Yesterday, the 9th 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.
Episode 9 is Brain Drain part two, and picks up from the end of the last episode, when footage was revealed by the media of The Major executing the youth on the boat. The episode opens with a political assembly, with a number of public figures calling for the Prime Minister to answer for the incident, though he refuses to comment. We then find out that agents working on behalf of the country of Ghorantl have engineered the whole thing, to try to take Section 9 out of the equation. Section 9 are investigating, and Ishikawa is able to get a lead – some phone numbers linked to the group. This leads them to the journalist who reported the footage, and they discover Ghorantl’s involvement.
Meanwhile, the Minister of Justice advises Aramaki to throw The Major to the wolves, so to speak, in order to save section 9, and his position. We see here Aramaki’s affection for The Major – he is unwilling to give up the asset, but also appears to care on a personal level, which shows the development of the relationship between the two characters since the first episode.
The Major is investigating Ghorantl intelligence, along with Togusa, who is tailing her on Aramaki’s orders. When The Major catches him out, she once again calls into question his safety, and needing to be there for his family. The two are led into a trap, and are targeted by an explosion. I REALLY thought all the mentions of Togusa’s family over the course of the series were coming into play here, and he was going to be killed, but instead, we cut to his hospital bed, where he lies very much alive.
Whilst section 9 continue to investigate, Aramaki accompanies The Major to a hearing. In the hearing, she is painted as a cold hearted killer, and she responds with a monologue, wherein she calls into question the humanity of the fallen youth, and declares that he was freed of his programming in death, which throws everyone for a loop. Clearly, her experience with The Puppet Master has caused a fundamental change in her thinking.
Aramaki allows The Major to go on the run, and then seemingly helps to engineer her escape from the authorities when she takes a hostage, and is able to steal a plane in order to make her escape.
This episode harks back to some of the early ones where a little bit too much was happening, with a lot of jumping around between characters and locations, leaving for an unsatisfying episode arc. There was also very little left dangling for the final episode coming next week. The Major is on the run, yes, but we don’t know what exactly her next objectives are, and it is difficult to see from where we are now what a satisfying final episode will look like. There are no real questions to be answered – The Major did execute a suspect, there is no surprise piece of evidence to unearth that will make that go away. It may well have been that The Major could have been exonerated for a justified kill as part of an investigation, but it’s difficult to see how all can be forgiven now that she has gone on the run.
What did you think of episode nine? How do you think they’ll wrap up the series, with a definitive ending for The Major’s situation, or will we get a cliffhanger? 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 –
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