The Offical Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex/SAC: 2nd Gig Thread!

Ah this was a good stand alone episode.

And Batou is actually a relly interesting character, the major is pretty robotic and cold most of the time.

First off the tachikomas really do head towards the scrap heap, and batou seems geniuinley pissed about that.

The whole thing about the boxer had some pretty good fight scenes.

The prosthetic blind spot is probably some weakness prosthetic eyes have that people can exploit.

The reason Batou was so pissed at the end was becuase he was pissed at the boxer:

Besides finding out someone he is fan of is an asshole, the main thing is the man had great successes in his life, he had a fine home, and a loving caring wife, but none of it was good enough for him, he still obsessed over that one loss in the olympics. And Batou was pissed out how someone could just throw it all away like that.

At the end he threw away that wine his wife gave him.... AND the natural oil he used to give the tachikomas....

Yup, I think Michael Seebach: [Zopwx2] summed it up pretty well.

Although I don't know if the tachikomas are going to a physical scrap heap or just to go get some "mental" rewiring.

My take on Batou's family photo near the end: It looked like a photo they made for his "cover" - with the Major as his wife and possibly Togusa's son as his son. Just a thought.

Yeah. Batou having a family doesn't seem to fit in with the continuity.

Back at that episodewith the boxer, the Tachikomas were singing a song. It sounded a bit like the song played in the GitS movies. I can't verify that, but I thught that was creepy.

Now the most recent episode. Curious way of controlling money flow. I also wonder where the chief learned those tricks.

Anyone know when we're going to be hitting the complex episodes again?

Well Angel's Share was episode 17. The Laughing man complex episodes kick back up at #20 and dominate the next few episodes after that.

The wine episode was kind of filler.

you'd think they could have come up with something cool since they took them all the way to england....

But it still watchable.

The wine episode was pretty good. We got to see the chief shine in some action - he's a pretty cool strategist. And the human side of him (with that former girlfriend?) was a nice addition.

My guess is, the woman and the chief are probably the same age and were an item at one point, but the woman is cyberized more heavily that the cheif or something and thus looks younger.

It was good to see the chief show off his skills. One thing that I like about Ghost in the Shell is that I am fond of all of the characters, so I don't mind who the episode focuses on. This is rare in an anime, because often there's a really annoying mascot character that gets waaaay too much airtime.

Well now we see another reason why the major choose the female model over a male one....

But seriously, I find the chief to be a somewhat annoying character myself. I find him too full of himself, plus he is a pretty bossy person. Though it did reveal why he is , in fact, the chief. BTW, is something going on with him and the major or am I reading too much into things?

One more thing that caught my eye... in an episode that had to Japanese citizans in England, I found it odd that everyone sounded like Americans.

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often there's a really annoying mascot character that gets waaaay too much airtime.

Same

Example: Ed in cowboy bebop

(No really, the episodes primarily focused on her grated on my nerves. I believe I can withstand some forms of torture after having watched them.)

Well now that I've said something I'll probably get flak for. Tonights episode was very good, and that twist at the end was great. I half-expected it to be some kind of two parter, ending right when

spoiler (highlight to read):

the major, batou, and the assassin kid with a whole different kind of "daddy issue" were apparently blown up by the semtex bouquet.

I've..just kind of stopped fearing this series to become a let-down. Because it would take ALOT for it to turn into one right now.

I've just seen "Chost in the Shell II - the Innocence"
So... Batou is just an android or did he use to be a human, like Major?

Batou still has some organic parts. He's a cyborg, not an android.

According to the manga (which may not apply here), Batou is less cyberized than the major. Also according to the manga, the Major has none of her original body left except for her brain, due to needing a new body in childhood because of some disease or something.

Here's the magical section nine cyborg list!
Major Motoko Kusanagi is completely cyberized.
Batou is almost completely cyberized, but still retains some of his original body parts.
Boma is similar to Batou.
We're to assume Ishikawa apparently has a bit more cyberization than Saitou.
Saitou only has the super sniper eye and the cell phone in the back of his neck.
Togusa just has a cell phone in the back of his head.

What about the boss Aramaki? About the same level as Ishikawa?

I saw the original Ghost in the Shell movie recently, and if I remember right, there's a conversation in there in which Batou says that with the exception of Chief Aramaki, Togusa was the least cyberized of the Section 9 team.

I take that to mean that the Chief is one of the least if not THE least cyberized members.

Interesting episode (Lost Heritage) - in case you haven't seen it -

spoiler (highlight to read):

that "explosion" at the end was a neat twist.

This assasination episode was pretty awesome, although it still fell victim to GitS's classic "Explain everything in an unnatural fashion through conversation" syndrome.

The explosion was a neat twist and caught me to surprise.

I'm pretty sure that it was fake, they just overwrote the kids memory to implant the memory of the explosion right?

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I'm pretty sure that it was fake, they just overwrote the kids memory to implant the memory of the explosion right?

Yes, at the end

spoiler (highlight to read):

theres a t.v. broadcast saying his target "left the country without incident", and they mention overwriting memories of a successful kill. Also the major is..very obviously not a small garbage bag full of remains at the end, which would have been the result of a huge explosion.

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it still fell victim to GitS's classic "Explain everything in an unnatural fashion through conversation" syndrome.

I've noticed that too. There are times when I can miss all but the last five to ten minutes of an episode, and then the inevitable summary dialogue at the end just cancels that out.

This show is much better than I gave it credit for earlier... Every episode has me thinking at the end, which helps keep the show very creative. I don't know why, but my whle opinion of it changed after than somewhat boring chatroom episode. Now I end up watching the same episode 2 or 3 times a week since they play them at least 4 times between Thursday and Saturday.

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He's a cyborg, not an android.

What would be the difference? Enlighten the ignorant. *bats eyelashes*

And thanks so much for all the help, now I can actually get some things. And, since Major still has her human brain, then she is human. All the emotions and feelings are. She isn't just a machine, because she thinks like a human and has human feelings.

Cyborgs are Robots with organic components or vice versa. Androids are 100% machine, brain and all.

quote:

Originally posted by anjuta quote: He's a cyborg, not an android. What would be the difference? Enlighten the ignorant. *bats eyelashes* And thanks so much for all the help, now I can actually get some things. And, since Major still has her human brain, then she is human. All the emotions and feelings are. She isn't just a machine, because she thinks like a human and has human feelings.

A cyborg is a human modified by technology. Technically speaking, anyone who wears glasses or has a pacemaker is a "cyborg", but that's a very loose definition. The members of Section 9 are all cyborgs of varying degrees (though then again, so are many people in the general public of GitS). They vary from people like the Major and Batou with almost none of their original bodies left to people like Chief Aramaki or Togusa who are mostly human save for Cyber Brains.

An android is a completely artificial being. The secretaries that Section 9 uses, the Geishas from the first episode and others are androids. The technical difference between an android and a person like the Major are minimal to say the least. Hence where the concept of the "ghost" comes into play. Most people believe that only humans have Ghosts and that androids do not. But since Ghosts are essentially just memories and memories can be altered, who knows? At that point, it gets like trying to figure out who's a Replicant and who's a human in Blade Runner.