I was intrigued by the ideas that had been set up in volume one and I really liked the way that Shirow developed them in this second book. The thought of programming a human to eliminate undesirable traits is a very unsettling concept. How do you deem what characteristics are good and which are bad and who makes the decision? Its pretty deep stuff when you think about it. In the context of this story humans have nearly destroyed the world with war and the cloned humans or 'Bioroids' feel it is time to control their human nature. In recent years I have seen a couple of anime series that have used the I idea of a new human race as a central plot point, Gundam SEED for example, and I am almost certain that Appleseed must have been a large influence on them.
There are some nice action scenes and some great pieces of dialogue in this volume but things aren't all good. If I'm completely honest I was a little underwhelmed with volume one although I think this can be attributed to the fact I had just finished rereading the unquestionable masterpiece that is Akira. Volume two was certainly thought provoking but it is flawed. It is often confusing and at times feels like important scenes are skipped. The characterisation is still a little two dimenstional and aside from Briareos i'm pretty indifferent towards any of the people in the story. That being said it has some stunning artwork and I did enjoy reading it.
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