Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex - Season 1

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 of 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.