Yesterday, the 10th and final episode of the new animated Ghost in the Shell series released on Prime Video. The new animated series is produced by Science SARU, based on Masamune Shirow’s 1989 manga series. The series began airing on 7th July on a simultaneous global release schedule, with weekly episode drops, giving the worldwide community the chance to discuss the series episode by episode.

In the mid-season episodes, the series had moved away from the Puppet Master arc introduced early on, and we got a string of self-contained episodes, featuring rampant cyborgs, corrupt government officials, and international terrorists. Episode 7 brought us back to the Puppet Master story arc, and episode 8 dealt with some of the fallout. At the end of episode 8, we discovered The Major had been caught on film executing a youth as part of an operation, and episode 9 saw her going under trial, but ultimately running away.

Episode 10 opens with Ishikawa observing Ghorantl agents, who it turns out are working with the Foreign Minister. Ishikawa suggests to Aramaki that The Major may be at risk of assassination, but Aramaki does not seem moved to act.

The Major appears to have worked out her exit plan, but before she is able to put it into action, a sniper shot cuts through her, and she drops, apparently ‘dead’. The hostage escapes, and the police swarm the scene.

We discover very quickly that The Major, or at least her cyberbrain, is safe, with Batou as an escort (it is unclear whether Aramaki was privy to this plan). They arrive at a safe house, but The Major’s substitute body has decayed. Luckily(?) a gang arrives at the hideout to loot the place, and Batou is able to procure a new body for The Major by incapacitating a member of the gang and hijacking their cyborg body.

Whilst her cyberbrain is in shutdown, The Major’s mind is awoken by The Puppet Master, who has been on the periphery of her mind it seems since ‘ascending’. The Puppet Master is looking for help to preserve their existence, and further ‘evolve’. The Puppet Master compares themselves to a virus, at risk of eradication due to lack of diversity between copies. Alone, this problem cannot be overcome, so The Puppet Master suggests merging with The Major’s consciousness – with a variety of different versions able to be formed from the combination, the entity that is The Puppet Master can duplicate, decay, evolve.

The Major agrees, rather quickly. Obviously her experience with The Puppet Master a few episodes back had been weighing on her, with her mind opened up to a higher state of existence, she is keen to go ahead and see what happens. Once back in a physical body, she leaves Batou and Section 9 behind, to explore a whole new world.

There’s very little that actually happens in the episode, it really is just a conclusion to The Puppet Master arc. We knew when The Puppet Master disappeared, there was still a lot to be resolved with their connection to The Major, and here we are presented the outcome. Once The Major had had her horizons broadened, the expansive nature of a wider network brought to her attention, she was no longer content with being a mere section 9 agent, and now goes off in search of something more. 

The episode, if it proves to be the last, is a satisfying conclusion to a lot of the ideas explored in the series, of transhumanism, artificial intelligence, religious ideas about the nature of quantum processing. It also leaves it open to another season. The Major could easily come back to Section 9, maybe with a different outlook on life, on the nature of the job. Her experiences, and what she learns whilst out to find herself could be invaluable, particularly if there are new threats introduced that involve more brain diving, and complex cyberspace situations. A lot of what we saw over the course of the series was overt action, external threats. Aside from the brain dive into The Puppet Master, there was very little venturing into the cyberspace, the network, the virtual realm, whatever you want to call it. 

What did you think of episode ten? Were you satisfied with the conclusion of the series? Do you think they’ll make a season two? Or do you think they should leave it behind at what was a natural end point? Let us know in the comments.

You can rewatch the new Ghost in the Shell series on Prime Video with a valid subscription. You can enjoy the show’s ending sequence below –

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