Heterochromia

When this episode started, I really didn’t feel like watching stand alone episodes - the first episodes were nice, but not really my thing; it was only the Laughing Man issue that has seriously arisen and deepened my interest for this series. But this really was a nice episode with a good surprise for me *hehe*

It also was a nice, thought-provoking story. In my opinion, it actually was a reasonable decision to let him continue to “live”. After all, people are in need of heroes and idols, pretty pathetic but I believe this is human nature.

When I saw the little girl at the beginning of the episode, I immediately realized that this is the “mass naked child event” episode XD Yay! It’s weird to see that I knew about “mass naked child” long before I’ve even heard about Ghost in the Shell itself.

This Iwasaki guy is so gorgeous XD What a sympathetic side character *hrr* Of course merchants are annoying (”Invest money in us!”) but nevertheless it’s nice to see a little bit enthusiasm in this series - even when it’s just an act.

All in all, I think I rather disliked the first 3 episodes because there weren’t that interesting. These 2 episodes turned out to be much more suspenseful.

By the way, I googled up the movie of episode 3. It seems to be a rather boring story, but a revolutionary french movie by Godard (oho!). Jean Seberg, the actress totally looks like Jeri in the episode. Maybe I’ll watch it one of these days and write about it.

Haha, Togusa is playing “das Spiel” (Reversi, that is) with the tachikoma! Gorgeous *haha*

This episode surely is one of the reasons why I think TV series can be more interesting than movies: Only in a TV series, you can insert an episode that is 100% located in a chat room. I like that a lot since chatting surely is one important part of my life *cough*
Unfortunately this episode wasn’t really revealing, but of course I’ve expected that. Atmosphere and idea are the main features of this episode - in fact, the whole talking and the different, weird characters reminded me a little bit Paranoia Agent. (I know that this parallel isn’t really good though, I just had to think about it.)

A propos Paranoia Agent. Today, I re-read what I’ve written about it and noticed that I really was amazed by that anime back then. To me, this kind of amazement is something that Ghost in the Shell lacks too. ^^;;; I really enjoy this anime and I am so enthusiastic about having found such an ambitious and enjoyable series again, but there still is a difference between this and, well, Paranoia Agent.
Currently, I think I will rank Ghost in the Shell no.6 in my finished series hitlist, behind Ouran and before Today in Class 5-2.

Japanese seiyuu are so amazing, have I already mentioned this? You immediately recognize Motoko by her voice - I find it so fascinating how these seiyuu are able to have characteristical yet variable voices.

I wanted to take my time to comment on this episode but then noticed that there isn’t really much to say about it. One should simply watch it, somehow this story seems so realistic to me.
I decided to include one of the more cruel scenes in the episode as screenshot even though I actually don’t want to look at it myself. this cruelty, and then the gorgeous end of the episode make it one of the very best. I have never really paid attention to Batou before, but now definitely he has grown to one of the more interesting characters.

If I’m not mistaken, there was a discussion about how americans are shown in such a negative light in Ghost in the Shell. I believe they were referring to this episode. Well, I think, one should be intelligent enough to realize that this kind of “operation” could have been performed by every country. Cruelty in war is just a matter of organization skills, if you ask me.

Damn, I know who this bitch reminds of! It’s the Miss Ratched from “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”! (Milkmaster loves this movie and I also think very highly of it, but it seriously gives me a headache and makes me depressive. I never want to see that movie in my whole life again. Just like “Grave of the Fireflies”. It simply makes me too sad.) This woman immediately evokes a sense of cold and disgust - I have to say that’s very well done.

A little boy whose existence is in question, who supposedly is responsible for the whole story and a baseball glove? The parallels to Paranoia Agent could not be clearer XD Obviously I’m the only person in the world thinking of Paranoia Agent while watching this anime - I’m too big of a Paranoia Agent fangirl *ugh*

This is one of the most suspenseful episodes so far. I have spoiled myself a little bit, so I know that the next complex episode will be 20. Argh!

The long series of stand alone episode starts off with a very strong episode though. Tachikoma~~! The true heroes of the series and the reason why I started watching it in the first place! They are so cute! *_* I want a real one! (I wonder if somebody could recommend a figurine to me? There are so many on the market…)

I found both stories (the one of the girl’s dog and the one of the movie director) really touching, making this my favourite episode so far. (Hey, this is just like Suzumiya Haruhi: episode 12 was the best! *g*) I really could related to both the girl and the movie director. And it makes a strong impact to see Motoko crying.

Oooh, Vincent says this is his favourite episode too! *highfives*

We had some nice fighting scenes in this episode. Unfortunately the story didn’t do much for me. Of course we had a nice little surprise in this episode too, but it wasn’t all that interesting.
After the gorgeous episode 13, this was rather disappointing *hrr hrr* I want more about the Laughing Man. On the other hand, I don’t want to watch this anime out of order.

By the way, I apologize for the screenshots. Media Player Classic is taking 4:3 screenshots even though the anime actually is 16:9, so I had to resize the pictures which drops the quality obviously. I’m sorry ^^;;;

Hrm~, another episode that didn’t really caught my interest. The end of the episode was kind of scary though. I wonder if this has something to do with the Laughing Man story or was just an appendix to this episode itself.

All in all, these episodes (especially the stand alone episodes) turned out to be beyond my expectation, and actually I have really stopped doing anything else while watching these episodes! *hrr hrr* (Except for IM, that’s something i absolutely cannot be without *hrr hrr*)