Yesterday, the 6th 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 first few episodes, we had the inception of Section 9, after a bit of a false start, then a couple of cases of mistaken identity with regards to The Puppet Master. The animation has been great, with some good action scenes, and a bit of philosophising over the line between human and non-human, and the nature of the ‘ghosts’ of the title. The more recent episodes have all been a lot more stand-alone than the first few felt, and the series has been better off for it.

The series just seems to get better episode by episode. Episode 6 is another self-contained story. We start with a character, who we later find out is named Toru Soma, being ominously injected with micromachines that will enable him to network directly with whatever he wants.

We then see The Major, Kusanagi, with her boyfriend, who we find out she has been seeing for several months. They seem to be very happy, bantering with each other, but this is cut short by an intruder who shoots at Kusanagi, and leaves a nailbomb, which injures the two of them.

Due to the method used to target her, Kusanagi knows it was Soma, and the act was revenge for Kusanagi causing Soma to kill his own son. This is one of several references we have had to Kusanagi’s past so far over the course of the series, which puts across her experience, and some of the dark and brutal things she has done in the line of duty.

Kusanagi and Togusa leave the hospital to investigate, and are immediately followed. They lure their pursuers to a factory, where all hell breaks loose. What ensues is arguably the best action sequence of the series so far, and it is hard hitting and bloody. The team call in a Fuchikoma in to assist, but it is soon blown up by a more powerful Think Tank, piloted by Soma. 

Aramaki investigates the tank whilst Kusangi and Togusa battle for survival. He discovers the involvement of Section 1, who the tank belongs to, around the same time Kusanagi discovers her boyfriend, who is a Section 1 agent, on the scene. Section 1 are called off, but the boyfriend, unaware of the true nature of the situation, sticks around to help The Major. Thanks to Boma’s appearance with a very large gun, the Think Tank is disabled, but not before Kusanaga’s body is seriously damaged. The sight of The Major with damaged limbs goes some way to giving the series some stakes, even though ultimately we know the body can be repaired or replaced.

Kusanagi executes Soma, continuing to show her willingness to kill when the situation calls for it. And the attitude of ‘by any means necessary’ is really the theme of the episode. Around the beginning of the episode, Aramaki is seen commenting that the means are unimportant to him as long as the job is done, and Kusanagi effectively echoes that at the end of the episode. But this modus operandi works both ways – Section 1 were willing to sacrifice Kusanagi to achieve their own goals, and ultimately the situation only went the way of Section 9 because they were the more effective team. The question of whether they are the ‘better’ team from a moral perspective is much more complicated. 

This is what sets apart this series of The Ghost in the Shell from some other cyberpunk properties. The protagonist isn’t ‘heroic’ in the way they approach the job. With a body that can be much more easily repaired than a human, Kusanagi can go into violent situations without fear. She also has no compunction about killing those that are perceived ‘guilty’, or even just obstructing the course of justice, where heroes in other IPs would be far less willing to cross that moral line. Whether this concept will be explored more later on, and even come back to bite, remains to be seen.

What did you think of episode six? Are you enjoying the more stand-alone episodes, or would you rather they focused on one long story arc like The Puppet Master story used for the 1995 movie? Let us know in the comments.

You can watch the new Ghost in the Shell series on Prime Video with a valid subscription, and episodes will be released every Tuesday. You can enjoy the show’s opening sequence below –