Anime / Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045

"In the year 2045, the world has entered a systematic “Sustainable War.” Hired as a mercenary unit, the former members of Japan’s elite Section 9 are faced with the sudden appearance of “Post-Human,” a being with tremendous intelligence and physical capabilities."

— Official Trailer synopsis

In the year 2045, after an economic disaster known as the Simultaneous Global Default which destroyed the value of all forms of paper and electronic currency, the "Big 4" nations of the world are engaged in a state of never-ending "Sustainable War" to keep the economy going.

Full-body cyborg Major Motoko Kusanagi and her second-in-command Batou are former members of Public Security Section 9, who are now hired mercenaries traveling the hot devastated American west coast. This land is full of opportunity for the major and her team, they utilize their enhanced cyberbrains and combat skills from their time working in Section 9. However, things get complicated with the emergence of “post humans,” who have extreme intelligence and physical powers. The members of Section 9 come back together again in order to face this new threat.

Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045 is the 4th proper installment in the Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex franchise, following the first two anime seasons and the Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex - Solid State Society movie. The series is a joint directorial collaboration between Kenji Kamiyama (who has headed the Stand Alone Complex project since its conception) and Shinji Aramaki (director of the modern Appleseed anime adaptations) and uses Shinji's signature 3D animation art style, courtesy of Production I.G and SOLA Digital Works. Ilya Kuvshinov provides the character designs. The soundtrack is provided by Nobuko Toda (Metal Gear Solid from Snake Eater on) and Kazuma Jinnouchi (Halo 4 and Halo 5: Guardians).

The initial announcement trailer was released on October 22nd of 2019, showing Major Motoko Kusanagi driving through the quiet abandoned streets of Hollywood with a Tachikoma in tow, and taking a moment to reflect upon the silence. The Official Trailer was released on January 27th, 2020, and the Final Trailer on March 20th, 2020. The English dub of the Final Trailer reveals the main Stand Alone Complex actors are reprising their roles.

The series launched on April 23rd, 2020, exclusively on Netflix. The show has two seasons with the second season being released on May 23, 2022. The season 2 trailer is found here.

A Compilation Movie of the first season was also released on November 26, 2021, and of the second on November 23, 2023.

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Tropes shown in the preview trailers include:

• Ambiguous Ending: Did the Major pull Takashi's plug and undo all his work or did she allow him to succeed in creating the "perfect world" he envisioned?
• Art-Shifted Sequel: While a part of the Stand Alone Complex continuity, this sequel series sees it go from hand-drawn animation, with some minor CGI work for vehicles, to all CGI.
• Augmented Reality: Most forms of visual prosthetic enhancements in 2045 allow people to see additional information on what they're looking at. In the first episode, Motoko looks at an apple to see the advertised price of $25 on it. Brenda Rucker, a local trying to sell rations to Batou and trying to save up enough money for a proper cyberbrain, is constantly being flooded with spamware in her own visual feed, making her have to physically swipe them away in front of her face.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: The post-humans are able to dodge bullets by calculating in real-time exactly where the bullets will go before the shooters can even pull the trigger. By the time they do, the post-humans have already dodged.
• Balkanize Me: In the wake of the Simultaneous Global Default, this has happened to most of the world.
  • Ironically, this has been inverted by the United States, which was already balkanized into three factions prior to the default. Now, it appears that the American Empire has actually reunited the United States under its aegis, as shown by a world map seen in the third episode, and hinted at in all others.
• Bank Robbery: A standalone episode has Batou accidentally walk into a bank being robbed by some of its own employees, who have had their savings wiped out by the Simultaneous Global Default and then had what was left embezzled by the local branch manager. He ultimately decides to help them, and engineers a cryptocurrency short sale scam to get them their money back and expose the manager, then tells the police the robbers escaped.
• Batman Gambit: The Major fights Sanji Yaguchi, a former boxer, using boxing moves she's downloaded, even though there's no way she could win against him one-on-one. She's counting on some part of him recognizing her moves and reciprocating, which allows Batou to catch him off-guard.
• Bland-Name Product: In her first scene, the Major is seen drinking a bottle of "Dudweiser" beer.
• Blood Knight: Batou's thoughts on the subject of the Sustainable War is that if people want to die, then he volunteers to help them along with that. He later comments that he's not doing mercenary work for the money, but to put his skills to use doing what he enjoys.
• Call-Back:
  • When Batou and Togusa head to a remote location out in the woods, they're own net connections weaken from the lack of infrastructure. Batou mentions that the Geofront in Etorofu has better connection these days.
  • Season 2 reveals that Purin's family was murdered by Marco Amoretti, the soldier turned serial killer who Section 9 dealt with in the original Stand Alone Complex. The flashback even shows Batou in his old character design comforting the young Purin.
• Cliffhanger: Season 1 ends with Batou calling out on Togusa who suddenly disappears after investigating Takashi's past and being invited onto a truck by Takashi, which only he can see. The compilation movie shows Batou receiving a phone call from Togusa, who turns out to be alive but gives him a vague question, "Do we need to be alive for a world to be this beautiful?", which confuses him.
• Combat Precognition: Posthumans can calculate the trajectories of incoming bullets before they're even fired.
• Cool Car: Upon arriving in Los Angeles, Togusa ends up getting a suped-up Chevrolet Camaro for a rental car. He thinks it's a bit too much, especially when it's not what he asked for.
• Conservation of Ninjutsu: The guard dog robots, when Section 9 faces just one of them it's nearly impossible to hit and single-handedly spoils their stealth approach. But just a couple episodes later when they face dozens of them at once they get gunned down by the handful.
• Conspicuous Consumption: While overlooking a geofront being constructed in Shin-Tokyo, Ishikawa and Batou can't help but question on when the Japanese government will start showing off their money by spending it on something other than massive construction projects.
• Continuity Nod:
  • A portrait of previous Japanese prime minister Kabayuki◊ can be seen in episode 1, next to her successor, Chris Otomo.
  • The Major and Saito briefly went to work in North America as mercenaries after Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex - Solid State Society. This time, Batou and Ishikawa join them.
• Crossover: Mobile Zombie Apocalypse game Life After teamed up with Kodansha to feature the 2045 cast as playable characters in the game.
• Could Say It, But...: In "NET PEOPLE", Purin wants to help out with the investigation only for the Major to point out she's not in Section 9, so they can't give her any orders. Purin is disappointed until the rest of the team point out the Major is actually saying she's free to do whatever she wants, including carry out her own investigation.
• Darkest Hour: Episode 23. Chief Aramaki survived the car bombing thanks to a tachikoma, but Purin pulls a Face–Heel Turn and sides with Takeshi. Borma, Pazu, Ishikawa, Saito, and Batou are killed. Takeshi Shimamura is shown being shot by the Major, which prompts the N citizens to launch a nuke. All the while, American Empire bombers are dispersing a "Smart Gas" biological weapon that will wipe out millions of people in the Tokyo region. All seems lost.
• Divergent Character Evolution: The Tachikomas that the team took with them when they left Section 9 are given different colors, differentiated by the paint schemes they had when they were sent away at the end of the first season. Two of them are the default blue color, but one is construction yellow with black markings. They also seem to have different performance abilities, such as features for added mobility or a heavier arsenal, and their pods are smaller since they're expected to be carrying cyborgs rather than humans. Once Section 9 is reformed, they join up with four of the original model blue Tachikomas.
• Dirty Cop: Togusa sees Takeshi's old memories in Kyoto in "NOSTALGIA" where local police officers help government operatives execute a man in a ditch.
• Do Wrong, Right: In his standalone episode, Batou ends up helping some bank employees rob their own bank because he sympathizes with their motives while also bemoaning their lack of competence.
• Driving Question: Who or what is responsible for the emergence of posthumans? This is answered in season 2. An AI known as 1A84 was created by the American Empire for the purpose of using the Sustainable War that they started to financially benefit them, but it Grew Beyond Their Programming, initiated the Simultaneous Global Default to help balance out the distribution of wealth, and created the posthuman meme to transplant into individuals with the well intention of advancing human society.
• Dwindling Party: Episode 23 starts picking off the members of Section 9 one by one until they're all dead. Motoko is the last to die, as a result of the Smart Gas the American Empire unleashed.
• Everything Is 3D-Printed in the Future:
  • The first version of the opening sequence shows the Major's prosthetic body getting printed.
  • In the penultimate episode, one of the Posthumans hacks a food printer on an American submarine to make herself a Remote Body for hijacking the sub and its' nukes.
• Evil States of America: The American Empire started the Sustainable War. They created an AI named 1A84 and programmed it to find ways to ensure that war would financially benefit only them. When the AI created the Simultaneous Global Default and the posthumans to disrupt their plans, they sent Agent Smith to Japan to interfere with Section 9's investigations.
• Fake Memories:
  • The Major leaves their American recruit with false memories of their time together as she wants to cut ties with him, but leaves a password-protected copy of his real memories in his payment file just in case she feels the need to bring him back.
  • Togusa uses a pair of bugging devices to make some goons think they killed him and dumped his body in the harbor. Batou congratulates him for a move worthy of the Major herself.
• Full-Frontal Assault: Patrick Huge fights the team in nothing but his bathrobe, which he then throws at Batou to distract him, then somersaults upstairs and into a clothes closet where he's hiding a Mini-Mecha.
  Batou: Is he done freeballing it?!
• Gainax Ending: Episode 23 ends with Section 9 all dying, episode 24 opens with the Major waking from a simulation in Section 9 headquarters with her teammates all still alive and nothing since the fight with Huge having happened, except she figures out it's a simulation and starts to go through it again before escaping to an amphitheater filled with stasis pods. There she meets Purin who tries to explain the Doublethink simulations Shimamura put them in and that the rest are alive. Then she meets Shimamura as he's finishing up putting the whole world in Doublethink and he gives her the opportunity to stop him. She has her hand on his network cables, and then it cuts to Section 9 welcoming Standard and Purin to the team, apparently not remembering them.
• Gang of Hats: The first two episodes features a group of Nomads who used to be college athletes. They had wracked up a lot of student loan debt, but while the Global Default wiped it out, it also destroyed any prospective futures they could have pursued. To drive the point home that they're athletes, they still wear their football and baseball uniforms, wear college jock jackets, and wear anti-reflective grease under their eyes.
• Grand Theft Me: The Tachikomas comment on what it feels like to lose direct control of themselves when Purin coordinates an attack on a Post-human in "CLOSE CALL / I've Awoken".
  Tachikoma: Is this what being hacked feels like? This feels weird!
• He Knows Too Much:
  • This is John Smith's intent the moment he hires GHOST for the NSA mission. Only a call to the U.S. President by Aramaki saves them from being scrubbed from existence along with the rest of the mission.
  • Takashi Shimamura witnessed police murder a suspected informant. Being an outsider to the area, they weren't willing to just coerce him into silence. His life is saved by a Crazy Survivalist, but unfortunately his cousin is killed by a stray bullet.
  • Purin Esaki had to enter into the Witness Protection Program. Marco Amoretti murdered her entire family during the events of "JUNGLE CRUISE".
• Hipster: When Togusa ends up calling Batou's mobile phone from a pay phone, the Tachikomas' immediate reaction is to scoff and call him a retro-hipster for using such antiquated technology.
• I Want Them Alive!: The NSA wants the post-humans captured alive because they need an undamaged subject to research how the process works and how they might counter their abilities. The first one they caught was shot in the head and couldn't provide any useful data.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: Another benefit of the post-humans' incredible calculation abilities is that they have virtually perfect aim, since they not only know the exact trajectory of the bullet, but can also predict the movement of the target they're firing at.
• Inside Job: In "PIE IN THE SKY", Batou gets caught up in a bank robbery by some desperate old folks who are just trying to get by. The robbers were working with the security guard to set up the operation.
• Internet Counterattack: Takashi developed a program called Think Pol (he named it after the Thought Police in Nineteen Eighty-Four) that targets people said to have evaded justice in some respect and asks users to vote on their guilt. All those that vote guilty have their votes converted into a DDoS attack that overwhelms the cyberbrain firewall of the target and causes them to see vision of eyeless copies of the voters assaulting them. Enough guilty votes can outright kill a person. He wrote it to punish a pedophile teacher who raped a student Takeshi had a crush on, but after his brain was fried many of the voters commented that they would probably would have fried his victim too if she hadn't committed suicide before the program was available.
• Jurisdiction Friction: Public Security Section 3 tries to get in the way of Section 9 potentially being raised again. This was after the Major informed Togusa to keep an eye out on who's trying to put bugs on the PM's residence.
• Justified Criminal: The bank robbers in episode 7 are a group of elderly men (and one woman who took sympathy who act out of desperation because the Sustainable War has made their lives miserable. Thanks to Batou's intervention, all of them are able to convert their accounts into a more favorable currency and successfully rob the bank when Batou learned that the bank itself wasn't valuing them as customers.
• Just Plane Wrong: As part of the effort to convince John Smith to not kill the Major and her team, Aramaki borrows the US President's personal fighter jet, which has the callsign of Marine One. The naming convention of a presidential vehicle being named X One only applies when the President is personally on board - since Aramaki is the only person in the plane, that convention would not apply.
• Logical Weakness: The post-humans aren't entirely invulnerable.
  • They have superhuman reflexes that allow them to dodge bullets with ease, but this only works so long as they have an idea as to where the bullets are coming from. Gary caught a (non-fatal) bullet in the head when the soldiers started blind-firing into the room to catch him with a ricochet, since he kept gunning them down every time they left cover. Similarly, when Patrick Huge gets into a Mini-Mecha to fight GHOST, Saito is able to shoot the mech several times, eventually disabling it, because it's simply too cumbersome for Huge to dodge attacks the way he could outside of it.
  • They still have to breathe, and they do require some sleep, where-in they're unable to function at all. That means they're susceptible to sedatives and knockout gas.
• Lotus-Eater Machine: In the final episode, Major finds herself inside a Cognitive Maze. There's too many inconsistencies and she's able to break free.
• Marionette Motion: The post-humans dodge bullets in this fashion when there's not too many of them, barely even breaking stride or bothering to look as they use the minimum of movement necessary to not get hit.
• Married to the Job: Togusa's dedication to this work has resulted in a divorce from his wife.
• Ms. Fanservice: Subverted. The non-canon opening recreates the famous "Making of a Cyborg" scene from the original film in its own way, showing Motoko being created from skeletal frame to muscles, then skin and hair. In the series proper, she isn't presented in any obviously intentional fanservice scenes and stays conservatively dressed.
• murder.com: In "NET PEOPLE: Reasons Leading to Flameout", a computer program called Think Pol locks onto people who have generated the most hate response on the internet, then pols a random number of people as to whether they should be forgiven for their crimes. If the answer is "no", the response of those who voted no is converted into a simultaneous hack that can overwhelm any cyberbrain. A businessman who direct-hacked a female employee against her will gets three million negative responses, while the Prime Minister being accused of taking bribes gets a mere two thousand (which Section 9 is easily able to fight off). A student who discovers the program (not the person who developed it) develops an app enabling others to watch these attacks in real time.
• Mythology Gag:
  • The opening credits show Motoko's body being constructed from scratch, just like the opening of the original 1996 anime.
  • In the first episode, the Major initiates a Brain Dive with Batou, Ishikawa, Saito, and Standard in order to brief them on the mission. The brain dive is depicted as an enclosed space just like the brain dives from the original manga and from Ghost in the Shell: Arise.
  • Chief Aramaki has a brief meeting with a woman named Ada on a rooftop, before she flies away in a Russian Hind helicopter. This was inspired by a similar scene in the original manga in which Aramaki speaks with a female Russian agent before she flies away in a helicopter.
  • The first season has the concern raised by Section 9 that they'll be treated as government-type contractors to the American Empire. A similar story is found in the Ghost in the Shell (2017) live action film, where Section 9 is still a government agency, but the Hanka Electronics corporation has enough influence to hire them out as private contractors.
  • Season 2's opening credits replicates the iconic scene of Motoko diving off the roof of a building, as has been replicated in every iteration of the franchise from the first animated movie to the live action film.
  • Season 2 features the first official introduction of the Megatech Body Construction corporation to the Stand Alone Complex continuity. They're a major supplier of prosthetic bodies in the original manga.
  • 2045 chooses to portray characters currently using thermoptic camouflage as seen through the visual sensors of the members of Section 9 as a white outline of the character with an arrow overhead along with their name. This is actually how players could see their teammates behind barriers and while using thermoptic camo in Ghost in the Shell: First Assault Online.
  • When Aramaki and Tate discuss the situation of the Posthumans with the area known as N, the former wonders why they (N) didn't publicly declare independence from Japan. This is partially the same plot idea from the 2004 PS2 Ghost in the Shell game.
  • The dialogue of the final scene of the final episode plays out almost verbatim with how Ghost in the Shell (1995) ends. The Major decides to leave again, heading off into the vast expanses of the net. Whenever her and Batou may meet again is unknown, so they set up a passcode to identify themselves.
    • At the same time, the Major uses the black trenchcoat she's seen in Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex.
• Never Trust a Trailer: The Season 2 trailer reveals that Purin is a posthuman. In the series, she's suspected as one until she's killed off by the Prime Minister's bodyguards after saving his life which shows she's indeed human. Then, the Major resurrects her as cybernetic clone who has Purin's memories making, as Takashi puts it, an A.I who has no ghost. Though this Purin did side with Takashi and the posthumans in the end.
• Nothing Is Scarier: The Posthumans. No one knows what their motives are, but they caused the current Global Default, and one tried to launch a nuclear missile from American to Russia. No one knows how they are created, only that they all fell ill to a fever at the same time, and woke up altered, very rarely with any indication that they the people they were before. Motoko took a look inside the cyberbrain of one, and was immediately repulsed and disgusted by what was inside. They have displayed skills and abilities far beyond that of a normal human, with the cybernetically augmented Section 9 barely able to go toe-to-toe with them. And they seem either incapable or unwilling to communicate, with the first speech uttered by a Posthuman character taking place at the climax of Episode 9.
• Noodle Incident: What happened after Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex - Solid State Society that led to Section 9 being disbanded before 2045?
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: In Episode 5, Motoko tries to dive into the cyberbrain of Patrick Huge, only to encounter something utterly alien to previous depictions of cyberbrains due to him being a Posthuman, and felt it infecting her Ghost to do something unknown to it. She immediately ordered Saito to destroy Huge's brain before it could continue what it was doing, and was shaken afterwards. It takes a lot to make THE MAJOR feel genuine fear.
• Private Military Contractors: Motoko, Batou, Saito & Ishikawa had all left Public Security Section 9 by the time the series begins, and are now mercenaries for hire. They also have an arsenal of Tachikomas at their disposal. However, circumstances lead to them rejoining the newly reorganized Section 9.
• Psychic Nosebleed: In "CLOSE CALL / I've Awoken", the prolonged stand-off between Purin and the post-human Suzuka Mizukane results in both of them getting a nosebleed from trying to counter-hack the other. Purin is even woozy after she narrowly manages to avert a plane from crashing into her location.
• Putting the Band Back Together: After Aramaki received orders from the Prime Minister to re-establish Section 9, he requests Togusa to find the rest of the members.
• Retcon: In regards to certain aspects of the worldbuilding. Stand Alone Complex head writer Dai Sato thoroughly researched the original source manga and it's shared connection to Appleseed to firmly establish a Divided States of America where the Cold War came to a peaceful resolution with 1/3rd of the United States splitting off to become the Russo-American Alliance (including California where 2045 takes place), and then the US itself would lose the Second American Civil War, where another 1/3rd would split off into the American Empire that served as the Greater-Scope Villain of SAC. This largely left the United States themselves as a nation that no longer played a major aspect on the world stage, but Prime Minister Kayabuki's declaration in the last episode of 2nd Gig confirmed that both were independent nations from the American Empire. Because Dai Sato was not brought back to pen the encompassing script for 2045 (he was brought in for episode 9), these details have been mostly thrown out, and it's all but implied that the American Empire has always been the United States with all 50 of its states. The dialogue is written so that "AE" and "US" are used interchangeably.
• Ridiculous Future Inflation: By the year 2042, the Sustainable War being carried out by the four major global powers has destabilized almost all forms of paper and virtual currency across the planet. The first episode shows Major buying an organic apple for $25, and Batou calls out a shopkeeper for selling him 3 rations for a combined $1000, but can't disagree with her efforts to hustle to make a living. When Togusa shows up later, she tries to sell him one for $1500, then adds $300 on top of that when he change his mind after investigating her. Turns out that some of the posthumans were responsible for it. Japan, meanwhile, has replaced the yen with the yen-dollar, and the exchange rate for people trying to withdraw from old bank accounts is not favorable.
• Robot Maid: The team battles Patrick Huge's robot maids in episode 5.
• Rock Beats Laser: A Post-Human named Sanji Yaguchi goes around committing murders in public, and is able to get away with it because he can digitally remove all evidence from surveillance devices and peoples cyberbrains, not unlike the Laughing Man incident. Section 9 is able to catch onto his trail because a freelance photographer used a shutter camera and physical film to catch him in the act.
• Second American Civil War: Imperial Americana is engaged in AI-driven "sustainable war" along with the other world powers for the purpose of propping up the military-industrial complex that is now the only functional sector of the economy. However there are fears that the existing conflicts could spiral into a full-blown civil war, with the NSA suspecting the emergent "posthumans" as behind it.
• Sex Bot: In the pilot the Major sees some gynoid street hookers who only activate when she looks in their direction. In a later episode, Togusa is bemused to find the Tachikomas using those same sexbots to raise money for repairs.
• Shoot the Bullet:
  • When a drone fires two missiles at its intended target in episode 2, Motoko shoots them out of the air with her handgun. (It is done more realistically than usual, because she is right on the drone and shoots them from behind before they accelerate fully.)
  • In season 2's "CLOSE CALL / I've Awoken", Paz is able to shoot a rocket-propelled grenade off course from a firing point of about 20 feet away.
• Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: An interview with Kamiyama from NIKKEI reveals that Kamiyama's philosophy behind the entire season is to try to remain hopeful that technology can continue to progress humanity in the right direction even though it has partially helped lead us to a globalized planet filled with stagnant consumerism and social and economic inequalities.
• Shout-Out:
  • The title "SAC_2045" is a reference to Ray Kurzweil's The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology, where-in the prediction is made that The Singularity will occur in 2045.
  • The NSA agent who first appears at the end of episode 2 and recruits the Major and company to carry out an operation on the agency's behalf is revealed in the following episode to be named John Smith and bears a rather uncanny resemblance◊ to a certain other agent named Smith.
  • The opening sequence is very similar to that of Westworld, making it a recursive shout-out (see Mythology Gag).
  • Takashi quotes Nineteen Eighty-Four multiple times and is even referenced as "Big Brother", and "sustainable war" bears a certain resemblance to Oceania's foreign policy. The references only increase in season 2 when we see his plans for "N", which has a MinLove with Thought Police that take people to Room 101, and himself as Big Brother.
  • During the second half of season 2, a naked Purin has little other option but to wear a plugsuit, which the driver of the van that she's commandeered states was a cosplay that he had hoped a future girlfriend might end up wearing.
• Shown Their Work: The election of Tate as prime minister is correct. The Japanese Constitution does not have specific provision as of 2020 that does not allow a Japanese national who is naturalized to be elected into office as the PM.
• The Singularity: Takeshi Shimamura's plan was to ultimately link all of humanity into what he calls a "Double Think" state— Their physical bodies will live in peace and advance society without conflict, while inside their own cyberbrains they are experiencing the world the way that they want to perceive it. Major has to admit that the Posthumans essentially won, but is curious why she wasn't affected by the Double Think. Takeshi explains that the Major doesn't differentiate dreams from reality so what she lives is how she perceives reality anyway. He ultimately gives her the option of choosing whether humanity should evolve to this next level and continue in this state, or return to normal.
• Spider Tank:
  • In traditional Ghost in the Shell fashion, the Tachikomas still walk on four legs, but have a retractable 5th wheel attached to their back pod for added mobility and speed.
  • Episode 2 features an APC with spider legs built into it that can unfold them to walk through obstacles.
• Squee:
  • The blue Tachikoma is absolutely overjoyed when he finds Togusa.
  • Purin often gets overexcited about working with the legendary Section 9, particularly Batou.
• Super-Powered Robot Meter Maid: Taken to truly absurd extent in Season 2, where a 3D printer designed to print food on board a nuclear submarine can somehow be hacked to print out a fully functional combat android capable of taking out the entire crew by itself.
• Taking You with Me: In order to ensure that the Posthuman's plan is carried through, a failsafe is put in place. Suzuka Mizukane took over an American Empire nuclear submarine. Both her and Takeshi Shimamura will launch an SLBM at Japan if either of them is killed. If both of them die, the sub will launch anyway. Their goal is for the refugee state of N to declare independence from Japan, and will only ensure peace if nobody interferes.
• Thoughtcrime: Literal "Thought Police" are in charge of taking in refugees who they suspect might be "anti-N", and take them to Room 101 for reprogramming.
• Transhuman: In the context of this world full of cyborgs, at least. The "post-humans", as the NSA has dubbed them, have through unknown means been given cyberbrains with computing capacity far beyond the human mind or artificial systems. This makes them unbeatable hackers and allows them to process every facet of their surroundings at lightning speed.
• Transhuman Treachery: The process which transforms people into post-humans also seems to radically alter their personality, making them colder, more violent, and single-mindedly devoted to a goal. Gary, for example, murdered his wife not long after changing then set off to start a nuclear war.
• We Will Have Euthanasia in the Future: Ep 7. "PIE IN THE SKY" features an elderly woman who's hoping to take out her life savings to afford to go to Switzerland, where assisted suicide is legal. She wanted to end her life after her husband passed away, making her feel like she didn't have much left to live for. Thanks to Batou's influence, she has a change of mind and decides to travel to Honolulu instead.
• Wham Episode:
  • Episode 22 ends with Chief Aramaki getting inside a car to meet with the Prime Minister, only for the car to explode a moment later.
  • Episode 23: Chief Aramaki turned out to be alive thanks to an invisible Tachikoma, but Purin has pulled a Face–Heel Turn that results in Borma, Paz, Ishikawa, Saito, and Batou being killed. Takeshi Shimamura is shown being gunned down, which allows all 3 million citizens of N to unanimously press the launch button embedded on their palms. The submarine launches a nuke while American Empire bombers release a "Smart" gas specifically designed to instantly kill everyone in the greater Tokyo region.
• What's Up, King Dude?: With the exception of Da Chief, Section 9 don't show much deference to the young leader of Japan, both speaking to him in an overly-casual manner and infiltrating his office in thermoptic camouflage, causing the PM to wirily comment that he'd better upgrade his security.
• Your Head A-Splode:
  • The Major has Saito shoot Patrick Huge in the head when she tries to dive into his brain and finds herself vastly outmatched. Since he's using an anti-material rifle, Huge's head is reduced to salsa.
  • Sanji Yaguchi uses a cybernetic arm to go around punching the heads off people, which literally explode from the force of the blows. He was able to do that even with his organic arm, but only once.
• Your Mind Makes It Real:
  • The Think Pol app that Takashi Shimamura developed works by allowing its users to focus on a single hated target and punish them, if not outright kill them through mob justice by a Direct Denial of Service attack on the target's cyberbrain. The victims show signs of physical assault. Anyone who is watching a particular target can interact with the digital avatars causing the attack, which allows Section 9 to use seemingly supernatural powers and acquired kung fu martial art skills against an attack on Prime Minister Chris Tate Otomo.
  • On his custom "N" network, Takashi is able to make it appear as if he has telekinetic powers, flinging objects at foes also connected to the network. Though the projectiles aren't real, people still register pain if they connect, though certainly not to the extent they would if they were actually being hit by steel I beams or giant sheets of metal.

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