Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence

Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (2004) is Mamoru Oshii's meditative cyberpunk anime, and you can watch it online on iFILM. The year is 2032. Humans share the world with cyborgs, and the line between flesh and machine has all but dissolved.

Batou, a detective whose body is almost entirely synthetic, takes on a grim case: gynoids, doll-like pleasure androids, are killing their owners and then tearing themselves apart. With his partner Togusa, who still has a family and a human body, he traces the trail back to the manufacturer, Locus Solus. Of Motoko Kusanagi, who vanished into the net in the first film, only memory remains, and Batou carries it like a hollow he cannot fill.

Oshii turns a murder mystery into a long argument about souls, dolls and what makes a being alive, stitching dialogue together from Descartes, Milton and classical poetry. Production I.G blended hand-drawn cels with early 3D, and the festival-parade sequence set to Kenji Kawai's score is one of the most gorgeous passages anime has produced. It is slow and dense by design, so save it for a night when you want to think rather than chase. Stream Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (2004) online on iFILM.