Gibberishtic Axiomatic

Left: Kazundo Gouda, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex 2nd Gig

Right: Skull Face, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

And trust me it is not just the severe burns and shot composition that make them the same goddamn person.

(MAJOR SPOILERS FOR GITS:SAC AND MGSV UNDER THE CUT)

They’re both the heads of shadowy, information controlling organizations (Cabinet Intelligence Service/CIPHER), and have an elite military force of unquestioning loyalty (JSDF/XOF).  They work against our heroes (Section 9/Diamond Dogs) while operating under a Cold War framework, play puppeteer at a global level, use natives/refugees (Dejima/Angolans) as test subjects and pawns in a larger game, and want to use nuclear weapons and ‘media spinning’ to render deterrence meaningless thus throwing the world into a chaos which they control from behind the scenes.

For profit/revenge.

There’s even crazy nuke-based tech that their complicated plans rely upon! For Gouda, it was Japan’s Radiation Scrubber Micromachines, and for Skull Face it was Code Talker’s metallic archaea.  Those two things basically operate the same way, except the matllic archaea is organic (it’s a parasite) while the scrubbers are essentially nanobots.  And those parasites in MGSV were the precursors to the nanomachines in MGS1,2 and 4. 

Oh also they both die in awesomely gruesome ways.  Gouda gets his head shot so many times it explodes and Skull Face has his limbs blown off by a shotgun before getting shot in the face by Huey.  

Even their respective stories have remarkably similar story beats. Need I also mention that Hideo (how the fuck did I miss this) Kuze’s face is a goddamn personally crafted transplant, very much like, say, I dunno Venom Snake. And Kuze earned the respect and allegiance of the refugees by becoming a legend ala Big Boss and MSF/Outer Heaven/Zanzibar Land? Then there’s the mechanical prosthetics, cut-outs and smoke screens, child soldiers, PMCs, spy thriller things, bleeding edge tech, island military nations, etc. 

I could go on, but honestly I love both of these things.  And if you’re gonna take inspiration from something, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex is an amazing thing to draw from.