With Eyes East

The Boat Scene

The first weeklong wait between episodes was brutal. I watched the first episode about three times, as well as the first two episodes of Stand Alone Complex, and if it wasn’t for Human Vapor (another Japanese procedural with a twist), I’d be in nonstop Ghost mode. So, was the second episode, “Super Spartan ii + Junk Jungle i,” worth all the teeth-gnashing? This one’s tricky, and surely tricker than the satisfying premiere, laying bare the broader shortcomings with this particular adaptation project. One couldn’t be blamed for assuming that each chapter of the manga might translate to an episode of the anime, but possibly because of the “Prologue” being a short but crucial chapter, everything is bumped forward a bit. For example, episode two opens with the final pages of the “Super Spartan” chapter, meaning it properly concludes the first episode before beginning the “Junk Jungle” chapter after the opening credits, itself left unfinished pending episode three. Perhaps a future short chapter evens things out, but in the meantime, this awkward timing ensures that “Super Spartan ii + Junk Jungle i” doesn’t feel like an episode of television, just “the next part of the story,” and it isn’t even clear what the story is yet.

Of course, it will be familiar to anyone acquainted with Ghost in the Shell, as the “Junk Jungle” chapter composes a significant chunk of the 1995 movie, introducing the archvillain, the Puppet Master (or the “Puppeteer” in the original manga, and once again the “Puppet Master” here). This episode features iconic imagery and moments, like the interpreter with the exposed brain case, the Major gearing up in the van while criticizing Togusa’s firearm preferences, and garbagemen making the rounds. In Oshii’s film, these scenes were held together by a different narrative, though a lot of dialogue is roughly the same and even a few comedic beats survived, like the guy who missed trash collection asking Section 9 to take his garbage (Shirow-style footnote: I tried to work in a joke about Bill Duke and the opening scenes of Commando here, but couldn’t figure it out). Part of what makes The Ghost in the Shell feel so relentlessly fast is the subconscious comparison to the relaxed, natural pace of the film. In the first episode, the police literally pop into the room with the diplomats, effecting the presentation of a story more than a story which lives in a place and time.

It’s possible that a project like this invites Monday-morning quarterbacking even more egregiously than usual, because adaptation is immediately understood by the layman: “How would you do it?” rather than “What would you do?” So, while I respect the challenge facing Mokochan and Science Saru, I can’t help but picture myself standing next to them, also peering at the blueprint. That presumption is emboldened in this second episode, and surprisingly, in the comedy. The “Super Spartan” chapter ends with gags, beginning with the minister of internal affairs appearing to punch himself in the face, the first episode stinger. The second episode opens with material that constituted a comic strip in the manga: Togusa’s domestic situation, his chipper wife oblivious to his anxiety about having screwed up so badly last mission. We then find the Major in a bar with Ishikawa and a zonked-out Saito, wherein Aramaki arrives with news that the budget for “Shell Squad” – rather than “Public Security Section 9” – has been approved under the guise of an international rescue team. In reality, Aramaki will build the kind of crime-fighting organization with Motoko that they’d always dreamed of. So, they do know each other? My confusion about the “Prologue” is successfully restored.

I assume that this second budget approval business is meant to circumvent the internal affairs minister, because in the manga, Aramaki says he’ll be reporting directly to the prime minister, much like he does in 2nd Gig (which I found quite problematic and partisan, no matter how needlessly catty the Major was with Kayabuki). References here and there to the manga in this post are a result of my reading back the first half of “Junk Jungle” for plot-related details later (shit gets real). The scene ends with Batou arriving, having planted explosives on Aramaki’s car. The Major, now knowing they’ll be working with Aramaki, rushes out to check if he’s okay after hearing a boom. The car is on fire, but the Chief isn’t inside. Instead, he’s puttering away on a moped. “Son of a… He outsmarted us again!” the Major rages, and when Aramaki turns back, she plays cute: “Make sure our paycheck has lots of zeroes in it!” It’s criminal that I haven’t yet spoken about Maaya Sakamoto’s vocal performance, but her giggle here is amazing.

The Chief riding away on the moped is actually one of my favorite images from the manga, and this is one case where it works better in print, specifically because of how small the illustration is on the page. Translated into cinematic language, it’s stretched out and fundamentally altered. The humor, I’d argue, is shifted from the Chief to the Major. Masamune Shirow often uses the size of panels to give a proportional weight to narrative or comedic beats.

In the next scene, Batou and Aramaki are staking out Colonel Malles, the former leader of a “Gavel Republic,” whose obvious fictitiousness juxtaposes with a reference to “Korea” in a manner befitting the Tom Clancy genre. Later seasons of 24 would concern themselves with countries such as Sangala and Kamistan, both existential threats to D.C. and New York. Malles is seeking political asylum in Japan, and he’ll attend a secret meeting which Aramaki believes will see the interference of the Puppet Master. Aramaki offers Batou a drink, and in the manga, Batou’s note about it being watered down is in a smaller speech bubble, meant to signify muttering. In the show, it’s regular dialogue – given equal weight – and now feels like a non sequitur.

Speaking of which, we’ve come upon the most infamous sequence in Ghost in the Shell, never having been made famous via adaptation but a poster child for international censorship. In the American edition of the manga, there’s a page missing, and it’s the Major’s “summer vacation” which is about to reach a swift, climactic end. She’s on a boat with two half-naked women, and what surprises me about this scene – seeing it for the first time ever – is that the Major is blushing, being squished between bodies, and even struggling, exhibiting a far more submissive sexuality than I would’ve expected. I understand that dominant personalities often find submission appealing as an escape or subversion, but I think it’s consistent with “gremlin Major” anyway for being more outwardly hedonistic. Plus, if we’re always seeing the Major dominate criminals out in the field, it’s a change of pace (if she deigns to confer with men – and I know she does later – it’d be a different story). She’s interrupted by Batou, and he accidentally experiences her physical sensations, like Strange Days. Donovan, who’d reread the manga in advance of the show, clarified to me that Batou feels a phantom female erogenous zone, making him effectively glitch out even before the Major makes him punch himself.

When Aramaki greets the foreign minister, we’re treated to what passes as an exposition dump here. For all the faults connoted by that term, typically these scenes clarify. It appears there’s a problem with the Gavel Republic, even though they’re not considered a diplomatic priority as a “reasonably democratic,” nonnuclear nation. Colonel Malles has been funneling aid to his junta friends back home, allowing them to control the country’s platinum deposits. ODA (Official Development Assistance) is out of the question for rather sinister reasons. Matter-of-factly, the minister muses, “It isn’t money that was earned, so it won’t be used responsibly, and since it’s viewed as payoff for past exploitation, it won’t earn us any gratitude,” suggesting a postcolonial mindset. His options now are to deny Malles political asylum and continue sending aid, or accept the request and cut off aid. The problem isn’t that this dense political discussion follows on from the VR lesbian orgy – that combination so perfectly sums up Shirow’s Ghost in the Shell – but that its connection to the Puppet Master investigation is, at this point, unclear. The episode pivots away from all this, leaving me scratching my head about platinum and foreign aid and military juntas.

The interpreter was meant to sit in on the secret meeting, but she was infected with an HA-3 virus, which is difficult to trace. The assumption is that the Puppet Master would’ve used the interpreter to kill someone at the meeting, but because the HA-3 is so outdated, its use was likely meant to keep suspicions off of Malles. All of this intelligence-counterintelligence is Stand Alone Complex levels of confusing to me. It’s happening as Togusa drives the fateful van to the source of the hack and the Major changes into tactical gear. This is a different conversation than in the 1995 version, in which the Major seems to encourage Togusa’s choice of gun, as “overspecialization leads to death.” Here, she emphasizes practicality. Whether or not it’s a technically accurate discussion (you can’t please every gun otaku), it is a technical one. The Major doesn’t like shotguns because it’s not their job to pulverize things. Overall, she’d rather get up close and CQC, which is always my favorite part of Ghost in the Shell action. The New Movie does this a couple of times, with the team providing enough support for the Major to springboard into the enemy’s face. Her takedown of the guard on the turret is a thing of beauty.

In the manga, a Shirow footnote tells us that “After this, there’s a scene where Mokoto [sic] takes over the driving and Togusa checks his gear and puts it on, but it was too much of a hassle to draw so I left it out…” True enough, with Togusa stripping down, the form-fitting body glove wouldn’t have big boobs.

For a show that moves so quickly, we linger on the garbagemen for a few more beats than in the ‘95 movie. They deal with a massive load of trash and all its cutting glass and stabbing needles. The one garbageman who we’ll learn is a puppet grumbles about his former employment at the Sacred Citizen Relief Center. More than provides continuity with the previous episode – something I’m not confident will persist – it adds a layer of blackly comedic satire; one day, you’re doing your job at a government facility run amok, and after a special forces team levels it, you land a gig as a garbageman, only to be shanghaied into a terror plot. The little guy never wins, and that, more than the resolution with Colonel Malles and the Gavel Republic, is the final note of “Junk Jungle,” as we’ll see. Unlike the silly ending of “Super Spartan,” this is a somber conclusion which powered the most thought-provoking aspect of Oshii’s film. For now, we’re left on a cliff-hanger as the action heats up and Togusa’s knocked unconscious yet again. The episode is undoubtedly incomplete, and will only see completion with the next incomplete piece. With the show’s full release, this won’t be a problem, but I know how much Major action lies ahead, and sadly, now I know how long the wait is.

The artwork featured at the end of the episode is by Ilya Kuvshinov, who did the redesign of the Major for Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045. I felt like this was a nice, almost diplomatic nod by The Ghost in the Shell Committee, in an era when boardrooms (and sometimes storytellers) decide which parts of a long-running media franchise do and do not exist as “canon,” choosing instead to celebrate a legacy to which countless artists contributed. So much to say, I know Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045 was controversial – I never watched it myself – but Kuvshinov is a key piece of the history. And honestly? Aside from her diminutive stature, I really dug his Major design: