Ghost In The Shell Volume 2: Man-Machine Interface

March 6, 2035. Motoko Aramaki is a hyper-advanced cyborg, a counter-terrorist net security expert heading the investigative department of the giant multi-national, Poseidon Industrial. Partly transcending the physical world and existing in a virtual world of networks, Motoko is a fusion of multiple entities and identities, deploying remotely controlled prosthetic humanoid surrogates around the globe to solve a series of bizarre crimes. Meanwhile, Tamaki Tamai, a psychic investigator from the Channeling Agency, has been commissioned to investigate strange changes in the temporal universe, brought about by two forces, one represented by the teachings of a professor named Rahampol, and the other by the complex, evolving Motoko entity. What unfolds will be all in a day's work...a day that will change everything, forever.

Starred Review. In this brilliant and difficult sequel, Masamune revisits the future, cyborg-dominated world detailed in the original manga. While Batou, the gruff cyber-security operative from volume one, makes an appearance, this new work is more of a meditation on the first book's central theme—the melding of cybernetic technology, human personality and the spiritual "ghost" or life force at its essence—than a continuation of the original story. Book one ended after Major Kusanagi, Batou's sexy cyborg commander, downloaded her "self" into a bodiless, "self-aware" artificial intelligence. Now Masamune focuses on another beautiful cyborg, Motoko Aramaki, chief security officer for a giant multinational conglomerate. Aramaki digitally transfers her personality and capabilities between cyborg bodies stashed around the world, as she attacks industrial spies, assassins and cyber-hackers while keeping up a steady stream of digital communications with various robotic assistants and her secretary back at the office. Once again Masamune attempts to assay the virtual terrain where technological entities meet the essence of human spirituality, connecting the mythology of sci-fi machinery to both the metaphysics of religion and the timeless allure and complexity of Asian creation-myths. The color and b&w graphics are stunning, brilliantly evoking the nonvisual world of data transmission. While his story can be confusing, Masamune has created one of the most thoughtful and gorgeous manga ever produced. (Jan.)
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The long-awaited sequel to the 1990s smash hit manga Ghost in the Shell certainly won't disappoint the fans. On the surface, the story is a cyber-espionage caper in which Motoko Aramaki, heroine of the first book and now a hyperadvanced cyborg, uses all of her resources, real and virtual, to investigate a series of strange attacks against her employers, Poseidon Industrial. As the mystery deepens, however, characters and reader discover that there is more here than meets the eye, and that leads characters and reader to question what intelligence and existence really are. As the questions mount, Man-Machine Interface becomes an awesome display of story and art working in tandem to lay the reader flat. The art has a kinetic energy that flows through the pages with a power that just sweeps one up. The story, meanwhile, exerts great crossover appeal to fans of the cyber-punk, tech-noir fiction of the likes of Neal Stephenson and William Gibson. Tina Coleman
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