Discussion Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex 2nd GIG

Episodes: 26 | Source: Manga | Genres: Award Winning, Mystery, Sci-Fi, Adult Cast, Detective, Mecha, Military, Seinen
Synopsis
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Following the closure of the "Laughing Man" case, Section 9 is re-established by Japan's newly elected Prime Minister, Youko Kayabuki, to combat the persistent threat of cyber-terrorism.

A group calling themselves "The Individual Eleven" has begun committing acts of terror across Japan. While Motoko Kusanagi, Daisuke Aramaki, Batou, and the other members of Section 9 investigate this new menace, the Japanese government faces a separate crisis, as foreign refugees displaced by the Third World War seek asylum in Japan. But as the members of the special-ops team continually encounter Gouda Kazundo—a leading member of the Cabinet Intelligence Service—in their hunt, they begin to suspect that he may be involved, and that the events of the refugee crisis and The Individual Eleven may be more connected than they realize...

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

 

Episode 1 was good. Straight into some action with this one with some people being held hostage in the Chinese embassy building while the terrorists calling themselves The Individual 11 are waiting on their demands to be fulfilled, being the halt of Asian immigrants. Section 9 are stuck waiting for Aramaki to confirm if they act though.

Ironically, the new political power was already intending to reform refugee acts, but now are stalling on it so it appears they aren't caving to the terrorists. On one hand, the new Prime Minister Youko Kayabuki was prepared to accept Aramaki's help, but then the Minister of Home Affairs halted it citing going through official channels to push through a security bill.

In the end, section 9 were pushed through ahead of the other official groups like the police and cleared out all of the terrorists except the final one holding a hostage. Motoko took him out though after he was already surrounded, so they did some good work. Motoko doesn't seem to like Youko.

The Tachikoma also have returned as new members of section 9!

 

Episode 2 was alright. Gino seemed almost black pilled, but also going a little psychotic. He viewed that he fought in the war basically for a senseless fake reason. He also believes a lot of people are just living lies and eating up whatever the media says, which may not be entirely wrong. Gino also had frequent delusions of completing his assassination plot against Katakura and was content with exposing "truth" even if it cost his life. Motoko even seemed to pretend to be an escort with Batou acting as her handler, which drew him in, only for him to be shoed out, go to another place and end up robbed of his money.

At the end, with his piloting job for Katakura, it was arranged for Motoko also board the flight. This is where things came to an end, as Gino once more had a fantasy of carrying out his assassination plot against Katakura, but it was just that, a fantasy and he wasn't involved with terrorists. It was also revealed Gino lost his power body due to contracting an STD/STI in the war.

 

Episode 3 was alright. Feels like there's a lot of them masquerading. So Motoko went around as undercover as a thief to make it seem like there was a legitimate theft plot going around against Chairman Tsutomo Tadokoro under the guise of it being a female android controlled remotely. With this pretence, Aramaki was invited to a closed-off self-indulgent depraved party where powerful individuals gathered and in some aspects indulged in their deprave desires which was basically engaging in sexual activities with "sex dolls". Motoko accompanied Aramaki as one of the "sex dolls" and indulged Chairman Tadokoro a little bit to jack into his head and get intel.

Motoko switched up to being the thief after that, and with clever use of a fake body went into the vault's drop. This had chairman Tadokoro ordering section 9 to go into the vault, which he had to open and thus his shady dealings were exposed.

 

Episode 4 was ok. This case involved a pilot going into cardiac arrest and dying while piloting a military helicopter in the middle of an operation. The support AI took over but just continued flying indefinitely and basically went rogue while ignoring orders.

Section 9 was brought in to clean up the mess under a rather unique individual's command, Kasundo Gouda who seems to have facial injuries probably from war or something. Although some Tachikoma were damaged they succeeded in the end. Seems like this incident wasn't a terrorist plot, but rather the pilot hid their heart condition/medication from everyone, which resulted in this situation. Batou was a bit annoyed their unit was used.

 

Episode 5 was alright. So there is a group conspiring to assassinate the Prime Minister after discovering a letter threatening her with a specific symbol, and section 9 has been asked to guard her while others look into the culprits. After some digging, section 9 found a disturbing connection with the individual 11 that connects to a 1932 event where a group of young naval officers, army cadets and farmer sympathisers came together and assassinated the Prime Minister at the time. During the trail, the people seemingly were swayed to supporting them and the witnesses were mailed 11 severed fingers to dissuade them. Prime Minister Kayabuki received a package with 11 severed fingers mirroring this.

She ended up going to pray at a shrine which is where the culprit coincidentally had gone to. He attempted to take her life, but Motoko interfered before Batou also helped. The culprit is a reinforced cyborg, so even after taking many shots he was able to get away.

Weird of Motoko to say that he might not have had intent to kill Prime Minister Kayabuki.

 

Episode 6 was alright. This case involved what is suspected as a homicide disguised as an accident and the truck driver who hit the victim Kotan Kanji didn't really seem to recall anything. Togusa was tasked with looking into the case. While asking around, it was revealed that Gouda was looking for him.

Togusa saw a few men leading Kotan's fiancée Ruriko into an alley and saved her before they went to a hotel for her to clean up. Kotan's prosthetic body was flagged when he was getting his ID due to lacking performance requirements. Kotan then avoided Ruriko even declining her help with a new body, or telling her he got one.

The sketchy work Kotan was involved in was excavating an old nuclear factory, and the workers accidentally triggered the reactor while working, which caused it to be locked down and covered up. This is what Kotan wanted to expose and tried blackmailing the government over which lead to his murder.

Togusa left Ruriko with his contact details before seeing the article of the president of Kuromatsu Electrical behind the excavating job "committing suicide" which rang alarm bells. Togusa tried to call her cell phone but it was left on the ground. Seems she was likely disappeared/killed too.

 

Episode 7 was alright, another joint operation ordered with Gouda. Batou is again relegated to basically just complaining about how section 9 have been reduced to the Prime Ministers lap dog. For the mission, section 9 was to retrieve and escort plutonium out as there was threat of terrorists in the area that would presumably attack.

There was one sketchy area where refugees were surrounding an area with a tipped over truck. They were cautious here and Motoko gave the order for the vehicles to go ahead, and then it seemed that some people were closing in to attack, with one having a gun. This had Gouda point out a gun they held which lead to the deaths of the people. It's not clear if they were civilians or terrorists, but they got out either way. In the end, section 9 was a decoy, and the plutonium had been escorted out by another unit.

 

Episode 8 was ok. So section 9 was digging into the oddities and trouble they've been having lately, and more specifically, Gouda. From what they've find, he seemed unremarkable in the past, so his current self seems a bit strange by comparison. During a meeting, Batou brought up the Prime Minister as likely being the one behind them being on a leash, but Aramaki seems to think she's their ally. They've also been charged with looking into another terrorist plot with that same logo tied in. The suspect seems to be Sho Kawashima an SDA agent.

It seems Gouda's men leaked to the media certain details around the current ongoing assassination plots and that group. They also have been manipulating Section 1. This comes to a front when section 9 pin down Sho's face was stolen by the terrorist Wong Chu Ren from Taiwan who was hiding in Chinatown. Unfortunately, section 9 was too late, section 1 killed who they thought was Wong Chu Ren but wasn't.

 

Episode 9 was alright. So the main antagonist I suppose you would say is indeed Gouda. He got fed up with never getting what he felt was appropriate recognition for his contributions. His plan is to basically mould public opinion to his liking for his own agenda. He's doing this be setting up the perception that the refugees are against the people and dangerous. Motoko was able to get out of the building with this intel.

A refugee girl was at a train station in another incident that mirrored an earlier incident of a bombing. She had been set up with a bomb inside her stomach and a detonator in her mouth. That's brutal. She ended up neutralized by seemingly were able to save her.

 

Episode 10 was good. Started out with a woman running for her life and begging Togusa who was driving home for help. She was cornered by her boyfriend Izumi Katsuhiko wielding a gun. Togusa tried to de-escalate the situation, but Izumi refused so Togusa tried disarming him, but Izumi's pain receptors were disabled so it took many shots to take him down. Unfortunately, when seemingly the woman was saved, Izumi shot her dead.

This wound up in a court case where Ueda, the lawyer hired specializing in cyber body-related crimes basically turned it against Togusa, which was just fucked to listen to the sham of a court case. This just seemed to be getting worse for Togusa with how Ueda played things, and Togusa distanced himself from section 9.

Luckily, section 9 got some intel around Ueda's sketchy dealings with the DA and prosthetic companies and managed to get a private line of contact with Togusa and had him put on a performance leaking the intel which flipped the case back around. Section 9 suspects it was all set up by Gouda.

Seems that section 9 almost had their car was run off the road, totalled and Ueda left in critical condition. Borma had presumably the car used disposed of.

 

Episode 11 was good, finally getting a bit into Motoko's backstory. There was an awful plane crash which killed many onboard and left many others injured. Those injured all got treatment, but unfortunately slowly died off one after the other, leaving only two survivors, a young boy and a young girl, the girl being Motoko. The boy was paralyzed fully except for his left arm and Motoko was left comatose.

Day after day the boy prayed for her to wake up and be fine, while at the same time making paper cranes. Eventually, Motoko disappeared and he assumed she had died as the nurses said she "went very far away". He continued to make cranes and not interacting with anyone really. After the lawsuit was over, his relatives tried to have him get a cybernetic body but he wouldn't interact at all and just silently made the paper cranes.

Eventually, Motoko returned after getting a full body transplant and tried to befriend the boy. Unfortunately, he was still closed off and just kept making cranes. Eventually, he agreed to get a prosthetic body if Motoko could make a crane with it. Although she failed to that point, she left to continue trying. When she returned at a later time, the boy had agreed to get a prosthetic body. They sadly never saw each other again, and they both had tried looking for each other. Motoko never revealed she was the girl from the plane and actually survived. The boy ended up shipped off in the war and likely died, although I think he bears a resemblance to the terrorist that tried to assassinate the Prime Minister earlier. Sadly, he was her first love.

Outside of that Batou also gave his hand at dealing with potential new recruits and he did pretty good.

 

Episode 12 was good. Togusa was doing digging looking for an original copy of the Individual Eleven essay and was sent to a professor by Aramaki who had a copy 1 of 20, only for him to be unable to find it.

The group of terrorists committing crimes the Individual Eleven had gathered for another plot. They detailed their crimes and Hideo told of his assassination attempt on the prime minister which failed. Hideo also couldn't find his copy of the Individual Eleven book, so asked the others if he could borrow one of theirs, only for them to be unable to find it.

Borma and Ishikawa continued looking into what is manifesting and spreading the virus, which seems to be the original book with the essay on the Individual Eleven. Borma was unlucky to find the file which spread the virus to him so they took measures against it.

Once the terrorists arrived and got on the rooftop of a building, they each decapitated each other, which seems to have something to do with the virus. Hideo seemed to have survived. At Togusa's end, he was dragged to an office where a worker was trying to kill himself by slashing his own throat. He revealed that the essay didn't exist and was fabricated, it was only an ideology called the Individual Eleven and proclaimed himself the Individual Eleven before slashing his throat.

 

Episode 13 was good. Section 9 noticed that Hideo's mouth seldom moved due to it being difficulty for him, so they concluded it's a sculpted face. They presume it was made by one of two artists in the country.

Batou and Togusa tried looking into one of the artists, only to come across a crime scene with him having been murdered. Strangely, there was evidence of Pazu doing it, so someone was trying to frame him. It took a while for the police to not take action.

When Pazu was at a bar, a detective told him he'd be keeping an eye on him, then a woman came up. Apparently Pazu has a code of never sleeping with the same woman twice. The detective is then killed by the fake Pazu.

Turns out, a woman he slept with twice was trying to kill him after getting a body sculpted after him. She went around to try and understand why he broke things off with her. In the end, she decided to kill him because she had the fake body. Batou tailed Pazu there and seemingly Pazu killed the woman, at least it's mostly certain.

 

Episode 14 was good. Seems like we got a glimpse into Saito's past, although he later claimed it was a lay. He was having a poker match and Tachikoma tagged along, and the other players spoke about his poker face being that good, which is when he delved into a story.

During the war, he was a sniper and actually the enemy of Motoko, Batou, Ishikawa and the rest of her squad. He sniped and killed a few of the soldiers under her lead with his tactics making them think they were surrounded. Motoko picked up it was likely not the case and was proven correct that it was a set up.

To avenge their fallen comrades, they decided to not flee and instead Motoko went in for a direct confrontation. Her poker face and actions made Saito think that she didn't have mid-range combat abilities, but she tricked him, taking his eye in the process, then claimed him as her own underling.

After the story, the poker players didn't believe him and Saito called it out as fake before leaving, with the other player believing he won. Turns out, Saito actually had a winning hand.