Reddit reviews The Ghost in the Shell Deluxe Complete Box Set

I think that if he loves the movie that much, the original manga would be a great gift for him. They released some really nice hardcover editions a year or so back.

Here's the first volume stand-alone currently at $21.87 plus shipping.

However, there's also a slipcase of all three volumes for just about double that at $43.41 plus shipping.

The first volume alone is fine depending on what you have available, since most of the stories from it are what were adapted together into the 1995 movie (the stuff that got made into the movie is spread out among more smaller stories rather than one continuous event), so you're not missing out on anything by picking it up alone.

However, the two additional volumes in the slipcase set, Volume 1.5 and Volume 2, have a lot of other really great material in them. 1.5 is the basis for the Stand Alone Complex anime, featuring a more procedural kinda storyline. Volume 2 is... trippy. It gets really deep into the transhuman aspects of the series and follows up much more directly on the stuff in volume 1, but can also get kinda hard to follow depending on how much he might be into the weird kinda philosophical aspects of it.

Hope that helps! But if you're still unsure, you absolutely can't go wrong with getting him the movie. As odd as it might sound, I'd recommend the original DVD release of the movie, since a lot of the newer releases have some odd choices made with adding in some CGI stuff or poor subtitle choices.

I've purchased this translation of Ghost in the Shell - it is really quite excellent.

If you don't mind not-print variants, the 1995 movie is quite good, as are the two seasons of Stand Alone Complex.

There are definitely 'Ship of Theseus' type questions - how many human parts can you replace and still be human? What happens when you replace the last part? Plus great societal implications for many of the augmentations.

In my opinion, it is the gold standard within this subgenre.

If you're talking about this box set, yes, that is all of the Ghost in the Shell manga written so far. I can't speak to the binding of the books, but it appears to be good quality.

Understand that this is the newer censored version of the original Ghost in the Shell that removes the controversial lesbian sex scene and edits the surrounding pages to ignore that it even happened. You have to buy the 2004 Dark Horse release to read the unedited version in English.

This is an excellent way of getting all the originals, if you don't mind two pages of censored content.