The BEST episodes of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex season 1
Every episode of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex season 1, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex season 1!
In the future when technological enhancements and robotics are a way of life, Major Motoko Kusanagi and Section 9 take care of the jobs that are too difficult for the police. Section 9 employs hackers, sharpshooters, detectives and cyborgs all in an effort to thwart cyber criminals and their plans to attack the innocent.
#1 - C: In The Forest of the Imagoes – PORTRAITZ
Season 1 - Episode 11 - Aired 12/10/2002
The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare's database has been hacked into, and classified material has been stolen. Section 9 traces the hack and determines that the hack job originated from a facility that helps people with Cyberbrain Closed Shell Syndrome. Togusa goes undercover to investigate the social welfare facility, and immediately encounters suspicious behaviour from the facility's supervisors. Togusa manages to learn that a person called "the Chief" visited the center during the week that the MHLW was hacked, but before he can determine the significance of this information Togusa is discovered; simultaneously, the facility's security system unexpectedly goes online, and Section 9’s databases are subsequently hacked, leading Kusanagi and Batou to make an emergency insertion to evacuate Togusa.
#2 - C: The Visual Device will Laugh – INTERCEPTER
Season 1 - Episode 4 - Aired 10/22/2002
Yamaguchi, an old friend of Togusa's and a police detective working in the Laughing Man task force, is murdered after he calls Togusa, requesting to see him concerning what Yamaguchi terms "suspicious internal activity" by superiors in the police department. At Yamaguchi's wake, Togusa is approached by Yamaguchi's wife, who delivers an envelope from him to Togusa that contain a series of strange photographs. Upon scrutinizing the photographs, Togusa realizes that none of them are taken using a camera. Continuing his investigation, Togusa interviews another detective in the Laughing Man task force, who coincidentally mentions that the task force is waiting to bug a primary suspect in the case with cybernetic surveillance devices called "interceptors". The interceptors allow constant audio and visual monitoring of the subject via their own senses. Togusa concludes that the Laughing Man task force members were bugged with these devices illegally for monitoring.
#3 - C: The Copycat will Dance – MEME
Season 1 - Episode 6 - Aired 11/5/2002
The Superintendent-General's press conference quickly descends into chaos after the Laughing Man's assassination threat. Kusanagi suspects that the Laughing Man has inserted a virus into the police units assigned to guard the event. 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. However, random civilians begin joining in the assassination attempt as well, without any sort of external influence. After escorting the Superintendent-General to safety and apprehending all of the assassins, the police are left wondering about what caused dozens of completely unrelated people to attempt to murder a single man. After the immediate threat is averted, Aramaki orders Section 9 to open their own investigation into the Laughing Man case
#4 - SA: Unequal Terrorist – NOT EQUAL
Season 1 - Episode 13 - Aired 12/24/2002
Sixteen years ago, Eka Tokura, the daughter of a pioneering cybernetics company's CEO, was kidnapped by the New World Brigade, a terrorist 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 station off the coast of Okinawa. Four Special Security Team operators of the Japan Coast Guard 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. Section 9 is inserted by submarine, and after a time manages to find the girl, but when they do, they realize that something is wrong: the girl is the same age she was when she was kidnapped all those years ago.
#5 - SA: A Perfect Day for a Jungle Cruise – JUNGLE CRUISE
Season 1 - Episode 10 - Aired 12/3/2002
Marco Amoretti, 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 Amoretti before he can strike again. When the CIA officers show no surprise at the developments in the case, Ishikawa hacks into the CIA database and learns that Amoretti was part of an American Empire commando team sent into the jungles of South America to conduct a covert operation aimed at breaking an enemy’s will to fight by using terror tactics, such as flaying civilians alive. Elsewhere, Batou — an ex-JGSDF Ranger who has seen first-hand the horrors of the CIA operation — resolves to stop Amoretti by any means necessary.
#6 - C: Smoke of Gunpowder, Hail of Bullets – BARRAGE
Season 1 - Episode 25 - Aired 3/18/2003
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's 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, but not before successfully dispersing information seeds given to them by the Major. With Batou and Kusanagi as the only uncaptured members of Section 9, Batou undertakes a risky sortie to the Major's apartment to recover her sentimentally-valued watch. Before he can escape, Umibozu commandos arrive and a firefight ensues. Batou successfully fends off the first wave of attacks, but is unexpectedly confronted with two armoured combat suits, the second of which proves to be more than he can handle.
#7 - SA: Tachikoma Runs Away; The Movie Director's Dream – ESCAPE FROM
Season 1 - Episode 12 - Aired 12/17/2002
Early in the morning Batou's Tachikoma self-activates and leaves the Tachikoma storage bay to explore the outside world. While roaming the streets of Niihama, the Tachikoma encounters a young girl named Miki who is 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 a market that contains a ghost, and brings it back to the storage bay. When the Tachikoma returns to 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 brain contains. When one of the lab technicians investigating the brain links with it and becomes "lost," Kusanagi volunteers to go after the missing man, leading her find the technician watching a movie that lacks a beginning or ending which brings her to tears.
#8 - SA: Chinks in the Armor of the Heart – Ag2O
Season 1 - Episode 16 - Aired 1/14/2003
Sensitive information has been stolen from a U.S. Naval base, and the primary suspect is a former Paralympic silver medalist boxer named Pavlo Zaitsev, who works on the base as a hand-to-hand combat instructor. 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 suspicions 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. However, Batou discovers that Zaitsev is indeed the spy and reluctantly turns him in.
#9 - C: Public Security Section 9, Once Again – STAND ALONE COMPLEX
Season 1 - Episode 26 - Aired 3/25/2003
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.
#10 - C: The Inviting Bird will Chant – DECOY
Season 1 - Episode 5 - Aired 10/29/2002
Section 9 suspects that the police investigators handling the Laughing Man case are using their primary suspect, a former Serano Genomics programmer with a shady anti-corporate past named Ei Nanao, as a decoy to hide some form of higher-level corruption. Aramaki orders Section 9 to commence around the clock surveillance on Nanao in an attempt to catch him in the act, but the hacker is killed before he can be brought in for questioning. Elsewhere, Kusanagi meets with her friend Kurutan, a hospital nurse, to use her external memory device in an effort to learn more about The Laughing Man case. However, when the police Superintendent-General is set to give a speech about the Interceptor incident and the Laughing Man case, one of the officers present has his cyberbrain hacked by the Laughing Man. The Laughing Man demands that the Superintendent-General tell the truth, or he will be assassinated.
#11 - SA: Public Security Section 9 – SECTION-9
Season 1 - Episode 1 - Aired 10/1/2002
Section 9 is called in to resolve a hostage crisis at a geisha house staffed by android geisha. After the crisis is taken care of, Aramaki is approached by Kubota, who reveals that the Japanese Foreign Minister was being actively investigated by military intelligence after expressing interest in the Ichinose Report, a document detailing diplomatic and military actions to be taken in the event of a national crisis. Given the sensitive nature of the case, Kubota asks that Section 9 take over the investigation where the original team left off.
#12 - SA: Runaway Evidence – TESTATION
Season 1 - Episode 2 - Aired 10/8/2002
A heavy-assault multi-ped tank runs amok, under the control of an unknown hijacker using the "recognition code" of the tank's designer, Takeshi Kago, who died a week earlier. After going on a destructive spree at the testing facility, the tank heads towards the urban area of Niihama. Section 9 is called in to stop the tank, as no terrorist group has claimed responsibility, and the JSDF refuses to involve itself unless terrorism is the clear motive.
#13 - SA: Idolatry – IDOLATOR
Season 1 - Episode 7 - Aired 11/12/2002
The Ministry of Home Affairs learns that Jenoma revolutionary leader Marcelo Jarti has been visiting Japan regularly every five months. Jarti is a drug trafficker and one of the world’s most 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 and has survived each of these attempts. When Jarti returns to Japan following the most recently failed assassination attempt, Section 9 is called in to follow him and determine why Jarti has been visiting their country. They discover that the real Jarti had died several months ago after using a ghost-dubbing device to create dozens of cybernetic clones of himself, and the Yakuza running the cloning facility had kept releasing duplicates to prevent the Jenoma government from learning of their national hero's death.
#14 - SA: Time of the Machines – MACHINES DÉSIRANTES
Season 1 - Episode 15 - Aired 1/7/2003
Kusanagi's reservations regarding Section 9's Tachikoma units comes to a head. She becomes 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 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. When Batou is summoned to a conference by Kusanagi, he learns of the situation with the Tachikomas and is told that they will be disarmed and shipped back to the lab for analysis. Although unhappy with the decision, Batou has no choice but to comply with the order.
#15 - SA: The True Reason For The Unfinished Love Affair – ANGELS' SHARE
Season 1 - Episode 17 - Aired 1/21/2003
Kusanagi and 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 up 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. In an effort to not let their scheme be known, the Mafia attempts to have Aramaki and the bank staff killed during a police raid, while Kusanagi makes her own plans to rescue the chief and the others from certain death. Aramaki manages to convince the two amateur thieves to surrender, and the entire group takes shelter in a secret basement underneath the wine vault as the corrupt police officers raid the bank. Kusanagi manages to infiltrate the building and extract Aramaki, as well as the evidence needed to implicate the Mafia and their corrupt associates within the police department.
#16 - SA: Automated Capitalism – ¥€$
Season 1 - Episode 14 - Aired 12/31/2002
Acting on a tip, Section 9 breaks up a cabal of thieves planning to rob 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 Kanemoto Yokose, a prominent, yet reclusive, Japanese billionaire. Section 9 is therefore tasked with protecting Yokose, a 56-year-old ex-mathematician who has amassed a fortune by playing the stock market. Section 9 and the assassin arrive within minutes of each other, but after reaching Yokose’s bedroom, both sides discover that Yokose died from a medical condition several months ago, and an advanced computer program had been managing his investments the whole time.
#17 - C: The Other Side of Good and Evil – EQUINOX
Season 1 - Episode 23 - Aired 3/4/2003
The Laughing Man returns to kidnap Ernest Serano, the CEO of Serano Genomics, just as he did six years before. Returning to the café 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 about the Murai Vaccine, and in response Serano informs the Laughing Man that the whole time, he was under house arrest. Meanwhile, Section 9 determines the Secretary General Yakushima to be the man behind the Laughing Man scandal, and resolve to take Serano into protective custody to obtain his testimony. When the team discovers that Serano has been kidnapped by the Laughing Man again, they mount a frantic search to find and secure him.
#18 - C: Corporate Graft – SCANDAL
Season 1 - Episode 22 - Aired 2/25/2003
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 are the remaining members of the Narcotics Suppression Squad. As Aramaki leaves the building he shares an elevator ride with former prime minister Kanzaki, who privately discloses that the prime suspect "pulling the strings" has a lot of friends in high places and strong connections to the navy. Elsewhere, the remaining members of the Narcotic Suppression Squad attempt to frame Aramaki with drug trafficking, concocting a story about his homeless brother to lure him to the refugee district and arrest him, but their plan fails when Batou rescues the chief before the police arrive on the scene. Meanwhile, Kusanagi seeks to repair her prosthetic body after incurring severe damage in a battle against the government's latest prototype power armor.
#19 - C: Left-Behind Trace – ERASER
Season 1 - Episode 21 - Aired 2/18/2003
Togusa finds himself in the hospital after being shot, but is desperate to impart what he has learned to the rest of the group. By diving into Togusa’s memories, Section 9 experiences the DEA raid against the Sunflower Society firsthand, prompting anger and rage. The Chief takes it upon himself to notify the head of the DEA of Togusa’s presence at the Sunflower Society building during the raid, prompting the DEA chief to order the Narcotics Suppression Squad (NSS) to the house of Dr. Hisashi Imakurusu. Dr. Imakurusu had overseen the board that denied the Murai Vaccine; after being diagnosed with Cyberbrain Sclerosis, he began using the vaccine in secret and subsequently went into hiding. Section 9 believes Dr. Imakurusu may hold a clue to unraveling the entire Laughing Man case, and undertake a desperate search to locate him.
#20 - SA: The Fortunate Ones – MISSING HEARTS
Season 1 - Episode 8 - Aired 11/19/2002
Kurutan calls the Major to the hospital where she works to look into the source of a young girl's heart transplant. 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 a local refugee camp set up at an abandoned oil refinery. Finally, the culprits are revealed to be a gang of rich medical students. Before arresting them, Kusanagi decides to scare and humiliate the students by posing as a murderous Yakuza enforcer.
#21 - C: The Man Who Dwells in the Shadows of the Net – CHAT! CHAT! CHAT!
Season 1 - Episode 9 - Aired 11/26/2002
Using her net avatar, Kusanagi enters a chat room dedicated to the Laughing Man. Various theories are passed around the chat room as the members view various bits of evidence from the Laughing Man case. While in the chat room, Kusanagi homes in on an older man sitting at the table who seems to have more knowledge about the Laughing Man incidents than anyone else. After confronting the man and exchanging information with him, Kusanagi and one of the other guests are suddenly transferred out of the chat room and she briefly sees the Laughing Man.
#22 - C: Vanished Medication – RE-VIEW
Season 1 - Episode 20 - Aired 2/11/2003
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 Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare (MHLW) records building and stumbles upon a key piece of evidence: a list of Cyberbrain Sclerosis patients treated with a secret medication, known as the Murai Vaccine, has disappeared from the MHLW. Togusa traces the missing list to a group called the Sunflower Society, where he learns that several prominent Japanese citizens have been secretly treated with the experimental medication. Elsewhere, the head of the Japanese DEA unit dispatches the Narcotics Suppression Squad to eliminate the members of the Sunflower Society and recover the missing list.
#23 - C: Sunset in the Lonely City – ANNIHILATION
Season 1 - Episode 24 - Aired 3/11/2003
Having learned the entire truth behind the Laughing Man Incident from the Laughing Man himself, and confirming the information with Serano, Section 9 is finally ready to make their move against the man behind the corporate terrorism: standing Secretary General Yakushima. However, 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. When Aramaki arrives to speak with the Prime Minister, he presents the incriminating evidence against Yakushima, expecting the Prime Minister to take action and remove Yakushima from office. However, the Lower House elections are entering a crucial stage, and without the support of his party in that House, the Prime Minister is uncertain of his ability to have Yakushima removed from office and arrested for his crimes.
#24 - SA: Assassination Duet – LOST HERITAGE
Season 1 - Episode 18 - Aired 1/28/2003
After a five-year wait, Chinese vice foreign minister Jin has been allowed access to the Kagoshima 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 visits the grave of one of his deceased comrades, a Colonel in the GSDF. While at the cemetery, Aramaki encounters the Colonel’s daughter, who voices her concern over her brother Yu’s sudden behavioural changes. When Section 9 determines Yu to be the prime suspect in the assassination attempt, Kusanagi and Togusa are sent to apprehend him, but arrive too late to arrest Yu. Soon after, Aramaki receives a disturbing phone call from his dead friend, who has cheated death by merging his own ghost with his son's, and intends to avenge his wife's death during the war by assassinating Jin.
#25 - SA: Embraced by a Disguised Net – CAPTIVATED
Season 1 - Episode 19 - Aired 2/4/2003
Former 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 Blindfold Ivan, the pseudonym for the North Territories Russian Mafia. Blindfold Ivan uses the same modus operandi in its 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. Kanzaki had previously downplayed these mass kidnappings and denied the existence of Blindfold Ivan in an effort to strengthen ties between Russia and Japan; however, he publicly reveals the kidnapping of his daughter at Aramaki’s request in order to save his daughter. The news abruptly changes the situation by thrusting the kidnapping ring's leader, an ex-SVR officer named Cruzkowa Bosyeltnov, into the center of a scandalous, nationwide media event.