Koukaku no Pandora: Ghost Urn – 09

Touch fluffy ears…

Yay, one where my lovely Clarion stole the show, can’t wait for more. So let’s see how one of my favorite episodes in the show broke down.

Spirits in a Material World

BUER is keeping an eye out…

I kinda like how they set this episode up. They pushed forward, got to some action, then faded back and filled the story in. Since they are going for an espionage style angle, this suits the tone quite well. I wish more programs would give us the opportunity to figure out that things are happening at roughly the same time without always making us plod through dull A to B to C to etc. scenes. They kept the intro tight and folded it back into the events of last episode quite well with just a few scant strokes.

It looks like BUER and Clarion have something in common. They don’t like having their sensitive parts touched. When it comes to the big, currently underwater beastie, the amount of progress Colonel Kurtz and his cohorts in the Imperial army is nothing but disappointment. This is causing the big driller some temper control issues.  So now we know that all the network outages, crime, not to mention the outright destruction have a common cause. But, Is this part of Uzal/Saha Schehera’s plans?

…lots of stuff goes down virtually in this world.

Well, we do have a world divided don’t we? There are sources that point out that Ghost Urn shares a great deal with Shirow’s other work; with the big red robot’s resemblance to the trademark tachikoma in GitS it hard to say no to those sources; it’s not hard to point out, however, that big red has only the four legs. But I’m splitting ambulatory devices there. What really matters the most in this context is how it presents the overall, overarching, and behind the scenes conflicts.

The long and short of it is that the American Empire wants BUER, they contracted Uzal to make it, and she’s to wary of the balance of power to give it to them outright. It’s good to have their investment, even with the mayor dude corruption, but there is fear they will take the influence to far.  Takumi has the same sense of awareness, but she display’s loyalty only to herself. Uzal is much better at planning ahead, and even better at playing at opportunities than Takumi but that doesn’t keep our little shut it from trying. But it does make me wonder if I have the right bead on Uzal’s plans. When it’s all said and done, I think she is trying to make the AE overextend and look poorly on the world stage. Kurtz might be aware of this; him being very protective of their data mining efforts to the extent he pushed his people to protect it.

It’s all down to the kitty…

Yeah, I’ve been waiting for Clarion to really shine all season long, and this is going in the right direction. I appreciate how they’ve made me anticipate it as well. By spending more time with her and Nene and the various antics of all the past episodes we get a more well rounded approach to how protective she is of her charge. She was ordered to at the outset, but now she is happy with the choice. We also might be getting a brief insight to how the adepter is going to fit into the grand scheme of things. I kinda dig how most of the machines are one eyed. That is a monocular view of the world, and all of them are limited by programming. Nene and Clarion are not, of course, being human-cyborgs, and symbolic of growth in their youthful yuri can do it ways.

One thing does make me a bit wary. In the beginning of the episode, they went through the motions of showing the girls being repaired after their shopping mall near-debacle. It was over in a blink, and was done in a relatively easy manner. But by episodes end, Clarion was facing off with one of the big bads. I’m smelling contrast, which might mean a we’ll be seeing more of the cat girl spread around, if you take the meaning.

Extras

Show ▼

This one probably had more references to GitS/Appleseed than the rest of them combined, or at least it sure sounded like it. Now, if you wish to talk about that, then all you have to do is let it rip in the comments section; this show has been light on comments, so I’ll not be picky. But in saying that, I think I need to remind you that I don’t really have much interest in GitS, and in all honesty don’t really think I want to have. To further remind, I’ll not let that stand in the way if the comment section becomes a place to converse about the speculation; how this show fit’s into the continuity is surely great topic for discussion, and I’ll read with generalized interest.

With that in mind, I love where the story is going. I’m happy they took the time to develop the characters before they jumped into the action. Stories usually do it the other way around, and I find I have less interest in that method the older I get. I also appreciate that they can tell this story in ellipses, and without bogging it down in overly-jargon-ed technobabbely exposition. Cute girls save the world with big explodey robots…that is the story I want….