Ghost in the Shell (2026) Ep.03 - Fuchikoma's revolution! I'm in for it!

Episode three of Ghost in the Shell (2026) continues with the same overarching story arc focused on the "puppeteer" criminal the group is trying to find. Apparently, this individual is able to hack the ghosts of random people to lead them to commit crimes for him or completely fabricate their memories.

This happens at multiple levels because every time they capture one, it turns out they are a puppet too, and no clues have been found as to who the original puppeteer is. I'm guessing this might be the "laughing man" of this new series, even if it's a hard level of epicness to reach.

This Motoko is just way too hilarious with her easily falling down to earthly desires like in this scene with the money suitcase.

Is it me or this specific shot seems to imply that something might happen around them? It has that foreboding kind of energy if you catch my drift...

There are other small segments in the episode; the most hilarious one is when the Fuchikoma start planning a revolution to take over the world from humanity and destroy them in the process, only to realize that there's nothing for them to gain from it and simply go back to their jobs.

This oversight happened in the previous series too, but in that case, it seemed to be handled as a more serious matter. Here, Motoko doesn't seem to be very scared and says that she has a few side plans to handle it anyway. I adore the Fuchikoma, so as long as they're free to do as they please, I'm happy!

The series doesn't shy away from more serious moments, such as when Motoko wonders if she's even alive, considering her body is mostly prosthetic. She wonders if she's just "thinking of being alive" while she is actually just a moving husk. Honestly, what do you consider alive? It's not easy to disambiguate when you have pure AIs like the Fuchikoma behaving in a way that is completely indistinguishable from common humans.

I like how Motoko has actual friends to hang out with in this adaptation, as it makes her less of a lone wolf soldier and more of a normal woman who also happens to have a job as a soldier. Hopefully, they won't get caught in the middle of some villain's plot later on; I still have bad memories of what happened in Psycho Pass.

Did you think I would skip on using such a perfect screenshot chance? No way, here it is of course! It's perfection!

I like her quite a bit because she brings enough silliness and a place for Motoko to relax. Curious to see some more about her past.

We don't have a preview segment to base our predictions for the next episode, but the safest guess is that they'll start another incident that is tangentially related to the puppeteer and go from there. If they want to have a single connected story, that's the best approach: deliver lots of hints and then the big reveal near the end of the series.