ANI-MOVIES, *Ghost In The Shell 2: Innocence

Nearly a decade after the original Ghost In The Shell, Innocence is the only official sequal to the first anime movie, while so far all the other movies, TV shows and OVAs are remakes. Mamoru Oshii returns to direct this film, taking place three years after the first.

Intelligence agents Batou and his new partner Togusa are given a new assignment involving several sex robots killing their owners. The trail leads to the yakuza using one of them to take out a high ranking rival mob boss. The androids were manufactured by a company called Locus Solus, so Batou and Togusa track down an ex-soldier and retired elite hacker who reveals Locus Solus' involvement, but after several head trips that make it look like the two of them enter the hacker's mansion at least three times. With the intel they got, Batou dives towards Locus Solus' offshore sub which houses their underground android manufacturing. Batou is attacked by several androids and commandos, but the Major manages to put some of her consciousness(which is spread throughout the net after the first movie)into one of the android bodies to help Batou out. They discover that Locus Solus was using stray or kidnapped children to dub their ghosts(electronic souls)into android bodies, which means that genuine ghosts must cost way too much money, so they were illegally copying the children's ghosts, but the children used the androids to try and leave a message to search for them. After the case is closed, the Major heads back into the net.

Innocence was a little short on action as compared to the original, but seriously amped up the cinematography and animation, so much so that it prompted Mamoru Oshii to go back and add similar effects to the first movie which became Ghost In The Shell 2.0. There's also a serious head dunking into philosophy dealing with the differences between man and machine, which is effective for a version of cyberpunk world where the distinction between humans, androids, and cyborgs is very blurry. There are two English dubs of this, the first one was done for the UK with most of the original American cast, and a American dub done later with also most of the original cast. If you're more of a fan of the intrigue in Stand Alone Complex, or the visual appeal of Arise, then Innocence might be more just worth a rental for you, but definitely see it after watching G.I.T.S. 2.0.