Review of Ghost in the Shell 2: Man-Machine Interface

Let me start by quoting myself from the 2026 anime review when referencing this manga:

“I should probably reread before saying this but in my memory the story is quite complex in themes, far more than the prequel and even the first movie, the plot is not very clear, the finale doesn’t feel complete, and Motoko is naked almost the whole time, which would probably please the horny dudes if they didn’t have to put up with everything else, and it would likely be a problem to translate to screen.”

Well I reread this after Human Error Processor and guess what I was 100% right. Ten years ago I at the very least enjoyed this craziness but now not even that. This is commonly referred as the worst part of the trilogy even by the few people that like it, while simultaneously considered the most difficult to follow Ghost in the Shell media that exists, far more than Stand Alone Complex, the existential themes of the 1995 movie, and even the endless pretentious quotes of Innocence, which did take elements and scenes from the three mangas to make its own story.

The plot itself isn’t all that difficult. Motoko now works for some doctor or professor, takes over some body to stop some kind of riot, finds out that human brains are being trafficked into pigs, infiltrates a ship and kicks its whole crew’s ass, keeps using different cyborg bodies to get into places and kick ass, and at the end swims in the cyberspace until she fuses with a whole bunch of artificial intelligences to become some sort of new entity next level of human evolution of some kind. The problem is the narrative, the rest around it that makes the plot itself so hard to understand and follow.

-The narrative is certainly messy. Shirow himself apologized for making this manga way after the first one and so different to it to the point of confusion. Years have passed and Motoko is off to her own thing, working for someone else and alongside lots of other new girls, none of which get any introduction for the viewer. You would probably think well that’s the author showing instead of telling, a sign of good exposition, and I would agree if it wasn’t for…

-The technobabble. There’s a lot of it, far more than in any previous iteration, and although not as bad as it was in Human Error Processor, it can be quite heavy here as well. What’s worse is that it is not just presented through appendices and footnotes now, it is in the dialogues themselves as well. A good chunk of chapters are spent on Motoko diving in the cyberspace alongside her new AI agents talking about some techno stuff. That time could have been used to further clarify the plot.

-As an extension from the previous point, the themes are very complex to get the very minimal attention they do. The Puppetmaster talking about generating new life in a tree of life kind of way has nothing on what’s presented here. The concept is also present here but more philosophy and religious knowledge are needed to understand what the fuck the characters talk about, even with Shirow’s own appendices and footnotes. Even so, those get two or three chapters dedicated to them at most, and although there are seven in total, being 40 to 55 pages long each, you can tell just by that that the theme exploration got sidelined by the action and nudity.

-Because yes, if the plot wasn’t already confusing enough, the manga is so ecchi to the point of being distracting. There’s nothing nowhere near as extreme as a straight up pornographic lesbian threesome as there was in the first manga, but in terms of quantity, there are so many more butt and cunt shots of Motoko and even when she is in the cyberspace she’s always fully naked, which I guess it makes sense because why would she have clothes in there, but at least draw her body in a non-sexy way so it doesn’t become distracting? If this manga ever gets to be adapted, good luck with anyone paying attention to the plot and themes while Motoko’s full ass and tits are displayed on the screen.

-The plot doesn’t feel complete. Ok this is a thing on every Ghost in the Shell series it seems. The first movie, manga and the newest anime end in the way they do, Innocence and Stand Alone Complex are open to continuations, Arise and 2045…well who cares about them, and Human Error Processor has no closure because it hardly has a plot. But over here you feel like the themes present on chapters one and seven get a closure, while the plot points presented throughout this work either don’t get any or very easy and light ones.

-Everyone else in the cast is a plot device. Another issue somewhat on every non Stand Alone Complex iteration, but it is far worse here, as every character that isn’t Motoko is there just to discuss the themes or the technology, meaning they are just there for exposition, even if it is handled pretty well. And don’t get me started on those AI agents she has now. They are supposed to be like the Fuchi or Tachikomas I guess but they suck. Aramaki and Batou are also here but you only see them talking in two chapters, the latter might as well not be there at all, even more so with how different he looks compared to before.

-Another issue, the tone is very light. Yes, the previous mangas were like that as well but they never were as hard to follow and understand as this one is, and they took themselves fully seriously when needed. Over here there’s some joke in the middle of an important plot point that takes you out of the experience. Not in the last chapter though, which just makes me wish that the whole piece was like the first and last two chapters and that was it, it would be a quite neat existential sci-fi drama if it was.

-And top top it off, the artwork sucks balls half the time. I don’t know what the artistic decision was here, I guess it had to do with exploring new technological options, like I said when talking about the 2.0 movie, but man does it look bad here. A lot of the time, CGI, static, poorly done backgrounds are used, and with no narrative reason. Sometimes they are used for the cyberspace, but other times for skies and water, and waves and clouds look extra bad when frozen in place. On top of that the 2D characters look like slapped on them instead of organically integrated together, and the facial repetition is too much, there’s no female character that doesn’t look like a clone of Motoko for fucks sake. The worst of all is that there was not need for it. In a similar case as the Hokuto no Ken remake of this year having a rarely used good looking 2D artwork that is instead mostly replaced by some crap CGI, there is some incredible hand drawn artwork, both in black and white and in color, used here, but only for a few chapters, which makes you think WHY WOULDN’T YOU JUST USE THE SUPERIOR ARTSTYLE THE WHOLE TIME? Models, backgrounds, motions, fight scenes, special effects, EVERYTHING LOOKS BETTER HAND DRAWN, it’s even a whole level of improvement from the previous two mangas, but is all wasted in favor of that other ugly outdated thing.

Yeah I’m not reinventing anything here, it is genuinely the worst manga of the three and by far. I used to think it was just meh and even enjoyed it ten years ago, but now it is irredeemably bad and boring in my eyes. It is not the worst Ghost in the Shell media that I’ve engaged with, that goes for SAC 2045, but nowadays I even take the other works from the franchise that I dislike over it, what a drag, even with its short length.

4/10