Heartwarming / Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex

• The episode where one of the Tachikomas helps a little girl find her lost dog. It didn't have to help her, but it did.
• The last scene of the first episode of season two, when the Tachikomas return. The look on Batou's face really said it all.
  • Earlier in the episode, in order to convince the Prime Minister to allow Section 9 to solve a hostage crisis, Aramaki offers himself up as the fall guy in case any of the hostages die. This shows the kind of faith he has in his team - he bets his own freedom that they will succeed. Which, of course, they do. They're Section 9.
• The episode Affection in season 2 may be the most touching bit of backstory ever conceived. Kind of makes you hope that the Boy and Motoko find each other.
  • They did.
• A nurse friend of the Major's tells her of someone stealing human hearts meant for transplant. The Major is so enraged that she pretends to be Yakuza, hunting him down to cut him up on the pretense of him competing with big criminal business, but in actuality because she is so upset at the crime.
• Just about anytime Batou's insanely obvious fixation (*coughcrushcough*) on the Major appears on all of its obvious glory. It seems to happen at least once per season. In Season 1, we have him wailing a suffering Big "NO!" when he thinks that the Major has been killed; and in Season 2, he runs into a warzone to prevent the Major from dying. Even nicer is that while talking to Kuze, the Major implies that she's not completely alone and that she in fact has someone to talk to. Cue Batou appearing. Their relationship, while subdued, is about the most normal we see in these two extremely not-normal individuals.
• When Aramaki is persuading the Prime Minister to allow Section 9 to deal with the takeover of the Chinese Embassy despite there not being enough time to legally reconstitute the organization, he doesn't hesitate to offer up himself as a scapegoat in the event that the operation fails. His confidence in his team is absolute.