This is a 'fic idea that I'm offering up for interested takers, mostly 
because I have my own huge backlog of stories I'm working and have 
absolutely no time to develop this on my own (trying to get published 
will do that to you).

Anyhow, piggybacking onto this cross-over idea is a little essay I wrote 
about why certain anime and certain anime genres are less popular to 
write 'fics about than list staples such as Ranma and Sailor Moon, and 
BGC.

First, the idea:
     Bubblegum Crisis/Ghost in the Shell:  The basic gist is to move the 
characters of Section 9 into the BGC world.  For example, Major Kusanagi 
and friends are called in by the AD Police to help deal with a number of 
Boomer threats (more berserk Hyper-boomers) or perhaps a more political 
plot involving boomers assassinating important government (or even 
foreign) officials.  Or maybe they get called into track and identify 
the Knight Sabres, a confrontation between Sylia, Priss and Major 
Kusanagi would make one heck of an interesting scene.  Maybe Section 9 
gets called in to deal with ghost-hacking by GENOM employees or even by 
boomers.  Any number of anti-terrorism scenarios could apply too.  
Boomers + human allies threatening taking out ADP members or plotting to 
destroy GENOM tower, etc ad nauseum.  
     Anyhow, definite highlights of such a story would be combat scenes 
between Fuchikomas and Boomers, or Fuchikomas and the Knight Sabres, or 
all three at once!  The whole police/investigatory/ espionage angle 
could be worked in with Section 9 cracking down like Internal Affairs on 
the ADP.  How would Leon and Daley react?  The Puppetmaster hacking into 
and controlling combat boomers could cause a problem also.
    Okay, some possible problems include:  the dates.  Ghost in the 
Shell takes place in 2029, Bubblegum Crisis takes place in 2032-33.
Is you set the 'fic in 2029, no Knight Sabers, but if you follow the 
plot of the manga/anime, and set it in 2032, there's probably no 
Kusanagi because of her "merger" with the Puppetmaster.  I'll let 
whoever (if anyone) who picks this idea up sort that out.

Okay, now the essay.  The question I'm curious about is "why is BGC the 
only popular cyberpunk anime to write 'fics about?"  There's plenty of 
good fan-favorite or evem critic-favorite cyberpunk manga/anime out 
there, like GiTS, Appleseed, and Armitage III.  Age doesn't seem to be a 
reason at all, as BGC came out quite a while ago, and GiTS is pretty 
new.  The most important reason I think, is like in the world of sci-fi 
books, "hard" cyberpunk is not popular out of its small core group of 
fans (see the works of Bruce Sterling, or Neuroamncer author William 
Gibson for examples) To become popular with the general public, 
cyberpunk needs a "gimic" of some sort, for example, like FASA's RPG 
game, Shadowrun, which mixes traditional fantasy elements with cyberpunk 
elements, or BGC, which features four beautiful girls in high-heeled 
mecha suits.  That's quite a gimic, especially when compared to the more 
mundane hacking, cybernetics, all-too-human androids and android-like 
humans of the other "hardcore" cyberpunk titles I mentioned above.  The 
"Blade Runner" influence of BGC gets a lot of mention when people talk 
about BGC, but the stories that are really a lot closer to Blade Runner 
in story and style, like Armitage and GiTS, are a lot less like to end 
up with tons of fanfic written about them.  Without that gimic to catch 
the public eye, some perfectly fine stories get relegated to a "niche" 
audience, which is where maybe they ought to be, I don't know.  I'm not 
slamming BGC, it's one of my favorites as a matter of fact, I do think 
it's kind of a shame though, I like the other stories too. 

Chris DiNote, aka Dino
SMD Publications Inc.,
...and from the introduction to The Grace of Great Things:   
  "Creativity is dangerous.  We cannot open ourselves to 
   new insight without endangering the security of our 
   prior assumptions.  We cannot propose new ideas without 
   risking disapproval and rejection.  Creative 
   achievement is the boldest initiative of mind, an 
   adventure that takes its hero simultaneously to the rim 
   of knowledge and the limits of propriety.  Its pleasure 
   is not the comfort of the safe harbor, but the thrill 
   of the reaching sail."


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