in the shell

Lets use this topic for all discussions on the episodes in SAC 1st Gig and SAC 2nd Gig. Discussions like help understanding certain episodes, what episodes are coming up next on Adult Swim, etc.

What did you all think of the episodes titled Ambivalence and Trial that aired the previous two weeks?

The episode titled Affection, which we see Motoko when she was a child, the reason why she needed a prosthetic body and what her first prosthetic body airs next Sunday morning on Adult Swim at 12:30am.

"Amibivalence" was delightful--I'm reluctant to say which bits of it I particularly enjoyed since I don't want to post spoilers...
I was wondering about the black boxes in front of the judge's bench in "Trial." They look like they are based on the boxes one sees at Motoko's trial in the manga. But I always assumed those boxes were people in Jameson-type bodies.
I guess the black boxes in this episode are some sort of paralegal A.I. that advises the judge how to proceed when objections are raised and such? But would the A.I. in this era really be sophisticated enough to make such decisions? Anyone?

The black boxes in front of the Judge's bench were Jameson type bodies and they do look like the boxes that were featured in Motoko's trial in the first manga. I think one of the interviews on Volume 3 DVD explains why they used the Jameson type bodies in the Trial episode.

In episode 12 of the 1st GIG, Not equal, the woman who should be in her 30s or so, is over 80. Does anyone know/have any theories on why?

I think nobody knows for sure why Eka Tokura who was kidnapped when she was sixteen and a number of years later she looks like she is in her eighties. I have to guess that the cybernetic implant that her father had inserted in her to show off his new models could have affect her aging or she has a biological condition that affects her internal clock, so that her aging increases every day. If any of you see a film with Robin Williams called Jack, his character is born with a condition that causes him to age quickly and when he graduates he looks like someone in their 70's.

Interesting.

I think you may be right. Her cybernetic body was certaily old, maybe one of the first. It may have not been in tune with her. However, as the Major had one of the first prosthetic bodies also, it would have probably affected her too.


Come to think of it, can cybernetic bodies even get old?

The only part of her cybernetic body are that her brain was augmented to allow cyber communications and the jacks on the back of her neck, apart from those implants, Eka's body is competely natural. So maybeher cybernetic implants caused her cells to age at an alarming rate.

I see. I'd agree with that then. A prtotype model, etc.

I'm even more curious of why connection to her made the soldier in the episode frantic and suicidal...
Is her cyberbrain data so corrupt or does she have so terrifying experiences from the time of her capture...? Lots of questions, few answers, in that episode...

Maybe she was just tormented and experimented on horribly. Made him crazy.

Maybe when he connected to her cyberbrain, the realization of a sixteen year old girl growing very old in sixteen years was too much for him to handle, so he went insane.

Something like that.

In an episode titled Re-View, Togusa says that cyberization became common in 2019 and Eka Tokuru had the cybernetic implants implanted in her sixteen years before Section 9 rescued her, so that would mean that she had the implants implanted in her in the year 2014. Her father's company implants in her body must have triggered a chain reaction that altered her cells and made them age quickly. Togusa has basically the same implants as Eka, the advancement in cybernetic implants stopped the cells from aging if it was the implants back in 2014 did cause her cells to age.

I *think* Tosuga would have the common implants for the time, not her outdated models.

What I meant about Togusa having similar implants as Eka was that Togusa would have the implants that she had, like his brain augmented and the the jacks on the back of his neck (like she had) but his implants would be modern.