The Laughing Man.
No one knows who he/she/or it is beyond a mysterious logo plastered across
the faces of poor hacked humans. Years
ago he pulled off the biggest act of corporate espionage ever…and then
vanished. Now he has returned, seeking a
new target. Only this time, he’s up
against Major Kusinagi and Section 9.
But the hunt for the Laughing Man never stopped after the crime that
made him famous. Even with their own set
of special hacking skills, does Section 9 stand a chance at nailing possibly
the greatest cyber criminal of all time?
Section 9 was in it big time this week following the
surprise return of a criminal vanished for six years. And while we know the team will be on this
case for the rest of the season from time to time, it was fun watching them
start to look into the case, from Motoko’s end almost completely from
scratch. And while Motoko basically
reiterated the same questions about the Laughing Man that Aramaki did the
previous week, it was fun to see her taking a look at the original crime where
Laughing Man first appeared. The (im
just going to call him LM from time to time if that’s ok) LM case is a good
argument for the cons of even the slightest of cyberizations in this day and
age. As Motoko points out the only two
people who saw what LM looked like for real were two old homeless men with zero
prosthetics in any sense. Everyone else
only saw the creepy buy memorable logo.
Clever criminal managing to pull that off.
Some of the best Laughing Man material came in Episode 6,
where Motoko and Section 9 had to protect the Superintendent General from a
potential LM hit. As many people
claiming to be the Laughing Man popped up left, right and center, it was easy to
tell none were the real deal. But were
all of them hacked? Now that was an
almost deadly question to ask. And while
Saito and Pazu didn’t do much, Motoko was on her A Game this episode, taking on
“infected” individuals in a skirt, stockings and heels and showing up every
security guard. The revelation at the
end of the episode that it was a mix of individuals involved in the catastrophe
was neat. Some were infected by the virus,
others were fans and others just went to get involved for the hell of it. Laughing Man has quite the rep and it’s only
getting stronger with his return to the scene.
And while Section 9 is pretty much the only investigative
team on the Laughing Man case, it doesn’t mean that there aren’t other crimes
to look into. We got a couple of decent
stand alone cases though maybe not as good as the first three that kicked off
the series. The more interesting of the
two was Motoko, Batou and Togusa going after a South American Drug
Dealer/People’s Hero, who seemed to have a hard time staying dead when
assassinations were made on his life. The
concept of Ghost Dubbing is a big topic of discussion in terms of the times
Section 9 lives in: when even in death one can have it set up that their
consciousness and memories are transferred to a clone or another cyborg
body. It could almost beg the question
how many more like Jarty (and that smug look of not giving a crap cause he can
be cloned…idk his look irked me a bit) are out there in the world and how long
have their continuous cycle of lives been going on? It does feel like a way for some to live
forever if they had the means to do so.
Speaking of transferring from one body to another, the
second stand alone case gives us a small bit of insight into Motoko’s past
during a case involving children being given possible stolen cyber organs. Batou reveals that the Major went fully
cyborg around the age of 6, which makes the case a bit personal for her. It’s such a harsh reality to think of, that
even children can’t live full natural lives because of a rotten dealt hand and
need cybernetics at some point. Not that
it is 100% horrible given the good Motoko has been able to do with her cyborg
abilities but it’s still a bit sad nonetheless.
Though Section 9 does get to have a bit of fun with the perps in the
case: medical students trying to be black market organ dealers. We get to see the team, especially Motoko and
Batou cut loose putting the fear of God into these poor kids to teach them a
lesson. And to top it all off, we
finally get a Motoko and Batou face off…resulting in a cheerfully smiling
Motoko hacking Batou’s arm to knock him out…priceless.
One mini qualm with the latter two episodes of this set,
the animation quality dips a bit. Some
of the reactions look a bit more cartoony than the serious animation we saw in
the first few episodes. It’s kind of
distracting but not as good as the standards this series has set thus far.
Stand Alone Complex continues to shine, through both sets
of Stand Alone and Complex episodes and Section 9 was given the chance to
stretch and show off both it’s offensive and investigative skills. Plus we got to see them have some fun on a
case and that’s something a super serious procedural type Anime rarely ever
does I think. Add that to some
potentially endless debatable ethical notes and you’ve got a series that is
every bit as fun as the manga and films that proceeded it.
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