Summary[]
After 15 days of fierce fighting the Umibozu complete their operation to dismantle Section 9 by assassinating Kusanagi and capturing Batou. The dismantling of Section 9, spun by the media as a JSDF preemptive strike against a radical security unit planning a coup, provides the prime minister with the public support his party needs to win the lower house elections. Immediately after the election, in keeping with his promise, the prime minister discloses the information regarding The Laughing Man case, fingering Yakushima as the ringleader. Three months pass, during which Togusa tries to come to terms with all that has happened with Section 9. In his attempts to find information on the rest of the team he learns that the Major was killed and the remaining members of Section 9 are serving time in a state prison for high treason. The news upsets Togusa, and he resolves to assassinate the man responsible for Section 9's dissolution. Togusa intends to catch Yakushima as he arrives at the ruling party’s headquarters, but before Togusa can follow through with his plan he is stopped by none other than Batou, who brings Togusa to Section 9’s temporary HQ. Here, Togusa is informed that Section 9's disbandment and destruction was merely a ploy, news that he greets with joy. Elsewhere, Kusanagi and Aramaki meet with Aoi, the man responsible for the abduction of Serano six years ago. For his outstanding hacking skills Aramaki offers Aoi a job at Section 9, but Aoi politely refuses citing he is not a team player and wishing to remain in an unused library to sort through and read its collection of books. Public Security, Section 9, is once more an active security unit of the Japanese government, and its members once more settle into the routines they had at the beginning of the series.
Noteworthy Dialogue[]
- Togusa: It's not like I had aspirations to be a hero or anything. However, I'm positive we followed a code of justice that all of believed in without condition or compromise. Laughing Man, you were the one who first tried to shed some light on the black abyss of this case and bring it to the world's attention. Is it possible that at this moment, you're feeling the same as I am? Nah, you wouldn't. Your not the type to go in for that stuff. You must've had a revelation of something and you're watching this with eyes that see the big picture. Isn't that right? I could tell. Major...
- Laughing Man: Welcome. You took longer than I expected.
- Motoko: Don't give me that. You didn't even send me an invitation.
- Laughing Man: "If you stay right where you are, then people will eventually come to you."
- Motoko: I believe it was Doisneau who said that?
- Laughing Man: Yes.
- Laughing Man: I'll tell you. It was a simple piece of mail I stumbled across on the net that began the whole thing. What I'd found was a blackmail document that had probably been sent to Serano Genomics. It was armed with a thesis that was a comparative of the inadequacy of Serano micromachines versus the effectiveness of the Murai vaccine.
- Motoko: Then the original Laughing Man was the person who authored it?
- Laughing Man: You could put it like that, I suppose. "I am the machine that reveals the world to you as only I alone am able to see it"
- Motoko: Dziga Vertov. He was a Russian filmmaker, wasn't he?
- Laughing Man: Yes. I was kidding myself by thinking it was my personal mission to prove and circulate that information, vital data I alone had happened upon.
- Motoko: Failing spectacularly. The pure innocent mediator grew dejected at the base nature of the social system and he turned mute.
- Fukami: You have to adapt in order to survive. Bend your morals, or you'll break eventually.
| Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex Episodes |
|
1: Public Security Section 9 |
2: Runaway Evidence |
3: A Modest Rebellion | |