[Categories: Anime Reviews]
GitS SAC: 2nd Gig episodes 21-23
It’s fair to say that Section Nine have come unstuck. For once, their mission has failed and things show no sign of getting any better. Kuze escapes and it appears he has a consignment of plutonium with him; a crisis looms in Dejima’s refugee camp and Gohda seems to be running rings around pretty much everyone.
The opening instalment here is a really action-packed affair: Batou’s face-off with Kuze for once gives him an opponent worthy of his skills. They start with guns, then knives and finally a good old-fashioned fist-fight with no clear-cut victor until the end. Saito and his Tachikoma also have to deal with the cyberpunk equivalent of a zombie and in the fog of it all Kuze does a runner to Dejima after slipping through the coastguard’s net.
After all this the change of pace to quiet tension and exposition is quite jarring, as Boma has to deal with diffusing an atomic bomb; the really interesting part of this episode though is the very diaogue-heavy discussion between Batou and Gohda atop the building where the Individual Eleven took their own lives. While it is undoubtedly tedious for action junkies, this segment explains a lot and finally cements the connection between Kuze and Gohda. I never really thought Kuze acheived what he did on his own - after all, a hero who can’t even move his mouth lacks that certain charisma required - so it’s good to see the pieces begin to fall into place. Even more intriguingly, Batou keeps his temper long enough to find out what he needs to know.
The last episode shows the political situation escalate but it’s another dialogue-heavy and action-light offering before the big finale. Kayabuki is shown to be little more than an attractive figurehead rather than someone with much in the way of real influence here too - her attempts to maintain control over her subordinates and find a way to diffuse the situation don’t seem to be working at all. Meanwhile, the cordon around Dejima begins to tighten but my last nagging question was this: is there really a connection between the Major and Kuze…?
Summary
Although it starts off with a bang, this volume mostly consists of explanations and political chess moves; while that isn’t what viewers necessarily want at this stage in the series, such things are no doubt necessary in understanding the bigger picture. My overall impression is that the series is taking a few deep breaths before running all guns blazing down the final furlong, headlong into a very explosive situation indeed.
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