Well, after 2-3 weeks of off-on watching, I finally finished the second Ghost In the Shell anime TV series – S.A.C. 2nd Gig. This series is a continuation from the previous Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex (see earlier post on that one here).

This second series is more of a political thriller than the first. Both series have a long story-arc that persists until the end, but they don’t seem to ‘explain’ as much in this one by the end – there are still at least a few motivations and actions I didn’t quite understand. There is more straight up ‘battle’ and conflict in this one too – and I liked the fact that they gave the other members of Section 9 (Paz, Boma, Saito and Ishikawa) a lot more to do in this series, than just focusing on the main four characters (Togusa, The Major, Batou and The Chief) as seen in the previous series.

There is a great villain in this one too – Kazundo Gohda, the head of the Cabinet Intelligence Service. Besides being facially disfigured and scarred (like all great over-the-top villains) this guy has plans within plans within plans, something every other main character finds out all too often along the way. While personally I thought The Laughing Man from the previous series was a more interesting foe for a variety of reasons – I had small hopes he’d show up in this one at some point – Gohda is definitely a man with a complex and hidden mission.

The main ‘anti-hero’ in this series Hideo Kuze, who remains at least in part a semi-major enigma. It would have been neat to see another episode of flashback(s) to his wanderings in Eurasia and how he came to his revolutionary stance portrayed in the series. They explore some of this through dialogue, but IMHO not enough. The Tachikomas even get a bit more to do – there are computer simulations of them used for the various episodes centered around computer hacking, besides their usual role as battle-backup for Section 9.

All in all, another great and interesting series – the animation is again excellent, The Major isn’t near as invincible in this one, and even Batou has to face up to a number of his own demons by the end.

candybowl.