The Ghost in the Shell #07 — Unintelligent Constructs
August 18th, 2026
They don't teach AIs to look both ways before crossing the street, I guess.
Impressions:
I can't say that a very abbreviated version of the whole Puppet Master/merge thing is any better the third time around I've seen it, and I think for some people would be upwards of the sixth across all the various iterations of the franchise. The focus of this series has not been on the Puppet Master, any kind of crisis of identity Motoko has, or the nature of cybernetic life in the first place, aside from a few random musings here and there, often right next to "hee hee, look at this naked lady torso." I'm sure it's probably also randomly spat out in the manga too, but this is where adaptations should adapt, not simply ask ChatGPT for generic clips of 'life' set to a rambling five minute monologue.
Unfortunately, much of the rest of the episode has the usual issues. Lots of technobabble that immediately gets disproven or is a lie stated five seconds later which makes it not worth listening to, and a very long chase that's actually about five dudes sitting in cars trying to re-explain the plot and the current logistical situation. They even say they're going to hack some dude and call in a tank just to… not do either of those things. Just to fill in the time with Chekhov's non-guns, I guess.
Posted in Ghost in the Shell | 2 Comments »
residentgrigo
The Puppet Master -P2501- plot, Shirow read Neuromance as he was working on chapter 2, is adapted in:
1) GitS Vol 1 and this anime. This anime is panel for panel, minus gore, nudity and profanity gestures being censored and some filler (mostly in EP 3) but the final 5 pages of this chapter were kicked into next episode to again pretend that this anime isn´t an anthology, only making it more confusing. EP 1-3 all did this and I hate it. Anyway, the final ep will return to this plot.
2) The 1995 movie. Their fusion is in the sequel, based on the chapter 6/EP 4 story. Oshii´s still wants to make movie 3, where she should return as the protagonist.
3) The 2017 US movie (merged with SAC S2’s Kuze).
4) SAC: Solid State Society is about the Puppeteer hacker who was formed out of a fragment of Kusanagi in an allusion to this plot.
5) Pandora in the Crimson Shell -chronicled on this site-, the official prequel to this GitS and nearly all Shirow manga, has the Puppeteer awaken at the very end of the first 8 Vol arc, which its anime abridged. She is a cyberspace catgirl whom the protagonist dubs Niko-chan and becomes a supporting character for the rest of the 26 Vol series. She directly helps to save the planet from a parody of Neo-Atlantis (Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water), who are the Poseidon group. The future Japan in Appleseed and later W-Tails Cat. Sorry but you may have to read a 2012-2024 manga to follow this 1989-90 manga adapation´s background “political” plot. Actually you have to do this to even get a word of GitS 2.0.
GitS 1.5 shows a Kusanagi fusion in one of its four chapters. (The manga also has 4 unmade chapters.) GitS 2.0 is all about this fusion and her copies. Now, time to get “Galgreased”.
Vol 4 of the Greaseberries hentai includes just Niko-chan at the end and the end of Vol 4 of the W-Tails Cat hentai debuts “Ronne” in a speaking role, after being introduced in Japanese E-book version editorials of Pandora in the Crimson Shell by Shirow. She also makes a cameo in the final Vol of PitCS where the timeline of this universe is broken down until, looks it up, 2147. The lesbian drill instructor sisters in W-Tails, one is a main character, introduced in Vol 1 are also called Ronne and share her design, minus the blue hair, so they could be “isotope copies” of her. Motoko ISOs are further bullshit from GitS 2.0. Ask me when Vol 5 comes out this year, or Vol 6 at the latest, as Vol 6 will be the official sequel to GitS 2.0! Yes, Japan and Italy only hardcore-hentai (its not safe-for brain) is mandatory reading to one day finish THIS exact plot. Shirow (W-Tails Cat Vol 4´s forward), the editor of PitCS, preview pages in PitCS’s editorials and at the 2025 exhibitions for Shirow’s mainstream & hentai work all confirmed this and “Ronne” has been a recurring nude pin-up model in COMIC Anthurium for a few years.
Don´t wanna read canon-hentai? That´s a your problem, according to multiple Shirow editorials, who fully switched over to hentai as a mangaka in 2002, after creating art for 2 Lovecraft erotic novels (of the heavily underage tentacle variety) in 1998. The 2013 failed W-Tails Cat CG-hentai OVA has a fully original plot/setting, as is Shirow adapation tradition. No canon info is found there despite getting subs. It’s safe to say that the chances of this continuity receiving another adaptation are essentially nonexistent, unless Shirow hands SARU the scripts for the unmade half of Vol 1.5, due to it being the only other manga in this canon even remotely like this entry. Or someone revives the Pandora in the Crimson Shell anime, which seems even less likely.