Ghost in the Shell 2: Man-machine Interface

攻殻機動隊 The Ghost in the Shell #2

by Masamune Shirow

Cinco años después del caso del Titiritero, Tamaki Tamai, perito del Minsterio de Hablidades Espirituales, investiga la muerte de una eminencia en el campo de la Cibernética y un misterioso individuo que combina almas. Por su parte, “Motoko Aramaki”, un cíborg que trabaja para Industrias Poseidón y controla múltiples cuerpos biónicos e identidades, saldrá de su rutina antiterrorista para enfrentarse a cierta amenaza que busca apoderarse de una nueva forma de vida artificial, pero inteligente..

Genres: Manga, Comics, Science Fiction, Graphic Novels, Cyberpunk, Fiction, Japan

Paperback

First published June 28, 2001

About the author

Masamune Shirow is an internationally renowned manga

Masanori Ota, better known by his pen name Masamune Shirow (Japanese: 士郎正宗), is a Japanese manga artist renowned for his influential contributions to the cyberpunk genre. Born in Kobe in 1961, he studied oil painting at Osaka University of Arts, where he developed an interest in manga. His early work Black Magic led to the critically acclaimed Appleseed, which won the 1986 Seiun Award for Best Manga. Shirow achieved global recognition with Ghost in the Shell, a groundbreaking manga that inspired multiple anime films and series, a live-action Hollywood adaptation, and numerous video games. His stories are known for blending action with philosophical inquiries into AI, post-human existence, and the ethics of technology. He has collaborated with Production I.G on projects like Ghost Hound and Real Drive. Shirow’s distinctive style and thought-provoking narratives have left a lasting impact on manga, anime, and science fiction worldwide, influencing creators including the Wachowskis of The Matrix fame.

Reviews

[Jordan · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really hate to give such a low rating to anything Ghost in the Shell, but this really deserved it.

The majority of this manga is, to put it bluntly, complete and utter crap. I love Ghost in the Shell and I usually love Shirow's art, but this book was pretty terrible. We'll start off with the story. Most of it gets lost completely in all the technobabble (complete with rambling footnotes) and most of the time I had no idea what was going on. Motoko (not the same as the original) spends most of the story floating around nude in cyperspace while ordering her ridiculous looking AI assistants to put out decoys and toy bombs and other techno jargon nonsense. Most of this could have been cut and the story might have seemed a bit more cohesive. Then there's the art. It's pretty terrible too. Shirow seems to be using some weird combination of more 3-d realistic looking art and flat anime art and it just doesn't work well. It's jarring and most of the 3-d looks bad. He also randomly switches between color and black & white, sometimes right in the middle of the page. Plus there was a ridiculous amount of fanservice everywhere. I'm used to some from Shirow, but the majority of the book was Motoko floating around nude or running around in various bodies flashing her underwear in awkward action shots. Overall I don't think I'd recommend this to anybody. Really the only merit I saw in it was in elements of it that were drawn on for the anime.

[Gianfranco Mancini · Rating 4 out of 5]

Technobabble/fan service levels are just off-scalecin this final volume of GITS manga, sometimes it seems the author is the only one understanding what is going on and the absence of fan favourite Section 9 characters like Batou is almost too much, but Masamume Shirow's artworks are so good here that left breathless this reader.
A beautiful Shell but the Ghost inside was absolutely as not as good.

[Christian · Rating 2 out of 5]

What a baffling and unwelcome turn this volume took. The plot was so completely drowned out by dense jargon as to be nearly incomprehensible, the pages were absolutely saturated with panty shots, and it switched from color to black and white without any semblance of order or rationale. Dial down the pantsu and give me a story I can follow, or go full weeb and take out all the dialogue before ditching all pretense and selling it as a fanservice rag.

I've been disappointed with the Ghost in the Shell manga from the beginning, and this was the last lackluster nail in the unfortunate coffin for me. Absolutely could not get into this, and the unwelcome inserts of 3D art were decidedly unwelcome. Oh, and those digital 3D "assistants" of Motoko's were horrendously designed.

Overall, wasn't crazy about this one and it will probably collect dust on my shelf if I don't end up giving it away to some poor soul.

[Sam · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are some great ideas explored in this book, and the writing is great. What i found disappointing about the book was its reliance on fan service as a selling point. As far as i can tell from my own perspective, this book would be bought and read by anyone familiar with the series who read the first book, watched the movie, or watched the television show. The amount of aforementioned fan service (a term that refers in general, to mostly unneccessary additions of titillating visuals to a story) in every other installment in the franchise is at a tolerable level, but in this manga series there's just a bit too much to make the story readable. It's kind of embarassing, in fact. I mean, as far as manga and anime goes, Ghost In The Shell is about as successful as they get. So why sink to such base tactics to sell books? And if you're going to sink to those tactics for selling the book, why bother with the philosophical acrobatics posited by the story? The art and the story appeal to two different demographics, and there's probably not very much crossover. I could go on and on. I mean, if authors would just talk to me before they publish, I could totally help them make their books like, ten times better. Maybe even fifty times better. Sheesh! Don't they know that? :^}

[Lashaan Balasingam · Rating 1 out of 5]

You can find my review on my blog by clicking here.

This was probably one of the biggest disappointments I’ve ever known in a long time. With a franchise like The Ghost in the Shell, you’d think that everything related to it would be inevitably flawless and indisputable as a cyberpunk classic. Limited to three deluxe editions, the manga is anything but what the franchise’s reputation acknowledges it to be. Learning it the hard way was not something I planned on doing, but now that I’ve been through all three volumes, I won’t deny the overwhelming sense of disenchantment I felt for this series. With that being said, I still see the light at the end of this tunnel with the chance to finally check out the anime adaptations that have clearly been the source of all the praise garnered for The Ghost in the Shell name.

What is the final volume of The Ghost in the Shell about? I couldn’t even tell you even if you gave me all the time in the world to spell it out for you. The story doesn’t exactly follow the iconic protagonist known as Major (Motoko Kusanagi), but instead follows Motoko Aramaki, known as Motoko 11. While not technically the same, they share a lot of elements in common, as the story hints that she might be an offspring of Motoko Aramaki and another key character in the franchise. Nevertheless, Motoko 11 still has Major’s fashion sense and destructive combat skills to help fans fall in love with her. While technically set after the events of the first volume, most of this story arc shows no continuity at all to any of the past events.

And so you must be wondering what is Motoko 11 doing throughout this story. Well, most of the story, if not all, has her floating around naked—without nipples—sort of like a doll with a human face, within a neural-mapped electronic brain as she attempts to hunt down an unknown villain. To do so, she attempts complex and incomprehensible hacking techniques to access hidden pathways, bypass complex protocols and inject viruses, and all that with the help of strange little tech assistant creatures, creatures that visually made no sense and only made me want to ignore most of the time.

Coherence and structure were clearly not Masamune Shirow’s strong suit. This volume, while it was just one huge story arc, never tried being coherent even if its publication would have depended on it. As the author attempts to deliver once again an ambitious and complex story, he completely fails to hit his target and gives us what is probably the most unnecessary story ever. If I could sum up what I faced against throughout this reading experience, it would come down to two things: technobabble and pornography. You read that right. Flipping through this volume, I found myself not understanding a single word thrown at me more often than not. I honestly couldn’t see what the purpose of throwing random technological instructions left and right could serve to the experience when the story itself was impossible to follow. I simply felt like I was a living fish dropped in the middle of a cat fight: I didn’t know what was going on, but I knew something was going to kill me soon.

And then there’s the pornography. I’m going to call it just that because that’s all it really was. Every single female character in this volume had watermelons on their chest, a stomach slimmer than a tree branch and a buttocks bigger than my pillows. And that obviously includes the protagonist who doesn’t hesitant a moment to find herself in a strange position to showcase her assets and her panties. Not only were the designs so unrealistic and were inappropriately showcased every flip of a page, you could easily tell that the purpose of it all was nothing more than to sexually arouse readers. Trust me when I say this happens a lot. Who needs a Playboy magazine when you got this volume of The Ghost in the Shell to do the trick. It really was about raising your libido levels, while trying to convey some sort of original idea or philosophy around artificial life. As if pumping all that blood out of your brain to other parts of your body would help a reader reflect on complex ideas. Funny thing is, as I slowly—actually pretty quickly—approached the epilogue, I wondered how the volume didn’t feature actual hentai—if you have no clue what that is, I invite you to look it up at your own risk—instead of flirting with softcore pornography. Surprise, surprise. Right towards the end, there’s actually a panel that was straight out of hentai.

While the source material might have scarred me momentarily, I still remain optimistic regarding its anime adaptations. After all, after having delved into the manga, it’s safe to say that its fame did not arise from there.

Yours truly,

Lashaan | Blogger and Book Reviewer
Official blog: https://bookidote.com/
____________________________

I'll never understand this. It should never have existed...

P.S. Full review to come.

Yours truly,

Lashaan | Blogger and Book Reviewer
Official blog: https://bookidote.com/

[Ross · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as good as the first one, but a pretty good addition to the overall story. Did Japanese William Gibson write this? It comes off as VERY pretentious regarding technology. I really wish it didn't have so much techno-babble and fan service. Oh well.

[Nick Tramdack · Rating 1 out of 5]

A disappointment, especially for a fan of the original manga. I thought this one lacked heart, stakes, and perspective. But I guess it has something to recommend it if you like absurdly curvy babes shouting out antivirus commands amidst a garishly realized, but nevertheless totally bullshit depiction of cyberspace.

I gather there's some secret twist in the chronology, like the stuff is presented out of order but you only realize that later. However, I couldn't be bothered to figure it out in detail...

What happened to Shirow?

[Jirka Hiemer · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tak predne, zklamani, ze to neni druhy dil GitS s Motoko. Oproti prvnímu dílu jsem měl pocit neskutečného chaosu v ději, opakovaně jsem se vracel a četl si znovu některé stránky, což neznamená, že jsem to nakonec pobral. A děj mi opravdu nesedl, nenašel jsem si k němu žádný vztah, nevtáhl mě. Oproti prvnímu dílu jsou tu často kresby v jakémsi divném 3D stylu, který mi hodně nesedl. Z jiných mang jsem zvyklý, že je velmi málo barvené kresby a má svůj účel a smysl, tady jsem na účel a smysl nepřišel a z nějakého důvodu mi to i dost vadilo. Jo, a sorry, ale poznámky pod čarou by tady vystačily na další knihu, dost to ruší od čtení. Pro mě osobně obrovské zklamání z knihy, i ze mě samotného, že mě druhý díl Ghosta prostě nebavil...

[Henry · Rating 1 out of 5]

It pains me to rate a work from this series so lowly, but this was bad. While I could vaguely sense some interesting ideas floating about, the dense techno babel and frenetic bouncing between scenes didn't allow any of it to come through. And unlike the previous books, which had somewhat interesting takes on sexuality in a cyborg future, the major here was gratuitously sexualized without point.

I'll still be happy to read and watch this universe more, but this piece was severely disappointing.

[Antonio Fanelli · Rating 1 out of 5]

Illeggibile: dialoghi astrusi, trama caotica, immagini plasticose.

[Ludwig Aczel · Rating 3 out of 5]

6/10
In the last four months I have been diving in the work of Masamune Shirow. However, I was not planning to read this book, for one simple reason. I had flipped through the pages of this manga in bookshops a number of times, and had been honestly turned completely off by the art. Bear in mind: not by the panel compositions and view point angles constantly putting women panties at the centre of attention. Although, yes, that's undeniably a thing in this book. Rather, turned off by the 3D/CGI art style that dominates half of the tome, and even more so by the off-putting hyper-graded digital colouring. (Something that I always complain about as a plague of modern American mainstream comics, but which really reaches extreme levels in this experiment from the 90's.)
But then, I found a used copy for almost nothing on eBay, so I could not resist. By the way, I have the Dark Horse edition of the book, which is pocket size, but looks better than the oversized Kodansha edition currently available.

Now, this book has a number problems. And huge ones, for sure. But it is not as bad as I was anticipating. There is indeed life in it. This books leaves the sour taste of failed experiment in your mouth. Still, it remains an interesting experiment. Personally, it has been a captivating reading experience, although I can see how a vast majority of people would not share the feeling.

The story (?) All Shirow's comics - may it be slapstick dumb comedy like Dominion or near future cyberpunk like Ghost in the Shell - share a taste for 'immersive procedures'. This tendance is untouched by editorial common sense, may it come from outside sources or from the author himself. For instance, if we are following a cop in a Shirow story, we can really expect to undergo the experience quite in depth, touching superficial aspects, like, say, how to unlock the safety of the gun or how to file a report. An obsession for procedures that often obscures narrative clarity. It is counter-intuitive storytelling, but it is clear that Shirow never tried to appeal to (most) readers.
Given such premises, what happens when this self-sabotaging mangaka decides to tell a day in the life of a god-like intelligence in charge of the cyber security of a big corporation? Well, this book happens. Hundreds of pages of a ghost-like doll fluctuating in colourful abstract representations of electronically enhanced consciousness. The fluctuating girl is one of many entities resulting from the merging of Motoko Kusanagi, the protagonist of the Ghost in the Shell 1 with the Puppeteer, and who knows how many other AI's over the years. We see her constantly blabbing almost indiscernible orders to her AI minions, in order to attack or defend from invisible cyber enemies. The 'procedural' side of Shirow's storytelling and related technobabble is not just an allure anymore: it has ultimately prevailed and it is now basically the story itself. A fascinating development, but also a frustrating experience.
To be fair, the story has space for more earthly action. Every now and then the floating naked protagonist enters into physical bodies to kick some thugs asses. Nonetheless, even these descends into 'reality' feel a bit unreal. 'Motoko 11' appears to have unlimited resources, in particular a number of (sexy, not very much dressed) prosthetic bodies scattered around the world. Like sleeping beauties waiting to be possessed when the need comes. Distances disappear, and with that our human perception of time.
In case you are wondering, Motoko is kicking asses and hacking into this and that as part of an investigation on the killing of human-minded pigs (!?) from the big corporation she works for. Towards the end the already abstruse investigation takes a turn for the metaphysical and the hermetic. What I could understand is this. There are various Motoko's in the world. The one we are following has been experimenting with the creation of life, while other Motoko's have been keeping an eye on her. It all ends in a mystical mumbo-jumbo with ties to Japanese folklore. Big WTF apart, it seems to me that Shirow was attempting to rely Ghost in the Shell to Appleseed. If not explicitly establishing a continuity with its other big work, at least referring to an Appleseed-like scenario. Indeed, it is alluded to the fact that Motoko may be at the verge of creating a new mankind, mirroring the usual mankind and destined to face the ethical conflict of coexisting with it. Basically, the main world-building idea of Appleseed.
Maybe it is easier to reference a more famous book. At the end of Alan Moore's Watchmen, the god-like character of Dr Manhattan leaves the Earth, a decision apparently contradicting his reborn interested in humanity life. Manhattan explains the contradiction by stating 'Yes, I am interested in humans life... and maybe I will create it!'. Well, the ending of this book seems to go in that direction.

The art (!) More than half of this book is made of 'CGI art'. I can only assume that Shirow created objects and backgrounds in some 3D software, rotated and combined them until finding compositions that he liked. Technically, it must have been a tour-the-force, considering the limited hardware and software power at disposal in between 1992 and 1997, which is when this story was created. A weird use of digital tools to create a comic book, which thankfully never caught on in the medium. (Unlike animation...) I applaud the courage to experiment, but the result is arguable to say the least. Not because it looks dated, although there is a bit of that for sure. The problem is how hard it is to focus your attention. The division between layers of vision is disrupted. No background, no foreground. Everything is popping on the page, although - or maybe because - no figure in the panel has contour lines. It's weird. Early Richard Corben level of weirdness, if not more.
A related problem is the colouring. Shirow usually treated his few coloured pages with a unique and beautiful painting technique. (He studied oil paint in university, and then taught it in schools.) But in this book, everything is over-rendered with graded digital colours. It often looks amateurish and lacking taste, especially when Motoko is moving in realistic environments (a room, a boat, a plane). It's pornography of colours. On the other hand, I must admit that I liked this extreme colouring treatment in the 'cyber scenarios', that is, when the protagonist is floating in seas of yellows, greens and blues, while beams of information and lights surround her in abstract compositions. So, this computer art is not all a failed experiment to me. But the low points are really low.
In the central part of the book Shirow goes back to his regular inked and heavily screen-toned black and white analog art, and it is great as usual...except that at a certain point he starts to introduce 3D models in the background of some black and white pages as well, resulting in some of the ugliest panels I have ever seen in manga. Why?!

To sum up. This book is mostly unintelligible and often over the top with futuristic dialogues. A case of 'one step too far' from an already unhinged storyteller. It has big lows both narratively and visually, and repeats these lows more than once. But it also contains fascinating ideas, moments of great art and a captivating narrative flows.
Should you read it? If you have already read other mangas by Shirow and have not been turned off by their most deranged aspects (technobabble, obscurity, girls in sexy poses) than you can try this. If go you into this book mentally prepared and expecting to see a train derail, you may even like it, as in the end I did.

[Scott · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nice line art, terrible CG, and completely incoherent story.
Maybe it would have made more sense if I could read the microscopic footnotes, but it didn't seem to be worth the trouble.
I advise just reading the original story, and then moving to the various animated productions if you want more.

[E.S. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was by far the best Ghost in the Shell volume I've read and I'm bummed that it's the last volume. From what I understand, there are only 3 volumes of Ghost in the Shell, no? Volumes 1, 1.5, and 2. In this book, the main character is not Motoko Kusanagi, but Motoko Aramaki...otherwise known as Motoko 11, which from my understanding is sort of like....I don't want to say a child of Kusanagi, but rather she has elements of Kusanagi in her as well as the Puppeteer (remember, Kusanagi fused with the Puppeteer...also known as Project 2501?). In this volume Motoko 11 (more than one Motoko prototype then...?) tackles Millennium, the "enemy" of this book who controls a group called Stabat Meter. Millennium is looking into something called Brain Expansion (or rather it's a experiment or project they are working on). Brain Expansion is called off though once Motoko 11 infiltrates them. However, it is also revealed that *spoilers* Millennium is also known as number 20...so number 20 of the Motoko hybrids? This volume was as fucking mind-bending as Legion. The artwork was beautiful and the transitions from black-and-white to color were perfect. My only complaints are a) the action was sometimes hard to follow and b) sometimes the vocabulary was so complex, I felt like I needed a dictionary of words for this universe. Shirow's notes were helpful, but I felt like every page something new was introduced and I'm thinking "wait...okay...now what does THIS mean?" Despite some of the confusion, I couldn't stop turning the pages and wanted to find out what happened. IT ENDED IN SUCH A CLIFFHANGER AND THERE ISN'T EVEN ANOTHER DAMN VOLUME. If I'm not mistaken, Kusanagi/The Puppeteer were behind the whole Millennium thing in general, they WEREN'T Millennium necessarily, but I think they were wondering whether or not the brain expansion was worth doing and in the epilogue, I think we see this brain expansion of Kusanagi in some crazy psychedelic combination of science, space, and mythology. But...the end we see (oh shit, I've forgotten her name now, but the woman who was observing all of this happening to Kusanagi) her eyes light up like she's found out some crazy truth, like the meaning of life itself or something, or like HER brain has expanded. Has Kusanagi fused with her? Is she a part of her? I didn't understand it. In fact, sometimes it feels like there isn't a storyline at all, but rather a bunch of technical language that makes perfect sense to the author, but not to the reader. I know...this is a very conflicting review. My bad.

[Quentin Wallace · Rating 2 out of 5]

So...many...words.

I jut can't get into the Ghost in the Shell series. I've never been into comics that are too wordy as I've always thought the purpose of a comic is to let the art tell at least half the story. This just has too much technical jargon and too many words in general. I don't care too much for the subject matter either.

I will say the art is very nice, especially the full color portions.

If you're into cyberpunk you'll probably love this, but it's just not for me.

[The Final Song ❀ · Rating 3 out of 5]

That is a lot of shiny girls and technobabble.

[Marius · Rating 1 out of 5]

That was... disappointing.

I had my troubles with the first installment, but this one is much worse.
Most of the (at times incoherent) story consists of a naked Motoko (a ... variant? ... "daughter"? of the protagonist in Ghost in the Shell) floating through cyberspace and commanding small .. AI-assistants(?). I'm still not sure if they only existed in cyberspace or if they had a physical body in the real world. But I am sure that their design looks horrible and that I miss section 9 with its characters and even the Fuchikoma.
I was also not a fan of the 3D-ish artstyle. Neither of the coloring, which changes from fullcolor to black & white apparantly at random, or the excessive fanservice. And can anyone with actual knowledge about hacking tell me what over 50 percent of dialogue are supposed to mean?


In short: The art was not my cup of tea and there was too much tech-babble for me to care and try to understand the all over the place plot better than I do.

[Griffin Youngstrum · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read 3 chapters and couldnt finish it. Is this book a joke? Who...who is this book for? So much droning military dialogue with absurd technology all with out-of-place fanservice. Its like watching C SPAN taking place at a Spencers Gift Shop. Oh? we're going to vote on a housing bill? Buddy, im too preoccupied with that Carmen Electra poster from 1999.

[Chris Youngblood · Rating 2 out of 5]

This has got to be literally the single longest book that I have read wherein nothing happens for the majority of the book.

I have been through Man-Machine Interface several times cover to cover, and I have to say that the entire 'plot' of the book - so called - could have easily fit into one half the number of editions. I don't know how many pages I skipped during the useless and pointless cyberspace e-"battles" wherein the main character does absolutely nothing except float there on a page packed with pretty CG images and tell her little drones to release "toy bomb combo B!" or somesuch nonsense, while they blather at her that "barrier maze QQQ has fallen, and the enemy has begun action 'X'!!!". It's almost as if the honorable Mr. Shirow realized that the story he had plotted out had a minimal page count, so he had to pad the story out with gratuitous illustrations of the heroine in skimpy panties and low-cut dresses talking to simplistically designed helpers while floating in a non-specific representation of computer land.

Now, about those gratuitous upskirt shots. I'm beginning to think that Masamune Shirow is a dirty old man with a pen and a panty fetish, because of the number of pages wherein our heroine is depicted either in skimpy clothing, performing martial arts in a skirt (with the point of view conveniently placed to greasily ogle the heroine's unmentionables), or stylistically rendered as completely nude, such as when the characters are floating in cyberspace. There are simply too many of these pages scattered throughout the book for it to be little more than pandering to perverse shut-ins with a hentai fetish. I suppose that it could be argued (if one wished to delve so far into a make-believe world) that those people who have opted to become total cyborgs no longer suffer from the shamefulness of being naked that most people seem to suffer from. If this were true, then where are the naked male cyborgs? I counted only one half-naked male cybernetic organism in the entire book, and the character was actually a 'suit' for yet another scantily-clad female cyborg to crawl into and hide within. Any female cyborg that has a position in the healthcare field is dressed like some ultra-distilled male pervert's version of a pornographic nurse, where all the men are in casual clothes, three-piece suits, or heavy concealing armor. Even a female cop cyborg that is taken over by the 'heroine' of the book gets into a fistfight with several robots while wearing a micro-miniskirt, giving the reader several free looks at her gonch.

Of course, there was also the gratuitous, pointless lesbian scene in the first Ghost in the Shell, so I think it's safe to say that Mr. Shirow just enjoys drawing nekkid women. That's fine, if the book is erotica, porn, or even an artistic representation of the female form (as another Shirow book has done). Ghost in the Shell: Man-Machine Interface is none of these, however, so the technique seems almost desperate, as if the author were trying to say: "Look! Boobies! Don't look over here at the lack of story! Just look at the tits on this chick! Hey, check it out, I'm giving you panty-shots galore, too!"

Don't get me wrong; for the most part, I think all of Masamune Shirow's work is entertaining, complex, well-developed, and a thousand times better than the dreck that passes for anime nowadays (Naruto, anyone?). I just feel that this one could have done with either a little more developing and proper scripting, or a lot less page count...and far more of a point to having so many naked women in the book (or fewer naked women to begin with), rather than for some kind of base gratification. GitS:M-MI has been touted as a "philosophical romp into the meaning of personality and identity", but I suspect that's just an overenthusiastic PR man trying to get the books to sell.

[Artur Coelho · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ghost in the Shell original surpreende e aguenta o teste do tempo, como aventura cyberpunk bem humorada. A consciência humana que anima o corpo robótico da Major Kusanagi oscila entre acção pura e a consciência de ser um ser cuja humanidade se resume à sua consciência dentro de um corpo mecânico, num mundo onde a interligação homem-máquina é cada vez mais prevalente.

Ghost in the Shell 2 - Man-Machine Interface não é a continuação direta do primeiro, vai muito mais longe numa história onde outra operacional da agência japonesa Secção 9 está ainda mais integrada no mundo digital, capaz de transferir a sua consciência através das redes, distribuir-se por diversos corpos robóticos, e talvez esteja perto de atingir uma forma de transcendência digital.

O tom é de um cyberpunk barroco, muito visível no exagerado estilo visual, que ultrapassa o do mangá original. O traço de Shirow anda a solta, fascinado com a visão do digital que ainda hoje caracteriza a sua iconografia. No entanto, esta obsessão com a estética e mitografia cyberpunk distrai da história. Shirow passa mais tempo a tentar fazer o equivalente em BD das cenas cinematográficas de hackers a invadir sistemas e a lutar no virtual do que a estruturar uma narrativa coerente.

[Hamza · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good read, but I truly didn't understand a great deal of it. Unlike the first Ghost in the Shell volume, this book is full of too much technobabble that only Shirow himself seems to understand. There were so many technological references I didn't understand that I had to constantly google them. Fun fact: about half of them are real, the other half were merely invented for this series. The confusion I experienced with that and the jumbled storyline(s) are what caused me to lop off a star rating, as well as take so long to finish the book. I only gave it four stars because I enjoyed trying to follow along, and because I love Motoko and her wacky tech adventures. But those expecting the same thing as the original volume are in for a disappointment.

[Nicholas Gullestad · Rating 1 out of 5]

After reading 1 and 1,5 this book is a huge letdown and is nothing like the previous installments. The book is prop full of philosophical mumbo jumbo and technical jargon that is neither interesting nor conducive.

Man-machine Interface tries to make up for its lack of substantiated plot with an exuberance of color pages, the impact of this is however lessened by the fact that the protagonist has 90% of the 'screentime'.

If you have read book 1 and 1,5 and is looking for a conclusion you won't really find one here the only subject matter that relates to the previous installments is found in the Prologue and the Epilogue. The middle is basically filler and the protagonist is most of the time in virtual space which when done in excess as is the case here can be rather boring.

[Msr2d2 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Słabo! Nawet bardzo. Nie tego się spodziewałem po kontynuacji Ghost in the Shell. Zamiast kilku różnych opowieści jest tylko jedna, strasznie rozwleczona i mało dynamiczna. Większość "akcji" dzieje się w świecie wirtualnym (na co w zasadzie wskazuje podtytuł), który ukazany jest w sposób strasznie statyczny. Choć momentami fabuła ma szansę wciągnąć, to przedziwne opisy starć hakerskich bywają na tyle zawiłe, że można się w tym pogubić.

Nie pomaga tu też szata graficzna (a w szczególności strony w kolorze), która bardziej nawet szkodzi. W znacznej większości kadrów ręcznie rysowane tła i panoramy zastąpiono renderami komputerowymi. Zachowano jednak bardziej odręczną i klasyczną formę przy postaciach. Niestety jedno z drugim się nie łączy i wygląda... W zasadzie to nawet nie wygląda X.x

Drugą bolączką szaty graficznej jest dziwny fetysz autora do rysowania postaci kobiecych z perspektywy ukazującej bieliznę i ogólnego nadmiaru golizny rysunkowej. O ile we wcześniejszych tomach elementy takowe miały nawet jakieś uzasadnienie fabularne i występowały sporadycznie, o tyle w tym tytule dodano tego tyle, że aż strach. Chyba po to, aby przyciągnąć do lektury jak największą hordę niewyżytych gimbazjalistów. Po prostu dno dna i pięć metrów mułu w kwestii dobrego smaku.

[Tiana · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was such a slog... Even though there were interesting new ideas, they weren't expanded upon and favored spending excessive amounts of time with the Major just floating around naked in cyberspace engaged in a cyberbattle against herself. To make those scenes even less entertaining, she was barking orders at her badly rendered 3D subordinates in technobabble every other word for countless speech bubbles.

The only thing to be rescued here is that it's a logical conclusion to the original story... Although a poorly executed one. Masamune's a visionary and I can commend him for following his passion, but this sequel is doing the franchise a disservice. If you're already a bit put-off by Mary Sues in stories but give leeway to Motoko for being a badass, this story's conclusion might tip you in the direction of disliking the character since she's the genesis for a whole new life form comparable to humanity.

TLDR: Masamune, if you wanted to be horny on main, you could've just made an official eroge. Unfortunately, that likely would be more entertaining that this was.

[shuang · Rating 1 out of 5]

Im done bruh. Book 2 is way too sexualized. There is not a single page where the reader is not getting flashed. I hope the author didn’t sexualize the book just to increase sales…

The story also skipped a few years into the future, so I never found out what happens post-amalgamation and how Major Kusanagi started working for the doctor 🙄. Too much plot hole from the start and too much redundant imagery.

Dropping this book on page 52 >:(

[Alessandro · Rating 1 out of 5]

Uno degli aborti più inconcepibili mai partoriti in campo manga (uh).
Solo fanservice (sfido ad aprire una pagina a caso e non trovare seni o fondoschiena o zoccoli di cammello in bella [ma neanche tanto] vista) e turbotechno-mumbo jumbo incomprensibile di derivazione fusariana per sembrare qualcosa di futuristico e very very smart.
Di oscenità del genere ce ne sono davvero poche.

[ms1v · Rating 2 out of 5]

This sucks ass. Things are not well explained, they Just Kind Of Happen, and the only real saving grace is the artwork when it isn't perverted, which it is far too often, even by GitS standards.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't enjoy this book that much. There was too much jargon and very little philosophy. I also miss the team dynamic of Section 9.

[Jesus Flores · Rating 5 out of 5]

GITS 2
Varios años después de lo que sucedió en GITS, Makoto en su nueva identidad Chroma es contratada para resolver un caso, aquí ella tiene múltiples cuerpos dobles que puede controlar a distancias, una IA de apoyo que parecen pingüinitos. Lo que empieza con un posible caso simple de sabotaje industrial al parecer termina convirtiéndose en una confrontación con otra IA al parecer derivada de ella misma y con accesos a recursos similares. No solo eso aquí se aborda como tema la conciencia propia de las IA y las implicaciones de los cibercerebros de las personas y sobre una posible fusión de conciencias. La verdad este si requiere un mayor tiempo de lectura. Aparte aumenta mucho las veces en que Chroma tiene que hacer los dives en los cerebros de las personas que investiga o controla y mucha terminología de virus y barreras, planos y capas.
Interesante ver como esa parte de conciencias cibernética y de AI, se compaginan con la parte mistica/espiritual hasta un cierto punto.
5 stars

[Xavier Marturet · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ghost in the Shell es un manga innovador, de trazos infinitos, diseños futuristas extremos y donde la realidad virtual se traslada a la vida virtual, e incluso el concepto de alma virtual.
A diferencia de Tank Police o Appleseed, la forma de narrar es confusa, barroca, donde el propio autor se harta de poner notas al margen consciente del cocido con exceso de ingredientes y mal dosificado en el que se ha metido pero no puede salir. Por ello, el lector entra en una lectura hipnótica, atractiva, pero donde no ve el hilo argumental y se pierde en un viaje casi alucinógeno con retazos de William Gibson.
Posteriormente a la serie —y por posteriormente hablo de décadas, pues escrito esta review el 15 de noviembre de 2022, veinte años más tarde—, aparecieron series de anime donde el equipo de la mayor Kusanagi era lo que la mayoría de lectores esperaba de la serie: un cuerpo de fuerzas especiales con unos componentes —personajes co protagonistas, me refiero— muy bien identificados en sus personalidades y habilidades, y donde debían afrontar retos dignos de un cuerpo policíaco de elite —aquí llamado Sección 9— en los que lucieran sus habilidades de investigador, francotirador, ex soldado de fuerzas especiales, etc.
Mención aparte tienen los Tachikoma, casi inexistentes más allá de un vehículo, pero convertidos en protagonistas necesarios en la serie GitS Stand Alone Complex.
Tema aparte y casi anécdota final: Me hace especial gracia recordar la curiosa inserción de escenas de tono casi pornográfico y lésbico que introdujo Shirow en el manga original. Fue un «porque sí, porque me da la gana» en toda regla que supuso, como mucho, un encogimiento de hombros antes de continuar leyendo en busca del hilo de la aventura. Y hasta la última página di el beneficio de la duda: soy así de inocente.

[João · Rating 1 out of 5]

Very interesting ideas all around, and nice ending.

But the execution is really bad. Breaking it down:

1 - Narrative: Overly complicated. Sometimes it even seems on purpose. Meaningless phrases and words, technological jargon invented/misused/not explained.
2 - Explanations: Or better, the rants. Most of these are extremely annoying and fail to explain anything.
3 - Beginning: Worst first chapters in of all Shirow's works I've read. Very hard to get into this GITS2 and start to enjoy it. GITS 1 and 1.5 didn't have this problem.
4 - Art: While, having many moments of brilliance, most of the times it's just a mess. Many styles mixed that just don't work. Some pages made me cringe.
4.5 - 3D: That overused - horrible - 3D rendering... Why? It just sucks. My eyes are bleeding. And Shirow is extremely talented at drawing. Again: Why?
5 - Fan service: Irritating to say the least, the narrative sometimes is lead by it... Awful! It destroyed what could be otherwise a great manga. This killed it for me. Can't take seriously the philosophical aspects being thrown at the same time as no-nipple-boobs. Hundreds... No. Thousands of times.

It's all there. It can almost be grasped: a great manga. You just need to unveil the overflow of awful authorial and editorial decisions. That's it: many layers of awfulness.

I love Ghost in the Shell. But really, many fundamental aspects of this particular volume make it impossible to truly enjoy it.