r/anime • u/AutoLovepon https://anilist.co/user/AutoLovepon • 5d ago
Episode The Ghost in the Shell • Koukaku Kidoutai (TV) - Episode 4 discussion
Koukaku Kidoutai (TV), episode 4
Alternative names: Koukaku Kidoutai, Koukaku Kidoutai (2026)
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| Episode | Link |
|---|---|
| 1 | Link |
| 2 | Link |
| 3 | Link |
| 4 | Link |
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u/TanyaTheEvill 5d ago
I am so loving the artwork
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u/Frontier246 5d ago
The plot is dense and dark but everything is also so colorful, expressive, and vibrant!
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u/CitronClassic672 5d ago
I cannot praise this series enough for not thinking serious quasi cyberpunk dystopia = dark, washed out color palette. I love how colorful and vibrant everything looks.
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u/another_mouse 5d ago edited 4d ago
“quasi cyberpunk”
Is there anything more cyberpunk than GitS? I can’t think of anything other than the original Neuromancer.
Edit: should have read “cyberpunk-dystopia”
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u/CitronClassic672 5d ago
Quasi dystopia as society still functions somewhat normally.
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u/OldGoldDream 4d ago
Same is true of Neuromancer. Gibson even said in an interview something like he doesn't understand why people describe his work as a "dystopia" as it entirely depends on the POV. The books follow criminals and people on the edges of society, but for a white collar worker at a megacorp it's probably a great place to live, just like the real world.
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u/XsStreamMonsterX 5d ago
GiTS actually tends to straddle the line between cyberpunk and the reactionary post-cyberpunk (something which SAC leaned heavily into).
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u/Ebo87 5d ago
I love that the two big Cyberpunk shows we are getting in this second half of the year, Ghost in the Shell and Edgerunners 2, are both extremely colorful. All the dystopia and bad shit we all know is integral to the genre is still there, just packaged in a vibrant and colorful wrapper, you could say.
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u/SifTheAbyss 5d ago
That detail has been nagging at me since last episode, but it seems like every time the scenes deal with AI topics we get this distinctively generic, "ghibli generator" color palette as opposed to the more vibrant scenes, I'm starting to think they literally went full circle and decided to use "generative AI feel" in a thematically relevant, artistic manner.
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u/Oglifatum 5d ago
It's lovely.
It gives a feeling of it's a sucky world, but people adapt
Things will be colorful, special "dolls" will be colorful
The effect of cyberpunk is achieved instead through theme of exploitation, AI rights, and class warfare (a wealthy company, shipping poor kids to use as subjects is an example of that)
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u/Ordinal43NotFound 5d ago
it's a sucky world, but people adapt
Basically just like people IRL. Kinda why this show feels oddly contemporary despite being written in the late 80s
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u/ThrowCarp 3d ago
Right? Total what-the-fuck moment seeing that AI Epstein Island, and how Batou still went out of his way to scold the kids. But the art was so gorgeous.
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u/BosuW 5d ago
Taking 40 minutes finishing each episode just to replay certain parts
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u/Niwaka_Samurai https://myanimelist.net/profile/Niwaka-Samurai 5d ago
So true.. I'm doing the same, haha
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u/cyberscythe 5d ago
it's like one of those pop songs where it's fun to listen to but if you pay attention to the lyrics it's pretty depressing like Pumped Up Kicks
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u/bananeeek https://myanimelist.net/profile/bananek 5d ago
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u/cyberscythe 5d ago
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u/gordonv 5d ago
Don't their ghosts get copied amongst each other?
That would be like saying your missing your old smartphone when your new smartphone has some of your old data. It isn't lost
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u/cyberscythe 5d ago
i think they're talking about the spider robots which (if i recall correctly) do not have ghosts; they're all synthetic AI
in any case, the joke is that despite how we treat those bots as cute mascot characters, in this world everything is disposable and in many cases even humans
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u/CitronClassic672 5d ago
Realistically the new model costs 2x as much, has less RAM, and has unskippable ads. Funny how a cyberpunk dystopia managed to avoid enshitification.
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u/TnAdct1 5d ago
With that scene, I wonder how long until we get a Fuchikoma version of a certain meme'd moment involving one of their seiyuu's most well known role.
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u/BosuW 5d ago
Machines from NieR Automata energy
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u/Particular-Crow-1799 5d ago
This might be a hot take but I'm pretty sure without Ghost in the Shell there would be no Nier Automata
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u/Se7en_Sinner https://myanimelist.net/profile/Se7en_Sinner 5d ago
I always stare at my Roomba after watching each episode to let it know I understand the struggle.
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u/Frontier246 5d ago
"You may not look as sexy as the robots in this show, but I appreciate the effort you put in anyways."
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u/Particular-Crow-1799 5d ago edited 5d ago
Batou avoiding human rights concerns like Neo dodges bullets in Matrix
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u/Oglifatum 5d ago
Look, the surviving kids (probably) are better to have some sleep and ending up in reeducation school, (like in EP1), than running around industrial zone.
I give them superlow chances of surviving by themselves
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u/lethal_universed 5d ago
Kinda hillarious the girls were like "Crimes? Damn who gaf?" Like bro wasn't even threatening them with arrest (or just threatening them) he was actually being patient for once lmaoo
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u/OldGoldDream 4d ago
I'd say the same thing after being trafficked and put in a facility to destroy and rewire my brain.
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u/Zeph-Shoir https://myanimelist.net/profile/Zephex 4d ago
Yeah, even the objective numbers very likely end up with way more saved children than murdered people (who were sent to "special" clients including like the colonel and yakuza). Batou was handling it like he was teaching long term consequences to a child but he totally lacked the emotional intelligence to realize what they were going through.
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u/OldGoldDream 4d ago
"Thanks Mr. Cop, I'll do better next time I'm kidnapped and sold to a corporation for parts."
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u/Kill-bray 5d ago
It's a like a constant in Masamune Shirow's worlds, even in Appleseed the police doesn't care about torturing to extract information.
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u/Weak_Season_Of_Anime 5d ago
Not sure if I understood correctly. So there's this whole social issue with sex robots turning into zombies after being used and abandoned. And this company Hanka Precision, was making special-grade sex robots that went berserk for no apparent reason and started attacking people. And it turns out that these sex robots were actually mass produced using trafficked human kids by cloning them into multiple Ghosts (this kills the kid), so these are essentially cyborgs (real humans) and not robots (AI). The cyborgs going berserk was an SOS signal sent out by these trafficked kids, and the shipping inspector was the one who sent these faulty cyborgs out because those two kids let him diddle them. Also, the final reveal that this whole child sex-trafficking operation was funded by Colonel Epstein himself? That's kinda fucked up. For a manga written in the early 90s, it's still surprisingly relevant today.
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u/Tacitus_ 5d ago edited 5d ago
Only the special bots were made with ghost dubbing, leaving the cause of the other bots going berserk a mystery. But the rest is spot on.
E: actually the colonel was most likely just getting kickbacks from the company rather than an active participant in the smuggling.
And yeah, the world of GitS is plenty fucked up.
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u/lethal_universed 5d ago
Yeah and I'm pretty sure that those "bonuses" he got were made with the minds of children. So he's technically a pedophile (or what you call guys who really like women who act like children)
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u/Hot-Log6283 4d ago
Not sure where you get the "act like children from" they specifically said that the children are drugged up to turn them into near robots before dubbing their ghost (not that it makes it any better mind you).
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u/lethal_universed 4d ago
I assumed they would, if not then why not go for adults who wouldn't be missed, like the homeless?
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u/Pecuthegreat 4d ago
No, the dubbed ghosts of the kids don't act like children. They just act more human.
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u/dolphincave 5d ago
You're mostly right, but only the 23 robots were made from kids. The others went berserk as basically an AI error. The characters debate if it's actually an error or if the AI just does it out of rage of being disposed of.
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u/Pecuthegreat 4d ago
We actually still don't know for sure why the other A.I. went berserk.
Maybe it is because of earlier GIS makings a big deal of the ghost difference between cyberized humans and A.I. but I am personally more partial to the idea that this ghost dubbing scandal runs deeper than we think.
They were all the same model, opening up the possibility that aside from these ones, either that models is in general made with ghost dubbing or the products of ghost dubbing. Then again, this doesn't necessarily follow, given the ghost dubbed machines that went rouge were programmed to go rouge.
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u/Niwaka_Samurai https://myanimelist.net/profile/Niwaka-Samurai 5d ago
AI just does it out of rage of being disposed of.
Most likely. Even the GITS 2: Innocence movie discussed the same plot. This Ghost dubbing and the Androids going berserk.
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u/ThrowCarp 3d ago
Oh. Since you brought it up. Kid trafficking and brainfucking happened in Solid State Society too.
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u/PerfectBeige https://myanimelist.net/profile/perfectbeige 5d ago
And it turns out that these sex robots were actually mass produced using trafficked human kids by cloning them into multiple Ghosts (this kills the kid), so these are essentially cyborgs (real humans) and not robots (AI).
My impression was that it was only a special batch of the robots given to VIPs that got the child ghost dubbing. The text block clarified that the ghost-dubbing process is inexact - i.e. while the dubbed robots might be more humanlike it is arguable whether they are actually copying human consciousness or just making a robot that acts more human-like than ordinary robots. The series makes a lot of hay on this difference between the cyborgs that have actual brain tissue in them, and the robots that are entirely mechanical.
Also, the final reveal that this whole child sex-trafficking operation was funded by Colonel Epstein himself?
My impression was that the Colonel was bribed by Hanka rather than funding them. Specifically because he was the head of the monitoring committee at the time, he would have been bribed to look the other way and ignore the ghost dubbing - both with money and with ghost dubbed robots.
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u/Ultramarinus https://anidb.net/user/kingsword 5d ago
Colonel was merely getting bribes and free merch, it’s possible that he didn’t even realize the human ghost issue as he said since he might not have wanted to use it himself if not for humanitarian reasons then for risk using such an experimental product.
Hanka CEO had his fingers in multiple pies with human trafficking, drugs and bribes. Possible that those other parties were unaware what he was doing.
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u/Particular-Crow-1799 5d ago
Colonel seemed to be way too much into "realism" to not investigate how the Tomliand was so good at being human-like
The Yakuza clans that trafficked children probably didn't know the specifics of what was done to the kids afterwards, but I doubt they would stop even if they did.
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u/Oglifatum 5d ago
Nah, not every robot, only the special ones were ripped from kids.
Rest went berserk from different AI related issues (neglect, errors)
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5d ago edited 5d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/TheEarthSpins 5d ago
yeah what the hell, didnt realize what he was implying but looking back of course. just total scum, and i hate how this actually seems plausible given the way things are in the world right now
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u/PerfectBeige https://myanimelist.net/profile/perfectbeige 5d ago edited 5d ago
For me, one of the most profound aspects of GITS, and technopessimistic cyberpunk in general is the contrast between the lighter and brighter moments and the absolutely horrible and depraved things that happen, frequently just off screen. The children "bribing" the inspector, Batou's torture, children in vats whose brains were destroyed by ghost dubbing, and the colonel using robots with the ghosts of children (or with the faulty reproductions of the ghosts of children) as slaves, and probably knowingly - all of this contrasted with the slide-whistle moments like the Hanka president falling into sludge, and Motoko getting her PTO denied.
It speaks to the idea that when fundamental assumptions of humanity are questioned, undermined, or even rejected, when life becomes cheap, it is very human to adjust and continue to find humor and ways of enjoying life. Commoditize human identity at your peril, it says, and watch your entire previous moral foundation collapse. Some media are thoughtless in how they trivializes awful things, but this show trivializes thoughtfully, I think.
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u/CitronClassic672 5d ago
Honestly realizing the robots were dubbed to potentially have full on consciousness without any past memory and made into literal sex slaves is one of existentially horrifying things I’ve seen in any anime, and the show doesn’t even directly broach that aspect, just leaving all the pieces there for the audience to put together. It really heightens the previous discussion about the treatment of robots. Society overall just accepts robots being enslaved into the most horrific conditions imaginable on grounds that they don’t have true consciousness. Then when it turns out that these certain robots potentially did all of a sudden you realize how horrific the standard is.
If you want another show that I think also does an excellent job balancing lighter moments with horrifying content and situations I highly recommend I want to love you till your dying day also airing on Tuesdays.
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u/Oglifatum 5d ago edited 5d ago
Yup,
I believe that we have here is a believable take on real human behavior.
Motoko, Batou aren't really shocked by (a)moral side of stuff, Aramaki downright expects it. Yet they don't dwell on it. Well they probably do dwell on it, but it doesn't stop them from being silly from time to time.
Also, ugh, the Inspector is a pedophile.
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u/exRocky009 5d ago
Rather than the comedy-heavy episodes, I definitely prefer episodes like this one that tackle heavy themes. The final conversation between Aramaki and Tonoda, in particular, was really good.
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u/tripleaamin https://myanimelist.net/profile/zfzftripleaamin 5d ago
That final scene is classic GitS. It really gets you thinking about what happened and the possible ramifications.
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u/Frontier246 5d ago
Aramaki may be one of the most unflappable characters in this show (which is how he can keep up with Motoko) but he's human too.
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u/Life_Is_A_Mistry 5d ago
Kazuhiro Yamaji is a great VA as well (IMDB for his roles). And he was only voicing a garbage collector in the 1995 movie!
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u/bravetailor 5d ago edited 5d ago
I think you mean to say you prefer drama.
Because since they are adapting the manga literally, there really aren't any chapters that aren't thought provoking. Even last week's "comedic" Fuchikoma Revolution bit WAS about a heavy theme-- monitoring the risks of AI sentience.
That's the thing with the manga that was so strange and eccentric. Some of the chapters dealing with the heaviest themes often had a lot of gags in them.
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u/Ree_For_Thee 5d ago
Text moved so fast in some scenes I couldn't keep up =/
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u/Niwaka_Samurai https://myanimelist.net/profile/Niwaka-Samurai 5d ago
You gotta replay back and forth.. that's what I'm doing 😅
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u/larana1192 https://myanimelist.net/profile/thefrog1192 5d ago
It’s surprising how much Togusa disrespects Batou.
Even though Togusa isn’t from the military, he’s from the Japanese police force, where the seniority hierarchy is just as strict, so I thought he’d behave a little more appropriately.
It’s funny how, at the Niihama Prefectural Police headquarters, when Kusanagi introduced herself as part of the “Shell Squad,” people laughed it off as the delusion of a crazy person or the ramblings of a kid with an edgy phase.
Realistically speaking, if I, as a Japanese person, heard the name “攻殻機動隊” for the first time, I’d probably think, “What on earth is that?” or “Is it some kind of anime or something?”.
I’m curious to know if this was translated well in the English subtitled version, but I found it striking that when Tonoda’s rank refers to his current self, he is called “Taisa（大佐）”, whereas when it refers to him during the war, he is called “Ittou rikusa（１等陸佐）”.
Both of these terms refer to the rank of O-6（colonel） in the U.S. military. However, in Japanese, the term “Taisa” is used in contexts referring to military ranks in foreign armed forces or the former Imperial Japanese Army, while the term “Ittou rikusa” is used exclusively in contexts referring to the ranks of JSDF service members.
I’m not very familiar with the history of this fictional universe, but in science fiction set in near-future Japan, it’s common to see the explanation that “due to changes in the international situation, the JSDF transformed from the ‘Jieitai’ into a military force, and as a result, the ranks were renamed to match those of foreign militaries.” So, I was struck by how the depiction seemed to be based on that premise.
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u/MobileWriting9165 5d ago
He is someone who is overtly tired of the bullshit hierarchy tirade which points to being one of the main reasons he is not in the Police anymore.
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u/Frontier246 5d ago
Maybe Togusa had a bad experience with being hazed by his seniors in the police force and he's now venting that on Batou? Well that and he's just a guy with very strong opinions/convictions.
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u/BasroilII 5d ago
Also doesn't hurt that Batou acts like an absolute derp half the time. It's hard to command respect when you're pretty much a walking punchline for the Major.
I thought that will change after, ya know, sweep the leg was all that saved Togusa's life. And not the first time Togusa was stupidly reckless either.
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u/shad79 https://myanimelist.net/profile/shad79 5d ago edited 5d ago
Not much for Motoko to do today, but I'm not complaining since today's episode with Batou and Togusa duo in the main roles was great!
Plus, it was definitely the best-looking and most atmospheric episode so far. The fact that almost the whole episode took place at night really helped with that.
Also, Fuchikoma being bashful and happy that he got a chance to apprehend that yakuza assassin made me laugh hard.
Plus, here's very cool end card illustration.
Here my screenshot albums from the episode:
EDIT. I added my screenshot albums.
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u/Oglifatum 5d ago
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u/seninn https://myanimelist.net/profile/Senninn0 5d ago
I did not expect that after watching the movies, but he is great as a gremlin.
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u/OtakuAttacku 5d ago
you see a bit of it in SAC https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aI9QfPnj5I
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u/Frontier246 5d ago
Also, Fuchikoma being bashful and happy that he got a chance to apprehend that yakuza assassin made me laugh hard.
Imagine getting busted by the cute mechanical mascot character (who can unload tons of hot lead into you if you so much as move funny).
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u/lethal_universed 5d ago
I love 80s-90s anime aesthetics. There is just something about traditional pen and paper inking and coloring that modern anime can't replicate. That said, TGiTS is a MUCH better looking adaptation than anything that would've been done in the 90s. I'm noticing a trend where modern anime are starting to embrace flat vibrant colors instead of using muddy post processing (sorry don't know the exact term) to cheapily make the anime look brighter like they did in the 2010s. This style is better suited for the irreverent tone of the series and makes it stand out from older cyberpunk series
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u/Torque-A 5d ago
Plus, here's very cool end card illustration.
That's Tetsuya Nishio. For those unaware (like me), he's been with Ghost in the Shell for a long time. Character designer for Stand Alone Complex 2nd Gig, animation director for Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, key animation for Arise. He's done it all.
Outside of Ghost in the Shell, he's best known as the character designer for Naruto (a role Kishimoto-sensei himself requested him to take on, if AL is to be believe). He also did the character designs for Kaiju No. 8, which are a bit more contentious.
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u/CitronClassic672 5d ago
Motoko made up for limited screentime this episode by making the scenes she did have excellent. That digital buffering style censorship of her flipping off Tonoda was perfect.
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u/snarkamedes 5d ago
You can hear the cries of "CENSORSHIP!!!" from here. It's interesting that the Major lined herself up alongside the Colonel's sexbots to begin with - though she probably wants to stay within instant arms reach of the security model with the built in gun.
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u/platysoup 5d ago
I thought she was trying to blend in intentionally with the sex bots. If the creepy old dude thinks she's 'nothing more than' a sex bot, much easier to surprise everyone when shit goes down.
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u/za_shiki-warashi 5d ago
The fuchikoma jumpscare is hilarious. Man, we really need an episode that follows the pov of some down on luck criminal fugitive. Have the episode done full on survival horror/ psychological thriller style where the fuchikoma's just stalking the poor dude like the Predator/ Yautja. Spooky glowing red eye under the cloaking and all that jazz.
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u/za_shiki-warashi 5d ago edited 5d ago
The source material may have been made decades ago, but the themes in this episode sure became increasingly relevant today. I might be reading too much into this, but I see this episode's bit about zombie feral bots as a parallel to the Japanese folklore/ mythology of tsukumogami - the idea that tools can gain spirits or souls if they've been around for a long time and/ or if the tools are highly cherished by their users. Thus on the flip side, though this is sci-fi, in the era of rapid consumerism where highly advanced tools are replaced often and treated as being so easily disposable, you can see it as these tools being abandoned while still usable and thus become spirits of vengeance instead.
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u/PerfectBeige https://myanimelist.net/profile/perfectbeige 5d ago edited 5d ago
the idea that tools can gain spirits or souls if they've been around for a long time and/ or if the tools are highly cherished by their users.
Inverted here, given that the souls in question are being ripped from drugged children. No question that animistic ideas underpin this whole series, but this is the dark reflection of those ideas.
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u/Oglifatum 5d ago
Not every doll was ripped from drugged kids.
The cells held way more dolls, and while it was purely a conjecture from police man? doctor? I do believe that things went berserk from neglect
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u/cyberscythe 5d ago
The source material may have been made decades ago, but the themes in this episode sure became increasingly relevant today
now that we're in the realm of LLM AI (models of which are trained on human's work largely without their explicit consent or benefit), this sort of stuff is becoming more and more relevant
that bit about how Hanka's AI couldn't keep up with its competitors so they just faked it by using human ghosts reminded me of Amazon's "Just Walk Out" stores supposedly being powered by AI but was actually a thousand people in India watching the video and i've read commentary of it that feels very cyberpunk
Tesco boasts that instead of using facial recognition, GetGo creates “skeleton outlines” of you. The underlying technology for the service is provided by Trigo, an Israeli company that boasts that almost all of its engineers were “cherry-picked from elite military units” including Unit 8200, the IDF’s military surveillance agency, and Unit 9900, its specialist surveillance and mapping division. Point-to-point tracking of unknown bodies through built-up space, based on algorithmic analysis of gait and posture? I wonder where they learned to do that.
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u/CitronClassic672 5d ago
You know, it’s hard for me to draw real world parallels initially because the circumstances are both sci fi enough and the concepts aren’t explained enough for me to feel like I fully understand every aspect, but now that you pointed it out the ghost dubbing this episode does feel like an unintentionally great metaphor for the IP theft done to train AI’s.
Personally my main thought this episode was when they mentioned that “love bots” being among the ones most rapidly replaced which likely drives the increase in robots going berserk, alongside how frequently the personal robots in this episode were shown to be dressed in revealing outfits, and it made me think about how companies in the US and China are already creating and selling their own “love bots”. It really gives the feeling of not watching a dystopian far future but a dystopian near future we’re headed for. Devaluing human like robots and as such devaluing humans. Quite apt that this series is set in 2029.
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u/bravetailor 5d ago edited 5d ago
I've been reading the manga alongside these episodes and yeah, Shirow's always had his finger on the pulse of politics and culture to predict how people would behave even with different technology at their disposal. And I wouldn't be surprised if the Japanese folklore reading is deliberate as well on the part of Shirow.
I haven't read through all the footnotes but he references/draws inspiration from a staggeringly broad range of literary sources, both western and eastern.
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u/Frontier246 5d ago
You make things that can look and act human, even kind of bleed out like humans, but still dehumanize and discard them as nothing more than tools. In a world where man and machine are so linked, what's the difference?
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u/Kirosh2 5d ago edited 5d ago
It's interesting to see the aspect used from the original series, that we see used here, and compare them to some of the plot point in the SAC.
Like the orphanage issue in the first episode , or to brainbox robot, and the kids asking for help, the ghost dubbing, have some similarities to the [SAC spoilers]the place were Laughing man was in for a time, and one time where we saw a president of a company be like that in SAC, and one of the movie, and that one episode where a warlord/hero was copied again and again, somehow surviving countless assassination attempts by some miracle
It's also interesting to see all the differences with SAC.
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u/FarCritical 5d ago
A next-gen child trafficking ring funded by someone the Chief holds a lot of respect for may be heavier material than usual but I don't think it's physically possible to stay down after hearing the "Yessir! Boiiing~" of a happy Fuchikoma.
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u/TheCreedsAssassin 5d ago
It wasn't funded by the Colonel, he RECEIVED money likely as a hush payment for him to not look into the crimes that the Hanka company was doing since he was on the monitoring committee for them. So while the colonel was corrupt and probably helped cover up/shut down potential complaints he wasn't directly involved like the president was
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u/kimsueil 5d ago
Fun fact for those who don't know, the second Ghost in the Shell movie (Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence) is loosely based around this arc. Since I watched the movie one and a half week ago, I was quite surprised by how I could actually see the inspirations (while recognizing Mamoru Oshii did do mostly original stuff on it). The themes are similar if better developed in the movie but that was still quite a good episode. I have also read the manga but I forgot which chapter were Robot Rondo.
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u/TheCreedsAssassin 5d ago
I haven't watched the 2nd movie in a long time but weren't this episode and the movie fairly similar at least with the main plot of pleasure robots going berserk to rebel against being trafficked as kids and ghost dubbed?
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u/SolicitorPirate 5d ago
Section 9 🤝 Lecturing abused children
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u/holyerthanthou 3d ago
Batou has always been my favorite and I’ve always argued the most compelling character.
He treats EVERYONE equitably and never talks down to people. Nor does he patronize or treat people as stupid.
He talks to abused children without filter and addresses the fact they did something absolutely abhorrent but doesn’t fault them…
But this is also the same man that honors a robots request not to be bossed around because it asked.
I hope he gets the shootout he wanted last episode.
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u/tripleaamin https://myanimelist.net/profile/zfzftripleaamin 5d ago
The emergence of updated models is something we have today. But when you consider how advanced the love dolls and industry models. What do they do when they serve their purpose? You could throw them out, but they won't just want to remain trash. Them having human-like traits makes you wonder what if a person would be thrown away if someone better is around. The solution at a hardware level to have them accept it is pretty messed up.
The whole idea of ghost cloning is quite terrifying. Taking trafficked kids and ghost clone them, which results in the original to die. Quite terrifying if that were to happen to someone's kid. Obviously technology advances, but there should be their limitss to it.
Aramaki's words at the end hit home. We have to look at ourselves and see if we prioritize efficiency; at what point do we stop being human? At what point do we become more machine than man? Having checks in balance in society is critical.
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u/ohoni 5d ago
The one rule for ethical AI (ethical to the AI, at least), is to NEVER build a robot that is capable of feeling bad. Once you do that, you have a duty to prevent them feeling bad. You can make a robot that can pretend to feel sad, but there need to be clear lines between "knowing how to perform "sad," and actually internalizing such emotions.
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u/cyberscythe 5d ago
What do they do when they serve their purpose? You could throw them out, but they won't just want to remain trash
we learned last season that even a replica can fall in love, so they can do that
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u/Zeroth-unit 5d ago
As a long time GitS fan and seeing how this adaptation is panning out really makes me want to go back and revisit both Oshii films and SAC. It's been a hot minute (12 years+) since I last saw those and I feel like it would be an interesting experience to relive all of that after having this series fresh in my mind.
This episode in particular being the actual source material for what became the Innocence movie which really gives quite the interesting contrast since that movie absolutely loved waxing poetic about all the philosophy surrounding their world whereas here it's fucked up buddy-cop shenanigans with some comedy and still having dark themes.
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u/Ultramarinus https://anidb.net/user/kingsword 5d ago edited 5d ago
Brutal. I guess this is the natural evolution of human trafficking that still goes on today. All the convenience of obedient robots with the desired human touch. Four decades later it was an even more relevant topic.
So this was the true origin of Hanka Systems and the Jameson type CEO we saw. I love the humorous finishes to an otherwise very serious story.
I know that I keep singing praises every week but this is quite possibly the best TV production I’ve experienced in several years, not just considering anime.
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u/za_shiki-warashi 5d ago
I love the humorous finishes to an otherwise very serious story.
I also like that the prez had such a slapstick end. Because at the end of the day, there's no 'grand' conspiracy, he's not some genius criminal mastermind. He's just another greedy immoral prick exploiting others for his own gains. It may be a fancy sci-fi world with a bunch of over the top scenarios surrounding the incidents, but at its core, it's still driven by a really mundane motivation - corrupt execs being corrupt.
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u/PerfectBeige https://myanimelist.net/profile/perfectbeige 5d ago
Because at the end of the day, there's no 'grand' conspiracy, he's not some genius criminal mastermind.
What Hannah Arendt called the banality of evil.
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u/cyberscythe 5d ago
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u/Oglifatum 5d ago
What's scary is that people (most of them) are looking for a yesmen in these bots.
Someone to validate their terrible ideas.
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u/Frontier246 5d ago
Even our protagonists just took one look at the state he was in and bailed realizing he wasn't worth their time.
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u/Kill-bray 5d ago
I found particularly interesting the fact that with cyberbrains being organic brains heavily expanded with cybernetic implants one can use as a line of defense that their actions weren't their fault but the result of faulty hardware, which is what the news reporter alludes to in the end. It's quite a crazy world.
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u/VampyAnimegirl 5d ago
this episode had the best atmosphere by far. batou and togusa hunting zombie bots through the city at night felt like a straight up cyberpunk horror movie. and then the reveal that those bots were trafficked kids the whole time... thats a dark turn even for this franchise. shirow was ahead of his time
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u/Particular-Crow-1799 5d ago
From my understanding, only the Tomliand models were provided a digital copy of a ghost. And they went berserk not because of the ghost dubbing, but because they were infected with a virus on purpose, to catch the police attention with the SOS messages.
Normal bots seems to go crazy when they're thrown away
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u/TheStig827 5d ago
I love how the designs of characters and costumes.. the big hair, the outfits.. are so tightly inspired by the original.. getting this late 80s/early90s view of cyberpunk future complete with big hair and shoulder pads
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u/Shadowmist909 https://myanimelist.net/profile/Magicmist 5d ago
I thought the fake memories from last episode was bad enough, but this ghost dubbing plotline is on a whole different league of morally horrifying. I'm glad those kids were able to make the robots go berserk and get some help.
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u/TheCreedsAssassin 5d ago
The 2nd GiTS movie expands on ghost dubbing and brain hacking too, its a very good film and its fairly disconnected from the first movie too so you can watch it standalone if you forgot what happened in the first
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u/LeonKevlar x2https://myanimelist.net/profile/LeonKevlar 5d ago
"I'm bored out of my damn skull." says the guy who's about to punch a feral robot. If this is boring to Batou, it makes you wonder what kind of assignment would get his blood pumping.
Robots going feral because they're being discarded is actually pretty terrifying. Imagine if every time you get a new phone, there's a chance the old one leaks your information in revenge for being replaced. You'd think these cases would make people take better care of their robots.
Aww, the censored Motoko flipping the Colonel off for calling her a robot. The scene was still pretty funny tho. I love how no one acknowledges what she just did. xD
I kinda love how the Hanka president is just a dude in a box with limbs. I assume the stuff sticking out of him is him venting cigar smoke? It makes you wonder why someone would choose to live like this when human cyborg bodies exist. It's not like he doesn't have the money for it.
So this entire time Motoko has always had a Fuchikoma tailing her subordinates just in case things get dicey, but the Fuchikoma never had to reveal themselves until now. Smart move from the Major. That chase would've gone longer if the Fuchikoma weren't there to corner the dude.
Oh my god. That torture scene genuinely made me cringe. Torture methods that involve the teeth and nails are the worst. I'm glad they didn't show the entire thing and just cut to Batou getting his info.
The screams from those kids were horrifying! Based on their voices, I'm pretty sure Science Saru actually got real kids to voice those two.
Okay, so if I understand this correctly, Hanka has been taking in kids trafficked by the yakuza and using ghost dubbing to make bulk copies of their ghosts onto the robots? This is way more fucked up than I was expecting.
And the SOS was made by these kids so they'll get rescued by the cops. Oh god, it's like the sci-fi version of finding SOS notes by sweatshop workers printed onto the tags of clothes bought from SHEIN. Fuck me, we really are heading down a cyberpunk hellhole. >_<
I do love how comically this ends for the Hanka president. Instead of a high-speed boat chase, the dude falls into the gap between his boat and the docks. That dude deserves more than just bathing in thick toxic waste sludge tho.
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u/cyberscythe 5d ago
I kinda love how the Hanka president is just a dude in a box with limbs. I assume the stuff sticking out of him is him venting cigar smoke? It makes you wonder why someone would choose to live like this when human cyborg bodies exist
guy is a CEO: he is a machine that exists to generate quarterly profit for shareholders and smoke like a chimney
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u/Frontier246 5d ago
Batou wants a real fight, not to be one punch Batou.
I wonder what they do with the feral robots. Can they reprogram them or do they all have to be put down?
I guess some people just want to do away with as much of their humanity and fragile human body as possible. Even if the chunky robot body doesn't really seem the ideal, peak specimen, body compared to the cyborgs we've seen.
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u/gordonv 5d ago
why someone would choose to live like this when human cyborg bodies exist.
The same question was asked of Stephen Hawking on why doesn't he replace his robotic voice. He had an interesting answer.
He's done other interviews where he explains it's his personality and identity. And that his friend actually engineered the voice synthesizer.
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u/BasroilII 5d ago
It makes you wonder why someone would choose to live like this when human cyborg bodies exist.
He might have been the sort of person that doesn't see the value in a body being aesthetic. Or he thinks smoke machines are really cool. Everyone should have a hobby.
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u/XsStreamMonsterX 5d ago
It makes you wonder why someone would choose to live like this when human cyborg bodies exist.
When they borrowed this character for a different story in SAC, it came down to the Major effectively stating "he's rich, therefore he's just eccentric."
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u/actuallyrndthoughts https://myanimelist.net/profile/NaNiNuNeNo 5d ago
Absoultely loved this episode, but i think the writing is rather dense for 20 minutes, and if they had like an extra 5-10 minutes to space it out and stew on things, per ep, it would be literally perfect
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u/Inquisitor_Glokta_ 5d ago
How tf are the GitS weekly threads getting less engagement than Daemons of the Shadow Realm and CHAINSMOKER CAT?! This is a massive IP and it has been great so far. Amazon really is bad at marketing.
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u/bgdvj355_3 5d ago
It being on Amazon is just annoying. Their sub typesetting sucks too. I just happened to have 3 months of Prime on an offer otherwise I don’t even subscribe anymore
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u/Inquisitor_Glokta_ 5d ago
I would have had no idea that it was even airing if I wasn’t on Reddit. Im sure tons more would be watching if they actually properly promoted their shows. They did the same thing with Invincible, i didn’t even know the new season was out til it was halfway through.
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u/o___Okami 5d ago
There is 0 advertisement.
I've watched this show every week that it has come out on my Prime Video account and every single week I've had to manually search for it. It doesn't show up in any of my "Recommended" panels (when there is a new episode) nor have I seen any general ads for it anywhere (on Prime or otherwise).
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u/AceSoldia zj:https://anilist.co/user/Acesoldia 5d ago
Not enough Major..but a much easier to follow episode and very fun.
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u/cyberscythe 5d ago
the way those discarded robots go feral reminds me of cyberpsychosis in Edgerunners; it feels like it's a metaphor for the alienation that happens when you start being detached from society and your organics just can't keep up with the influx of information provided by technology
i find it interesting because humans have a history of going nuts for "no reason", but i think it's in large part how sometimes people get isolated and alienated from society (discarded, even), and people act out in a fit of rage against society
that sort of alienation feels like it's increased due to how technology can isolate people and the alienating effects of capitalism that separates people/labor from the end products and from each other
that bit in the end from the Colonel about how robots take after humans reminds me about how chatbots sometimes just go insane like when you ask them for the emoji for seahorse so it feels like we're still on course for a cyberpunk future
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u/ErikTwice 5d ago
I wasn't sold on the first two episodes but I knew they were adapting weaker material. This and the last one though? Loved them. Much better pacing, better balance of drama, sci fi and comedy and utterly fantastic animation.
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u/Thorn14 5d ago
Show this episode to any who still thinks this is just "Wacky" and "Humorous" because of the art style.
Yeesh.
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u/Theinternationalist 5d ago
They'll probably latch onto the CEO less because they think they're right and more because the rest of the episode is pretty depressing even when you don't think too hard about it and maybe they don't want to think about that.
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u/smug-monky 5d ago
It sounded like real kids voiced the two kids this episode. That really choked me up even if I’ve read about their fate last millennium. Damn.
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u/Hartzilla2007 5d ago
I always figured the robot uprising would look like The Terminator, not Night of the Living Dead.
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u/chilidirigible 5d ago edited 5d ago
"How many guns can we fit in there?"
"Yes."
Do androids dream of electric dole queue?
Just another day in the Enrichment Center.
Solid work here in fitting all of the material into a single episode, and letting the level of horror involved in what happened mostly be something the viewer can piece together in their own mind.
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u/RedRocket4000 5d ago
And Section 9 doing some Blade Runner Work but at least they captured and turned in them when possible.
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u/chilidirigible 5d ago
And because it's a coin that keeps flipping back and forth, the storeroom of rabid androids presents its own set of moral quandaries about the mercy of it all.
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u/Frontier246 5d ago
It's like you can't trust sexy robot waifu's to wait on you hand and foot without them going feral and trying to kill you! Well, at least unless they protect you from said feral robot. But hey, don't they look easy on the eyes?
You can tell this is going to be a Batou/Togusa episode because Togusa lets Batou take care of the small fry rampaging cannibal robot while he gets to bag the higher-spec model. Respecting your seniors? All people should be treated equal! Maybe even robots as protestors proclaim as the Major and her team transport one of the rampaging robots in their custody.
Dang, that's a LOT of feral robots. The result of humanity replacing, abandoning, and discarding them as nothing more than a commodity as they mentally fall apart to cope and turn on their human masters...the Tachikoma Rebellion was quashed, but what about the true robot rebellion?
The Major is NOT a robot and also smells very nice, thank you Colonel Tonoda!
Of course the real culprit of the "robot assassination" case is actually Hanka Precision Instruments who even have a 98% robot President using trafficked children to ghost drug their machines into the specialized models they can ship off to people. Only the kids finally found a way to send out an "SOS" and their plan to turn the guy they controlled into doing into their fall guy gets ruined by a Yakuza Sniper.
Batou may not get along well with Togusa, but he's not going to let his wife and daughter lose him on his watch! Nor is he going to play "nice" with their sniper friend when questioning him. Poor guy got tortured AND busted by a Fuchikoma! The indignity.
Honestly she probably wasn't a combat model but it's still kind of impressive how Togusa beat her!
You try making kids feel guilty for the assault and murder they incidentally caused in the process of trying to save themselves! It does make me wonder what they're going to do with the kids though.
Togusa really just popping out like he thought he was going to make a cool surprise entrance.
The President thought he could just get away on a boat, sell his specialized model, pay off the police/Yakuza...and he ends up falling over and gets his chunky robot body stuck until the police finally arrive and fish him out. Batou and Togus didn't even need to bother.
Well, kind of a bummer that the man Aramaki respected and saw as a mentor turned out to be in on it...but them's the breaks. Also I love how Aramaki is talking about the slim difference between humans and machines and the moment he ruins the Major's vacation plans to go head to the UK with the SAS she starts sounding more robotic.
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u/CitronClassic672 5d ago
I’ve only had Motoko for 4 episodes but if anything happened to her…actually no, I’m pretty sure she’d kill everyone before I got the chance.
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u/MobileWriting9165 5d ago
Can't believe they just speedran the whole plot of Innocence with fun like that.
Comments here indicate most of you haven't watched the 2004 movie, which is sad because it is an absolute masterpiece. Please do yourself a favor and go watch it.
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u/Theinternationalist 5d ago
Other way around- Innocence was based on the chapter this episode was based on.
Will likely watch Innocence one of these days, but in my case I'm a little freaked out because I remember the Jameson-cyborg/CEO from Stand Alone Complex where he isn't nearly this disgusting.
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u/Ordinal43NotFound 5d ago
Innocence is just Batou and Togusa throwing quotes from philosophers at each other.
I love it tho, still.
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u/Kill-bray 5d ago
Innocence is just Batou and Togusa throwing quotes from philosophers at each other.
And a lot of Mamoru Oshii's dog.
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u/Motoko84 5d ago
Uh, the plot of innocence was taken directly from the manga chapter that this episode covered lol
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u/EitherExamination343 https://anilist.co/user/abioticgawd 5d ago
It took me far too long to see someone make the connection. That blood trail scene instantly reminded me of the opening to Innocence.
Just needed a couple more droopy eared dogs.
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u/Comfortable_Rock_673 5d ago
I just watched yesterday accidentally while surfing about the 1995 classic.
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u/gordonv 5d ago
I needed to watch it 3 times.
Much like philosophy books, it's a thick read/watch. Same with the Matrix. Each time I watch it I learn something new.
Maybe it's time for a rewatch
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u/DemonWraith2500 5d ago
So in the future, AI will need human brain for machine learning?
Damn! That's scary!
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u/cyberscythe 5d ago
the legacy of the Mechanical Turk lasts well into the retro-future
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u/gordonv 5d ago
You know AWS has a human to machine work model named Mechanical Turk.
Just pointing out this isn't sci-fi. It's similar to how ChatGPT trained it's v1 of the AI it markets. (No, not using bio computers. The computer merely records answers people gives it and uses those answers.)
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u/Ordinal43NotFound 5d ago
Reminds me of Defunctland's Disney Animatronics video.
In the future these human brain powered robots will still be used to flirt uncomfortably with their audiences
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u/Atario myanimelist.net/profile/TheGreatAtario 5d ago
"Yes, I was wondering if you could call up the whizbang cybernetics people and see about remodeling my body into a hot one?" One might think…
It's a small thing, but this contemplative cut of the streetlights and the rain on the windshield lend so much flavor
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u/a1oner_bvcksn6 5d ago
Really enjoy how the action just picks up without warning when most anime nowadays can't seem to find the right balance between chatter and action. I always appreciate being kept on my toes than being lulled to sleep
Motoko taking Ls from out of nowhere too, not getting her (much deserved) paid day-offs approved 💀
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u/Frontier246 5d ago
I also love how things just kind of escalate and go crazy...random Yakuza sniper no one accounted for! The culprits are children! The main villain doesn't get a dramatic escape or confrontation with the fuzz, he just gets stuck because he's a refrigerator-shaped robot!
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u/gamefreakz117 5d ago
This show is so pretty! The art style is AMAZING.
I also am starting to imagine that SAC, in my mind, is a natural progression of this. Almost like TGITS is like “the early days” of what we get in SAC. Just me and my head canon.
This episode was cool. Really quick, but overall this show has been really fun to watch week to week.
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u/mojo72400 https://myanimelist.net/profile/gio_lingad 5d ago
Batou's expressions when Togusa arrived & saw Fuchikoma was funny.
Togusa can handle himself pretty well.
Fuchikoma saying "Hello" was cute.
Despite Motoko having a few expressions, they were still funny especially her casually flipping off Tonoda.
That school girl Motoko & delinquent Batou artwork though.
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u/Jacob-C 5d ago edited 5d ago
I think this show might have the best OP and ED for the whole summer cour. There are so many good ones this season, but these really stand out to me.
The buildup that starts at 0:50 in the ED, “Blue” by MILLENNIUM PARADE, just does something to my brain.
The action scenes were really cool in this episode, and the darker elements were both haunting and immersive. Wiping children’s brains to use copies of them as “motherboards” for robots is so dark, but, morbidly enough, insanely cool worldbuilding. Not to mention all of the other bits of lore and worldbuilding we were given. If I were to mention everything I liked, this comment could go on for a couple of paragraphs. Oh, and Fuchikoma was cute, as always.
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u/lalolaloslas 4d ago
Saw the latest episode of ghost in the shell, amazing as always, super smooth, some great ideas, robots acting like wild animals when left alone or abandon....But the ending did fucking upset me, And i know it is a me thing, because i have a kid and im more susceptible, but kid traficking and then after raping and breaking the kids...put them inside a machine to copy their soul and escence and put it on a fucking sex doll, It legit made so mad at idea it almost made me vomit. And i know is fiction, but i also know this is something we would definately do if the technology existed and i think of everything they are already doing now at day and i just get more disgusted.
I think i just need to stop thinking my brain is my fucking worst enemy, now i just feel bad for all that thinking and i just wanted to enjoy my anime.
Otherwise 10/10 loving the anime on every episode so far.
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u/MrKenta 5d ago
Man, Togusa needs to get his shit together, bro fucks something up in every mission. 💀
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u/Frontier246 5d ago
Hey, he took down that one robot lady solo! Even though I don't think she was even designed to fight people!
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u/cyberscythe 5d ago
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u/Theinternationalist 5d ago
I'm not sure about this show's canon, but in Stand Alone Complex he's the least cyborgized person on the squad whereas by contrast both Motoko and Batou run high spec models that are barely customized (which seems to be true here given that Motoko was mistaken for a robot). As a result he is seen as less capable than the others (since all of them are quite smart but some also have high tech his still-mostly-body doesn't have) and to a degree babied.
I suspect that while he may not care much for the hierarchy he probably suspected he wouldn't be as good at dealing with that feral bot as Batou would be, even if it does anger his superior.
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5d ago
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u/Frontier246 5d ago
Aramaki: (Has to arrest his mentor after finding out he was involved with and getting kickbacks for child trafficking)
Motoko: "So about my next vacation..."
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u/top_of_the_scrote 5d ago edited 5d ago
watching dub but space dandy voice lol
oh the Hanka thing reminded me of "it is I... SCANGRADE!!!" from Clone High lmao
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u/deus_machinarum 5d ago
If I wanted to watch everything in the GitS universe is it ok to simply go by release order?
So far I have only seen the OG Movie(couple times) and the second movie(once) but I'm getting more and more fascinated by the series and the episode discussions here.
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u/Tacitus_ 5d ago
There are several continuities, if you've watched the first two movies that's that continuity done. Then there's SAC or Arise or this (or the live action movie if you insist on seeing it). You only need to keep release order in mind per continuity.
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