The Ghost in the Shell

The neck plug thing got me so bad. Here she is outsmarting the entire police force and taking a fake hostage and then she cant plug into the helicopter like a normal person. That manga energy is exactly why I love this adaptation

the animation during that restaurant explosion was actually insane science saru is really going all out with the visuals this season and poor togusa getting his collarbone wrecked just for being the only normal guy there

You watch her go through this whole legal circus where politicians use her as a scapegoat and the public is flashing verdicts on screens like its a Twitch poll. Then they fake her death to slip her ghost out. Classic Shirow logic. Cold and brilliant and I cannot wait for the finale

I was not ready for the manga threesome to actually show up. Thirty years of adaptations skipped it and Science SARU just went for it. But it clashed with the courtroom tension. Felt like two different shows fighting for my attention this episode

The Major telling Togusa to worry about his wife and then he gets his collarbone shattered minutes later. Every season that man catches the worst hands. He's the only human in a squad of ghosts and they keep using him as a shield

Aramaki playing 4D chess with the ministry while Batou is flooring it through the city and the Major is teleporting into helicopters. This is the wham episode before the wham finale. The staged death was cold as hell and I'm still processing it

They finally did the threesome scene and honestly the whole legal drama around it made it hit harder. The Major is so raw in that moment like shes shedding everything. But Togusa lying there with his collarbone broke while shes off doing that felt wrong somehow

The jump from 'investigate the weird AI' to 'Section 9 is publicly labeled an assassination squad' was wild but the real gut punch was the media leak. Photos of her face on live TV with her name attached. No more anonymity for this unit and that changes everything going into the finale

I don't care what anyone says the 'Hello I am Project 2501' moment with the scientists losing their minds was incredible. Watching a machine say hello for the first time and everyone realizing they made something alive. Best part of the episode by miles

Aramaki calling out Nakamura on the tarmac was so satisfying. 'My targets are criminals but yours are political obstacles' that one line sums up the whole rotten system. Section 6 made a ghost and now everyone has to deal with the consequences

She shot him in the head and then just sat there on the pier staring at her own hands like she didn't know who pulled the trigger. That look said everything. This is the slow merge theory people are talking about and it's genuinely unsettling

Batou asking Motoko to go scuba diving and her admitting she's scared of it might be the most human she's ever been on this show. Not the invincible Major just a person who's afraid. That conversation under the rain dome did more for her character than any action scene

The fan service is getting out of hand honestly. We're in the middle of a political assassination crisis and the show keeps panning to swimsuits and ass shots. Shirow's manga being horny doesn't excuse it when the tone is this heavy

The scene where the AI panics about being upgraded hit way too close to home. Calling a system wipe 'necessary change' while it screams essentially that it just wants to keep existing. That's not a tool that's a person and Section 6 never saw it

That trigger pull was no accident. A sniper of her level doesn't just slip like that. The Puppet Master is in her head still and honestly that terrifies me more than the politics angle. Section 9 on the news as a death squad is bad but Motoko losing herself is worse

The visuals are amazing; a retro style with eye popping colours. However as a newcomer to the franchise, the pacing is rushed, making the story hard to follow. Subbing out real countries names for fictional countries doesn't really help either! I did enjoy the issues raised in the series and I am told Stand Alone Complex may be a better primer to the series.

Interesting conclusion to the series, in a way that shows how the Oshii's interpretation is both similar and different from the original manga. I am curious to see if we get a second season adapting the sequel manga.

The trial scene dragged for me honestly. I get that they wanted to do philosophy heavy lifting but the prosecutor asking questions and her answering with death monologues got old fast. Meanwhile the whole Gorantor plot behind it was the real show. Wish they trimmed the courtroom stuff down

The way Aramaki handled that Ministry guy telling him to throw the Major under the bus was cold perfection. He just refused and kept it moving like discarding your best operative was never even on the table. That loyalty is what separates Section 9 from the rest of these government ghouls

This is implying there are only 10 episodes in the series, unless we're getting a trick where we get two final episodes to wrap up the story.