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Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex is the TV series adaptation of Shirow Masamune's classic manga, Ghost In The Shell. It follows the activities of a covert operations police counter-terrorist task force called (in translation) Public Safety (or Public Peace/Security) Section 9.

The series is visually stunning, home to some of the finest digital cel animation to be seen anywhere (shot in full widescreen). The plot and characterization is exceptionally deep, with philosophical implications about dehumanization through technology and synthetic life being played out alongside running gun battles.

The world of the TV series is different from that of the original cult hit Ghost In The Shell feature film and its sequel (Ghost in the Shell: Innocence), as well as that of the original manga. The original two feature films and the manga focus on Major Kusanagi as she leaves Section 9 to evolve into something beyond human, with the aid of a mysterious "software life-form" called The Puppetmaster or Experiment 2501. This figure has yet to appear in the series, and Section 9, including the Major, remains together as yet.

There have been two 26 episode series so far. The first was Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, while the second, sequel TV series, is called Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex: Second Gig. For obvious reasons, both of these are usually abbreviated by fans; the first as "GITS:SAC" (pronounced "Git-Sack" by the uncouth) and the second simply as "2nd Gig". There has also been a Stand Alone Complex Made For TV Movie set after 2nd Gig, called Ghost in the Shell: Solid State Society.

It's relevant to note that the franchise actually has two separate but equally legitimate continuities, one centered around the Oshii films and the other based around the TV series. The two don't actually interact, which can be somewhat confusing because there are some similar developments (i.e. The Major leaving) which supposedly occur for different reasons.

The first series, like The X Files and many other Speculative Fiction TV series, has "Stand Alone" episodes following a single case and other ("Complex") episodes following the ongoing Story Arc involving a hacker known as The Laughing Man. In the second series, there are three types of episode: "individual", "dividual", and "dual", relating to the storyline of a terrorist group called the "Individual Eleven".

As of Spring 2008, Steven Spielberg and DreamWorks have acquired the rights to Ghost In The Shell and plan to make a 3-D Live Action Adaptation.

This series has a Character Sheet, Discussion, and a Just Bugs Me.

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This show contains examples of:

• Action Girl - The Major.
• Adaptation Distillation
• All Love Is Unrequited: Batou never seems to act on his feelings for the Major
• Anime Accent Absence
• Anime Theme Song
• Anti Villain - Kuze.
• Arm Cannon - Many, including one which shoots rolls of coins in a deadly shotgun-like blast.
• Artificial Limbs
• Badass Normal - Togusa
• Being Watched - The Major and Batou can intuit when they are being spied on.
• BFG - A number of weapons.
• Bi The Way - The Major.
• Brain Uploading
• Brown Note - Several interesting takes on this, including one which turns people into fanatical terrorists.
• Camera Abuse
• Camera Spoofing - Taken to extremes, including hacking people's eyes.
• The Chessmaster - Gohda.
• Click Hello
• Cold Sniper - Saito. The episode dedicated to him in the 2nd Gig only reiterates the fact.
• Colon Cancer - Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex: 2nd Gig and Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex: Solid State Society.
• Conspicuous CG - EXTREMELY noticable in the first season opening, as well as some fight sequences. Curiously averted with the Tachikoma (they're animated with CGI rather than traditional cell-shading).
• Contemplate Our Navels: Not the series itself, but the tendency for the Tachikomas to do this does more than bug The Major, it makes her worry about their efficiency as fighting machines.
• Continuity Nod - Several scenes in the Stand Alone Complex series and OVA reference the movies, the tank/Armor Suit battles perhaps the most obvious.
• Crapsack World - somewhat. The heroes can win, but the victories usually are short-lived and pyrrhic. The villains don't exactly get away scott-free though.
• Crowning Music Of Awesome - Yoko Kanno. 'Nuff said.
• Cyberpunk / Post Cyberpunk - In a big way. Ghost in the Shell has been classified by some commentators as Neo-Cyberpunk or Post-Cyberpunk rather than classic 1980s Cyberpunk, in that the protagonists of GITS work for the government and hunt down terrorists instead of being urban guerillas and streetpunks fighting against governments and mega-corps. Most noticeably, while GITS shows a global community still suffering from the aftereffects of a third and fourth World War, the society in those nations that we get to see has not utterly collapsed and segregated into corporate wage-slaves living in gated communities ("arcologies") on the one hand and the rest of the population living in dismal slums outside the system. The Japan of GITS, while being something of a police state with government and intelligence service controlling the propaganda permeating the media, still has an urban middle class, nature resorts and traditional society. Even the poor and the refugees in their ghetto are not "invisible" and "falling through the cracks" (except in a social sense). Instead, cyberbrain interconnectedness is widespread and surveillance by public cameras, spy satellites and the Net is all-pervasive.
• Cyberspace, specifically of the Metaverse variety (see the episode where Major Kusanagi visits a chat room, for an example), though not the central theme.
• Dangerously Genre Savvy - The commander of the Umibozu expects ambush, denies his enemies their greatest advantage, expects them to have survived an apparent suicide attack, deploys an entire squad supported by two walking tanks against a single enemy, and is quite possibly the most intelligent and dangerous enemy Section 9 ever faces.
• A Day In The Limelight - Several episodes focus heavily on Tachikomas. Pazu and Saito both get one in 2nd Gig.
• Did They Or Didnt They - The Major may or may not have slept with Batou near the end of the first season. It's another shot you might miss if you look away, as the two of them (wearing their undershirts and having had the prerequisite discussion of mnemonic devices as related to personal identity) enter the Major's room and the door closes behind them.
• Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep - Not only do the Tachikomas do this, but the humans themselves do to, though in the opposite fashion: at what point does a human stop being a human, if there is such a point?
• Does Not Know His Own Strength - The Major.
  • Batou too, when he wants to be. From "Android and I:"
    *Finding an apartment door locked, Batou rotates the handle, then pulls the door right out of the lock, destroying part of the door frame.*
    Togusa: “Why do you always have to be so rough? I could’ve opened the door without leaving a scratch!”
    Batou: “A commendable skill, but it’s way too slow.”
• Dystopia... sort of. See above.
• Exposition Beam
• Gatling Good - Batou uses a huge gatling gun at one point.
  • One of the Tachikomas uses a gatling gun instead of a rocket launcher for a raid on a terrorist hideout.
• Get A Hold Of Yourself Man - somewhat.
• Gorn: The scene where The Major blows off Gouda's head at close range is arguably an example.
  • While the serial killer who skins his victims alive is not?
• Government Conspiracy - well, considering who they work for, was anyone that surprised?
• Gratuitous English - Dramatic reveal moments are made somewhat Narmful by Japanese voice actors saying things like "Standu Arone Conpreksu". The theme songs also have quite a bit of this - the first season ending theme, entirely in English, makes absolutely no sense at all no matter how you look at it.
  • This Troper disagrees. It's very clearly about the Major. Not that it makes sense totally even then.
  • Not that the lack of sense makes the theme any less awesome.
  • Does it still count if the song was written collaboratively and sung by an American?
• Heroic BSOD - Several, sometimes literally.
• Heroic RROD - The Major trying to rip the tank hatch open in the movie results in this. In the second episode of the series, there's a shout-out subverting it; she's just not strong enough, and nothing actually happens.
• Heroic Sacrifice - The Tachikomas. In both seasons.
• High Octane Nightmare Fuel - The episode Jungle Cruise, where people are forced to watch themselves die has this in spades. The episode is one long homeage to both Heart Of Darkness and Silence Of The Lambs which should explain a bit.
• Hot Amazon - The Major, obviously.
• Laser Sight - Used to the hilt - and often. One of the first instances might have been purposeful, as many people expect this trope to carry over into real life, and the sight of several red dots on the chest of the target in question forced him into compliance very quickly. There's a few more instances where it's used similarly, but there's also a number of examples of where it would be completely counter-productive.
• Les Yay: Though the manga was overt about this, it's only hinted at in the series, in which we see the Major relaxing with said friends - or at least one of them, until another emerges from the shower. She's also subject to a rather blatant come-on by a busty female doctor when she's getting a new body, but the Major is unimpressed.
• Made Of Iron - In a somewhat literal sense. Despite being beaten so badly she loses a limb, the Major is back in fighting shape by the next episode by simply having her trashed body replaced with a new one. It's debatable if this is a realistic treatment of cyborg individuals, or just a handwave. Batou's cybernetic body is badly mangled in at least three episodes, too. There is also mention that completely cyborged individuals can opt to switch-off their artificial pain receptors, and cyberbrains can sometimes be seen outside the heads of their owners (for example the episode where an interpreter's brain gets hacked), and where they appear to be relatively self-contained.
• Magical Database - Although they can justify it somewhat, and it doesn't always work.
• Magnificent Bastard - Kuze. Aramaki would be one if he were a villain.
• Matrix Raining Code - Guess where the Matrix got its inspiration from!
• Memento Macguffin - The Major's watch and Batou's exercise weights, as discussed in "Barrage".
• Memetic Mutation - The Laughing Man.
• Ms Fanservice - the Major (Try to not let it distract you from her incoming fist.)
• Musical Spoiler - In the episode "TRIAL," the instrumental begining of I Can't be Cool is played over a speech by Togusa. I Can't be Cool is usually played when The Major is hacking. Later in the episode it's revealed that she hacked Togusa's brain to deliver that speech.
• Named After Somebody Famous - Section 9 is named after real-life German counter-terrorism unit GSG 9 (Border Guard, Unit 9).
• Neural Implanting - At one point, a character theorizes that another character is downloading fire-control-software for their gun in the middle of a shoot-out.
• Never Found The Body - Double Subverted. Section 9 takes extra care to leave fake corpses to be found and the Umibozu (not 'Ozubomu' you idiots) aren't fooled.
• Nightmare Fuel - The second series uses exploding heads symbolically, once in the first episode and once in the last. There are no censors. You May Panic Now.
• No Holds Barred Beatdown - The Major absolutely flips out on Gayle... considering that he blew off her arm, tried to crush her head in, and nearly killed her partner, who can blame her?
• Nuclear Weapons Taboo - averted - nuclear weapons feature quite prominently in 2nd GIG.
• Older Than They Look - First, there's Kurzekova, who's 80+ but looks mid-20. However, the Major's extensive backstory places her birthday in 1986, which probably isn't what the writers actually intended.
• Omake - "Tachikomatic Days"
• Ominous Latin Chanting - featured in the Mexican Standoff between the Major and Saito at the climax of "Poker Face." (I think it's a slower, deeper version of the more ethereal tune from the helicopter portions of "Nuclear Power.")
  • That's actually just the male chorus part of the song 'Torukia' (the dramatic action piece of 2nd GIG and arguably one of the most epic songs on the whole soundtrack) isolated from the backing track and the Gabriela Robin vocals.
• Positive Discrimination - The team are all specialists who are world-class in their field. Except for Motoko Kusanagi, the only female, who is usually better than anybody at everything.
• Powered Armour
• Ripped From The Headlines - The episode about kidnappings by the Northern Territories Mafia which is being denied by a prominent politician probably takes from the story of kidnappings by North Korea that were being denied by a prominent politician.
• Robo Cam - Batou's vision through his cybereyes. Also, the Tachikomas.
• Robot Buddy - The Tachikomas, cute and bubbly killer robots.
• Robot Girl - The Major and other female cyborgs and androids.
• Say My Name - "MOTOKOOOOOOO!" (The other Section 9 agents make fun of Batou for it.)
• Scope Snipe - The Major, against Saito... or did she? Unlike most of the examples of this trope, he survives.
• Serial Killer: Marco Amereti from "Jungle Cruise".
• Shaggy Dog Story: Night Cruise has no relation to the overall storyline, follows a one-shot character for 90% of the episode, and features the Major and Batou in what could easily be cameo appearances. It's by many considered a bad not-so-good episode. Your Milage May Vary.
• Shout Out
  • Internal: 1st and 2nd Gig feature many a shout-out to scenes from the original movie as well as the comic, while in 2nd Gig, the Major has the same haircut as her manga counterpart.
  • External: Several scenes episodes are Shout Outs to, of all people, J. D. Salinger, and the series references many western movies, including the Matrix, Blade Runner (twice), Taxi Driver, and Ocean's Eleven. Another episode is named for and mirrors many themes and events in Wim Wenders' film Wings Of Desire. A comprehensive list would be too long for this article to contain it.
  • Tachikomatic Days: Many, many shout outs to everything from Jo Jos Bizarre Adventure to Jin Roh.
• Show Some Leg: Not used often, which is surprising given the Major's Stripperiffic outfit (she prefers to hack her way past the guards). An exception occurs in London when the Major (dressed in a trenchcoat, but showing some cleavage) lures a police Special Weapons officer into an alley so she can knock him out and steal his uniform. In 2nd Gig, Aramaki brings the Major along to infiltrate a meeting of Corrupt Corporate Executive-types showing off their sexbots. The team are eager to see what the Major will be wearing, and she doesn't disappoint with her Sexy Back Absolute Cleavage dress.
• Skyward Scream: The end of "Barrage".
• Sliding Scale Of Robot Intelligence
• Spider Tank - The Tachikomas, all other tanks shown in the series.
• Spot The Imposter - A duel between two Pazus. It's never made clear, but close examination reveals that the real one won.
• Stripperiffic - The Major's clothes are too hot for espionage, and that's what she wears in civvies. (Some fans call it the Battle Teddy.) However, in more formal public functions, she wears a standard military uniform instead.
• Tear Jerker - The runaway tank, in one example of many.
• Translation Convention - The Tachikomas talking to each other. Lampshaded in one of the Tachikomatic Days Omakes.
• Try Not To Die
• Unusual User Interface - Most characters have the standard back-of-the-neck network jacks. Also, in the first episode a character is seen reading barcodes out of a book.
• Used Future
• Viewers Are Geniuses - Tons of deep philosophy and literary references tossed about. And they rarely repeat themselves. And they won't spell out many things (like the Bitten green apple at the end of season 2, which is supposed to show that Kuze was left-handed implying many things or the locked car door at the end of the first season, which has been interpreted as a cyber-brain hack, a bomb, and simply indicating that the guy's car was broken into) as they assume the audience memorized everything in the Complex episodes beforehand.
  • Even the casual terminology often requires you to have at least some background in philosophy to get. For example, at one point the 20th century cognitive philosophical concept of "Rhizomes" is mentioned in passing. Chances are, most viewers just heard that and assumed "Rhizome" meant "thing" and moved on.
• Voices Are Mental - The cyber-telepathic "voices" of the characters sound just like their speaking voices with an electronic reverb added.
• What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic - Batou struggles under the burden of a massive steel cross as he tries to save the Major at the end of 2nd Gig.
• Xanatos Roulette - The Chief's plan at the end of Season 1, definitely.
• Xanatos Gambit - Gohda's plan.
• Your Head A Splode - and does it ever. The animation crew seems to have a somewhat disturbing liking for these; there's a head asplode in some form or fashion in the first/last episodes of both anime seasons. Up to and including the Major herself.

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