Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex

Major Kusanagi and Section 9 are called in to resolve a hostage crisis at a Geisha house staffed by android geisha. After the crisis is averted Aramaki is approached by a friend of his in the military who reveals that one of the hostages in the Geisha house was under investigation after requesting a report detailing military actions to be taken in the event of various states of emergency. Given the sensitive nature of the case, Section 9 is therefore asked to pick up the investigation where the original team left off.

A heavy-assault multiped tank runs amok under the control of an unknown hijacker. After going on a destructive spree at the Kenbishi Industries testing facility, the multiped takes off towards the urban area of Niihama. Kusanagi briefs her squad at Section 9 HQ, explaining that the tank's designer, Takeshi Kago, died a week before, and that no terrorist organization has claimed credit for the heist. Since the military refuses to get involved unless terrorism is the motive, Section 9 is called in to stop the tank.

A series of android suicides prompts Section 9 to investigate the manufacturer. While Section Head Daisuke Aramaki questions the plant manager, Kusanagi and a Tachikoma covertly hack into the plant's database to try and uncover any possible wrongdoings by the manufacturer. As it turns out, all the androids were of the same model, an obsolete product known as the GA07_JL android.

An old friend of Togusa's named Yamaguchi is murdered after sending him pictures concerning an unsolved case involving a hacker known as "The Laughing Man". His investigation leads to the discovery that the members of the Laughing Man task force have all been implanted with cybernetic surveillance devices called 'interceptors', which reside in the vision center of the subject's brain, recording everything they do. Shortly thereafter the information is leaked by Section 9, prompting the Police to call a press conference to announce their 'findings' regarding the interceptor devices. During the broadcast the mysterious hacker known as The Laughing Man returns, hijacking a Police official's cyberbrain and delivering a threat to the Superintendent-General.

Section 9 suspects that the Police Investigators handling the Laughing Man case are using their primary suspect, a former Serano Genomics, Inc. programmer with a shady anti-corporate past as a decoy to hide some form of higher-level corruption. Aramaki orders Section 9 to commence around the clock surveillance the programmer in an attempt to catch him in the act.

Things go fairly haywire as Kusanagi suspects that The Laughing Man has inserted a virus into the police units guarding the Superintendent-General. As Section 9 members struggle to evacuate the Superintendent-General to safety, the anti-virus team at HQ races to develop a vaccine to protect against it. After the immediate threat is averted, Aramaki orders Section 9 to open their own investigation into the Laughing Man case.

It has come to the attention of the Minister of Home Affairs that Jenoma revolutionary leader Marcelo Jarti has been visiting Japan regularly every five months. Jarti is one of the world's foremost wanted men, and has been targeted for assassination by commandos of the United States Delta Force and United Kingdom Special Air Service (SAS) a total of six times; miraculously, he has survived each of these attempts. When Jarti returns to Japan following the most recently failed assassination attempt Section 9 is called in to trail him and determine why Jarti has been visiting their country, with unexpected results.

Kurutan, a friend of Kusanagi's, calls the Major to the hospital where she works to look into the source of a young girl's heart transplant. It seems that the heart she received was given without consent of the owner's parents. The girl's doctors feared she might have had to be given a full-cyborg conversion, a thought that stirs painful memories for Kusanagi. Aramaki, believing that the culprits may be tied to a mass kidnapping ring, orders Section 9 to look into the case for connections between the organs, the company that sold them, and the Yakuza.

Kusanagi enters a chat room dedicated to The Laughing Man. Various crackpot (and a few plausible) theories are passed around JFK-style as the chat room members view various bits of evidence from the Laughing Man case. While in the chat room Kusanagi hones in on an older man sitting at the table who seems to have more knowledge about the Laughing Man incidents than the others in the room. After confronting the man and exchanging information with him, Kusanagi and one of the other members in the chat room are suddenly transferred out of the chat room, with unexpected results.

Marco Amereti, a former American Imperial Navy Petty Officer turned serial killer, has arrived in Japan and for the last two months has murdered several women by slicing the skin off their torsos in the form of a T-shirt. American CIA officers have been dispatched to Japan, ostensibly to assist Section 9 in their effort to track down and apprehend Marco before he can strike again. When the CIA officers show no surprise at the developments in the case Ishikawa hacks into the CIA database to find out why.

The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare has been hacked into, and classified material from their database has been stolen. Section 9 traces the hack and determined that the hack job originated from a facility that helps people with Cyberbrain Close Shell Syndrome. Togusa goes undercover to investigate the social welfare facility, and immediately encounters suspicious behavior from the facilities supervisors.

Early in the morning Baton's Tachikoma self activates and leaves the Tachikoma storage bay to explore the outer world. While roaming the streets of the city the Tachikoma encounters a young girl searching for her lost dog. The Tachikoma decides to help the girl, and together they manage to find the dog. While on their journey, the Tachikoma stumbles upon a cyberbrain being sold in Akihabara that contains a ghost and brings it back to the storage bay. When the Tachikoma returns, Section 9 technicians begin extensive tests to determine why the tank went AWOL in the first place, while Section 9 members turn their attention to the cyberbrain in an effort to determine what the it contains.

Sixteen years ago Aka Turkuro, the daughter of a pioneering cyber company CEO, was kidnapped by a group opposed to cyberization. The girl's whereabouts remained a mystery until she was spotted by members of the Maritime Safety Team aboard an abandoned radiation scrubbing island off the coast of Okinawa. Four SST members were sent to find the girl and rescue her, but the team vanished without a trace. Section 9 is covertly dispatched to the island with two objectives: Locate any remaining SST members and evacuate them, and find and rescue the missing girl.

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. Section 9 is therefore tasked with protecting the millionaire, a 56-year-old ex-mathematician who has amassed a fortune by playing the stock market.

Kusanagi's reservations regarding Section 9's Tachikoma units comes to a head. She has become disturbed by their behaviour, as their artificial intelligence agents appear to be developing too fast; she has additional concerns about the safety of retaining them in the unit for use in a battle situation. The Tachikomas have become vaguely aware of Kusanagi's concerns, and attempt to avoid deactivation by hatching a bizarre scheme to appeal to Kusanagi and prevent their removal.

Sensitive information has been stolen from a U.S. Navy base, and the primary suspect is a former Olympic silver medalist named Zaitsev. The Public Security office has instructed Batou to go undercover to spy on Zaitsev, a man whom he admires, to see if Zaitsev is somehow related to the missing information. Batou wants his information to be wrong and for Zaitsev to be innocent. The assignment calls into question Batou's attitude on his duty towards Section 9 and the decisions it forces him to make.

Major Kusanagi and Chief Aramaki are visiting London for an anti-terrorism conference. While there Aramaki stops at a wine bank to visit an old friend of his who asks for his help in breaking a Mafia money-laundering scheme involving the bank and an unknown third party. Before Aramaki can leave, two thieves break in and a hostage situation ensues.

After a five-year wait Chinese vice foreign minister Jin has been allowed access to the Kagashewa war memorial in Japan. Jin is the first Chinese dignitary to be granted access to the site, but not everyone is happy with the decision, and before long a death threat is made against Jin. Elsewhere, Aramaki and a friend visit the grave of one of their deceased comrades, a Colonel in the GSDF. While at the grave site, Aramaki happens to meet the Colonel's daughter, who voices her concern over her brother Yu's sudden behavioural changes.

Former Japanese Prime Minister Kanzaki's daughter has been abducted, and Section 9 is called in to investigate her disappearance. The prime suspect in the case is "Blind Fold Ivan", a pseudonym for the North Territories Mafia. "Blind Fold Ivan" uses the same M.O. in his abductions: Over a three day period multiple underage women are kidnapped and then shipped to chop shops where they are killed, and all organs and cybernetic pieces are taken to be sold on the black market.

After the events of PORTRAITZ, Togusa uses J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye as a starting point and develops a theory that the Laughing Man is after something published on paper. Togusa receives permission to check out a Health, Labour and Welfare records building and stumbles on a key piece of evidence: a list of cyberbrain sclerosis patients treated by a secret vaccine has disappeared from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare.

Togusa finds himself in the hospital after being shot, but is desperate to impart what he's learned to the rest of the group. Through Togusa's memories Section 9 experiences the DEA raid against the Sunflower Society, prompting anger and rage. Elsewhere, high ranking elements of the Japanese government have launched their own campaign against Section 9 in an effort to bury the truth of the Laughing Man case, backing the NSS against Section 9. Who will prevail?

The Head of the DEA is arrested for murder in connection with the raid at the Sunflower Society building. Aramaki orders Section 9 to go through all of the facility's records to determine who is pulling the strings behind the attacks against Section 9 and whether that person or group is responsible for orchestrating the Laughing Man incidents.

The Laughing Man returns to again kidnap the CEO of Serano Genomics, just as he did six years before. Returning to the scene of the cafթ where Serano was first kidnapped, he and the Laughing Man share the story of the events leading up to the kidnapping and the events following it. During the conversation The Laughing Man asks Serano why he never fulfilled his promise to tell the truth.

Having learned the entire truth behind the Laughing Man Incident from the Laughing Man himself, and having confirmed the information with Mr. Serano, Section 9 is finally ready to make their move against the man behind the corporate terrorism: standing Secretary General Yakushima. Unfortunately, Yakushima has learned of Section 9's planned move, and has leaked the existence of the group to the press in an effort to cast the organization in a bad light.

Aramaki has been released under his own recognizance, and meets with the head of the Ministry of Justice to explain the situation and ask for help in ensuring his team members safety, but the Minister of Justice is powerless to affect the situation beyond the prosecution of Yakushima. Elsewhere, Saito and Ishikawa are caught in separate traps set by Umibozu teams.

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, provides the prime minister with the public support his party needs to win the lower house elections. Three months pass, during which Togusa tries to come to terms with all that has happened with Section 9.