Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex Episode Rating Graph

Kuze and the Major come up with a plan to save the refugees, but the chances of its success are slim. Realizing this, the Tachikomas disobey the Major's orders and come up with a plan of their own. Batou has also disobeyed the Major's orders to go to the bridge and is desperately searching for her in the ruins of Dejima. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister is frustrated with being spurned by the Chief Cabinet Secretary. Determined to be remembered as more than a mere figurehead, she takes matters into her own hands.

As the JMSDF's Special Forces Unit rounds up the remaining members of Section 9, Daisuke Aramaki meets with the Minister of Justice to make one last appeal to the government to salvage his team. Section 9 may be down, but certainly not out. They have help in the form of their "think-tanks", otherwise known as the Tachikomas. Public Security will make one final push to save itself from extinction.

Training has commenced to find new recruits for Section 9. With Motoko acting as the target, Batou and Togusa watch as the recruits try to keep up with the Major. After ditching some of the recruits, Motoko has to lose just one more pair. She ascends some stairs in an alley and the recruits follow her. Moving out into the street above, the recruits see that they have lost the target. However, Batou and Togusa have lost contact with the Major as well.

Following the events of the "RE-VIEW", Togusa has been rushed to the hospital. Just before he goes into surgery, he passes what he has learned to the rest of his team. As he fights for his life, his colleagues at Section 9 take over the case to find the vaccine recipient ledger and the person responsible for taking it. However, others in the government are not happy about this investigation. The Drug and Narcotic Suppression Squad, the same unit that had shot Togusa in the previous episode, is again dispatched by the Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare in order to find the thief and the ledger before Section 9 does.

As the attack on Dejima escalates, the Major catches up with Kuze. She explains the whole situation to him and he agrees to follow her. They are about to leave when both are attacked by the Self-Defense forces and in the confusion are trapped under the rubble. Togusa rescues the Prime Minister and brings her back to her office. There, Aramaki hopes her influence will stop the launching of the ultimate weapon. Meanwhile, Batou reasons with Section 4.

Togusa has been released from jail, but his badge and gun are confiscated and he is given papers showing the dissolution of Section 9. Out of work and depressed, he tries to find information on the others, but turns up nothing. Trying to turn his life around, he begins to look for a new job, only to be sidetracked by the ongoing case against Secretary-General Yakushima involving the illegal use of micromachines. With the news plastered everywhere, Togusa cannot help but wonder where he stands now.

While on an assignment guarding the Prime Minister, Saitou and the Tachikomas pass the time playing poker with a few policemen who are also assigned to the case. Much to the chagrin of the other men, Saitou wins hand after hand. The Tachikomas take notice of Saitou's uncanny accuracy and start to comment. Their constant chattering quickly gets on the other player's nerves, so to smooth things over Saitou recounts his time working as a sniper for mercenaries in Mexico.

With the felling of Dejima Bridge by the refugees, a rumor circulates around the Cabinet that the refugees plan a mass suicide bombing using nuclear bombs. Fearing this, the Cabinet steps up the attack against the city. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Kayabuki has been secretly arrested and taken to an unknown location. Aramaki, Togusa and Proto, in trying to help the P.M. are also taken into custody and secured in her office. With Section 9 having entered the non-communication zone and Aramaki being cut off from communication, Ishikawa and a Tachikoma make their way to Spring-8 on their own. Meanwhile, Gouda has sent an unwitting Section 4 after Section 9 to retrieve the plutonium.

The Laughing Man returns and, just as he did six years ago, kidnaps the President of Serano Genomics without being detected. Section 9 arrives too late and sets out to find him. Meanwhile, the Laughing Man and Mr. Serano discuss what happened six years ago. The stakes are much higher this time, and for the Laughing Man failure is not an option.

Togusa, at the request of Chief Aramaki, returns to work. Both head out to the Prime Minister's residence with a detailed report citing Secretary-General Yakushima as the real power behind the Laughing Man Incident. However, before they can even leave their own building, they are told by the Minister of Home Affairs that Public Security has already been accused of being the masterminds behind the Laughing Man. The situation has gone from bad to worse and it will take a concerted effort by all of its members for Section 9 to clear itself of the charges.

A high-level hacking has occured at the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. Section 9 has traced the source of the hack job back to a vocational aid center located high in the mountains. The hack was done by someone very skilled since it only took two hours to crack the MHLW's ultra-secure barriers. The odd thing is that the MHLW has not filed a formal complaint about the incident. Togusa is sent undercover to discover what is going on at the aid center.

Armed terrorists have taken over the Chinese Embassy in New Port City. Holding an unknown number of hostages, the group, calling themselves the Individual Eleven, are demanding that the government cease accepting Asian refugees and dissolve the five Asian refugee camps situated throughout Japan. The members of Section 9 have mobilized and are in position to move in. However, due to the events of the Laughing Man Incident (1st GIG), Section 9 technically no longer exists. The unit must wait for an official order from Chief Aramaki, who is busy making his case in front of the new Prime Minister of Japan.

Back on the Laughing Man case, Section 9 tries to find evidence of tampering in the Nanao=A case and delves more into the recent hack job at the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare ("PORTRAITZ"). Using J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye as a guide, Togusa checks out the MHLW and finds that something is missing: a ledger containing a list of vaccine recipients.

Section 9 has uncovered Shō Kawashima's ("FAKE FOOD") external memory device on the net. Hidden in a route to the Asian matrix only accessible through the European array, Section 9 concludes that the device was hidden by Gouda. Unfortunately, Gouda has left no trace of his movements in the device. The Major prepares to dive into the device with Bōma and Ishikawa watching her closely. However, before she can dive, Aramaki notifies her that someone even more important than the external memory device has just surfaced...

Events begin to shift into overdrive after the events of "ERASER". While things seem to be going Section 9's way, people in the shadows are starting to appear. As Motoko, accompanied by her friend Kurutan, arrives at the hospital to switch to a new prosthetic body, Togusa begins the recovery process after being wounded by the DEA's NARC Squad. However, the people still active within the NARC Squad have a few more surprises in store.

Much to the chagrin of Batou, Motoko, and the rest of the team, Kuze and the refugees manage to escape in one of the camouflaged boats. They are further hampered when an explosion causes heavy losses, leaving them unable to follow the fleeing boat. Regrouping, the team decides to refocus the investigation to the events surrounding Kuze. They start a secret investigation into Sagawa Electronics, the company responsible for the nuclear material transaction, and find that Gouda was involved. Meanwhile, as the boat heads for Dejima, Kuze makes his own unsettling discovery.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is put on full display. A Japanese National named Gino, who suffered through the horrors of Non-Nuclear World War IV, the Second Vietnam War, now passes his days as a helicopter pilot for the chairman of a media conglomerate. His cushy job, however, does not take away the sheer internal pain that Gino is facing. As he moves through his isolated existence, Gino leaps between reality and fantasy. However, he keeps his dementia solely to himself. Having no one to help him, his condition continues to worsen.

A certain type of android, the GA07_JL, nicknamed Jeri by its users, has been affected by a virus. Recently, all Jeri model androids have been committing "suicide". Section 9 is called in as it may be related to a virus detected in an android at the National Assembly Building.

Recently, there have been numerous kidnappings which resemble the modus operandi of the Northern Territories Mafia. Aramaki and his team have been called in by the Prime Minister. Ironically, the request to investigate the matter has come from the former Prime Minister of Japan, whose own daughter has been kidnapped by the Mafia. During his time as Head of Government, he had denied that the group ever existed. Delving further into the matter, Public Security discovers rumors that the abductors are harvesting organs and cyberbrains from the kidnapped children and selling them on the black market.

A gathering is initiated in cyberspace to discuss the Laughing Man. After a six year absence, the super-hacker reemerged from the shadows of the net and publicly threatened to assassinate Superintendent-General Daido of the Niihama Metropolitan Police ("INTERCEPTER"). With an audience watching across the net, several people take their places at a table in order to pass around their theories as to why the Laughing Man returned and to discuss what happened during the assassination attempt at the press conference ("DECOY" and "MEME").

Ishikawa returns from the Peninsula with the latest intel on Kuze, but is surprised to learn of a possible refugee uprising. The Major and Aramaki are sent to see the Prime Minister to discuss this matter and the existence of "hub cyberbrains". While they wait, the rest of the team listens to Ishikawa's report on Kuze's past.

With the latest Individual 11 incident still fresh in the public's mind, Section 9 discovers that only a skilled face sculptor could have created Kuze's prosthetic face. Since only two artists fit that description, they quickly locate the craftsmen and go to question them.

While tracking the New World Brigade, an anti-cyberization group, to an unused radiation scrubber facility off Okinawa, the Japanese Maritime Safety Agency took pictures that show Eka Tokura, the kidnapped daughter of a cyber-technology company CEO. However, the girl had been abducted over 16 years ago when she had been 10 years old. In the recent photos, she looks just as she did on the day she was taken. For reasons unknown, contact with the Maritime Safety Agency's reconnaissance team has been lost. Section 9 heads to the facility to locate the unit and find out why Eka Tokura was there.

While Ishikawa begins to dig deeper into the background of CIS Representative Kazunoto Gouda, the rest of Section 9 are instructed to arrest one Shou Kawashima, a Taiwanese vegetarian restaurant chef who has been seen at three locations where the Individual Eleven have claimed responsibility for attacking. The Taiwanese restaurant where he works is near the Nanyou Shimbun (Newspaper) building that had received an earlier threat against it by the Individual Eleven. Section 9 moves into position around the Taiwanese restaurant and commences their stakeout.

During a scheduled maintenance, the Tachikomas begin to chat away about the Individual Eleven. While talking in their new "forum", Batou and Togusa appear and take one of the Tachikomas - who just happens to be Batou's pet - with them to Spring-8 to look at the scientific evidence gathered on the Individual Eleven.

Aramaki and Kusanagi attend an international security conference in London. While there, Aramaki visits an old acquaintance of his, who is the operator of a wine fund, a place where people store their wines in order to let the wine age and become more expensive. Their meeting is not purely a social one, but before Aramaki and his friend can sit down and talk about the old days, the bank is broken into by two mafia men.

Acting on a tip, Section 9 breaks up a cabal of thieves hell-bent on wrecking a Japanese financial institution. Shortly after the raid a Chinese intelligence official contacts Section 9 and informs them of suspicious activity that he believes may indicate an assassination attempt by Chinese Socialists on a prominent, yet reclusive, Japanese multi-millionaire.

Motoko is asked by her friend Kurutan to investigate a strange scenario. A six-year old girl's life was saved by an immediate heart transplant. When her parents tried to send their gratitude to the donor, the donor's parents filed a police report since they never gave permission for the donation. What's more, the investigating officer has now been hospitalized after an accident. There is more to this case then meets the eye and Motoko and her colleagues must find out who's behind these apparent illegal organ donations.

A botched arms deal reveals that the government's plans to remove Plutonium from the Shinjuku dig site ("EXCAVATION") by sea have been compromised. Section 9 is called in to take the Plutonium out of Old Tōkyō by land. The members of Section 9 are not happy being used by the government. Batou is especially incensed since Section 9 is supposed to be an offensive organization. His patience will be further tried when he and Section 9 find out who will be accompanying them on their mission...

The city of Fukuoka is evacuated when a live nuclear bomb is found. With the Dejima Refugees targeted as the prime suspects, the government sends the Self-Defense Forces into the city. Aramaki suspects the CIS's involvement in this latest incident is deeper then it appears. Batou is sent to gather more information from Gouda, but will he be able to hold his temper against the arrogant agent?

"Tachikoma Runaway": The Tachikoma that Batou has been feeding natural oil to awakens before the other Tachikomas do and leaves the hanger to have an adventure. On the town, it meets up with a girl named Miki who is searching for her dog. "The Movie Director's Dream": While out on its adventure, Batou's Tachikoma found a cyberbrain that has something very interesting within it. One of Section 9's lab techs has become "lost" inside the device, and it's up to the Major to bring him back.

A new sniper device is tested out, but is found to have flaws. While Section 9 attends a debriefing session on the fate of the sniping device, the Tachikomas themselves begin to worry that tomorrow they could be the ones that are scrapped. The Tachikomas of Section 9 unite and discuss the various issues dealing with them that have occurred within previous episodes. They worry that the Major does not appreciate them. At the same time, the Major is looking into the idea of proceeding without the Tachikomas at Section 9's side. "Machine désirante (Desiring-Machine)" is one of the key concepts of Anti-Œdipus, written by contemporary French philosopher Gilles Deleuze.