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The English dub is some of the worst voice acting I've heard in a while. But nevertheless it did make it easier to understand what was going on, and allow me to focus on the animation.

I always thought the opening scene was more an establishment of character rather than a particular plot point: you get to see the creation of the cyborg police officer interspersed with scenes showing the result of her "production" -- a "how-it's-made" mixed with a "how-it's-used".

I particularly enjoyed the scene with the typing -- something about the fingers extending into these crazy typing segments has stuck with me even many years after watching the movie.

My understanding of the puppet master could be super off, but for me it was kinda like the point was that puppet master maybe didn't have goals per se -- that it achieved sentience without purpose, and it was violently lashing out due to frustration from not having a purpose. I watched this many years ago at this point, so I should probably rewatch it before commenting on anything else... I guess expect this comment to be edited later! :p

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That certainly would be a plausible thing to be true about the Puppet Master. But I also felt like maybe there could be more to it, and I just didn't pick up enough context the first time through to make a guess.

I would really like to read the original source material, but a cursory search lead to a lot of people complaining that various English editions are either badly reproduced and/or censored, so I guess I will have to wait until I have some time to research how to get a proper version :(

- Casey

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The music you talk about, the choral one, is supposedly a wedding song. And when it's played, the on screen visual are wrestling with or showing this marriage between old (the biological) and new (human technology).

The birthing scene at the beginning is the most obvious version of this, but the slow montage in the middle with the city scenes explores it too.

I find that even the song itself feels like a great marriage between old and new.

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