, pain, decadence, violence, beauty, and wisdom. But through it all, they never lose their sense of freedom. This work tells the tale of one girl and her bike and the road ahead.

    He seeks to overthrow the old order and become a truly absolute—yet benevolent—dictator. His rival, the humble Yang Wen-li of the Free Planets Alliance, wishes to preserve democracy even if he must sacrifice his political ideals to defeat the Empire. Their political and military battles play out over a galactic chessboard in an epic saga fifteen centuries in the making!

    Welcome to the future of vast bio-constructed cities with crime so severe that the cops drive tanks! For top tank-cop Leona Ozaki (and her trusty tank, Bonaparte), the day-to-day is a tall order already, but when the villainous and sexy (and super-powered androids!) Puma sisters become duly deputized officers of the law and are assigned to "help" Leona catch Urushi-Maru, "The Skyscraper Pirate," things are bound to get out of hand, especially in the midst of a full-on, tank-on-tank streetfight between Leona and a corrupt arms manufacturer bent on getting the city's police tank contract!

    until he tried to murder her. Standing at the precipice of death, Rune is saved by Dr. Easter, a private investigator, who uses an experimental procedure known as "Mardock Scramble 09." The procedure grants Balot extraordinary abilities and now Rune must decide whether to use her new powers to help Dr. Easter bring Shell to justice, or if she has the will to keep living a life that's been broken so badly. Includes special extras after the story!

    His fate is now tied to hers.Meet the S.O.S. Brigade—an after-school club organized by Haruhi with a mission to seek out the extraordinary. Oh, and their second mission? Keeping Haruhi happy—because even though she doesn't know it, Haruhi has the power to destroy the universe. Seriously.

    Europol's top detective Gesicht is assigned to investigate these mysterious robot serial murders; the only catch is that he himself is one of the seven targets.

    Here's how it is -- in a universe filled with hearts and minds as cold and dark as the reaches of space, one small Firefly-class starship named Serenity takes its ragtag crew of mercenaries, outlaws, and fugitives in search of a job, any job, that'll earn them enough cash to afford that most elusive commodity -- peace.Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, unveils a previously unknown chapter in the lives of his favorite band of space brigands in the prequel to the Serenity feature film -- the blockbuster followup to Whedon's cult-hit TV show Firefly.

    He wanders an endless labyrinth of cyberdungeons filled with concrete and steel, fighting off cyborgs and other bizarre silicate creatures. Everyone is searching for the Net Terminal Genes, but no one is quite certain what kind of power they contain. The answer may lie hidden among the scattered human settlements of this vast and desolate future world.