Mythology Gag / Ghost in the Shell: Arise

• Motoko diving off a skyscraper in Ghost Stands Alone and the final scene of The New Movie and engaging her thermoptic camouflage, just like the iconic scene from the 1995 movie and also 2nd Gig's first and last episodes.
• Batou's former post as a JGSDF Ranger prior to joining Section 9. Same with Togusa's detective position with the Niihama Prefecture Police Force.
  • Played with and averted with Paz. While he's still good with a knife, it's shown that he's a JGSDF MP officer instead of someone who has shady underworld connections in the SACverse.
• Batou using his prosthetic teeth ^note Doing it with the normal teeth will only lead to a broken tooth, as the pins on the Real Life hand grenades are set much tighter and require much more force to pull than commonly shown in media. to pull the pin off a flashbang to stun a Unit 501 cyborg. This was done in the SAC series where Batou does the same thing with a frag grenade against New World Brigade terrorists.
  • The climactic fight scene of the first OVA once again involves Motoko facing off against a larger and more heavily armored opponent that tears off one of her arms before trying to crush her head with a three digit machine hand. This time, though, Motoko wins single-handedly by counter-hacking her opponent.
• Togusa in Ghost Pain mentioning that his gun is not going to be efficient enough to take out all the mobile landmines, which mirrors a conversation with Batou in SAC.
• His colleagues comment on his trademark rare and archaic Mateba 6 Unica autorevolver in the fourth OVA, which is kind of obligatory for each installment in the franchise.
  • Near the end of Ghost Whispers, Motoko insults Saito for joining Batou for the money by calling him a "mercenary," which was Saito's backstory in SAC.
  • Motoko has to use Saito's ghost infiltration key to force him to avoid killing a perp with a headshot. Motoko does the same thing to Togusa in the manga so he doesn't kill one of the garbage men.
• Ishikawa insults Motoko by calling her a gorilla. All throughout the franchise, but most notably in SAC, Ishikawa calls Motoko "Queen Kong" and "Major She-Ape" in "Not Equal" and "Poker Face", respectively. He calls her a gorilla more than any other installment here.
  • Motoko's going for a midwinter swim (from Batou's boat, to boot) in the end of Ghost Stands Alone is a send-up to the first scene of the original GITS movie. This time though, Motoko refuses, as it's mid-winter, and correctly suspects Batou of wanting to see her in a swimsuit.
• In Ghost Tears, Pazu mentions that he never sleeps with the same woman twice, something he mentions back in SAC 2nd GIG.
• In the fourth OVA, Motoko once again finds herself straining to open the hatch of a think-tank with her bare hands. Bonus points since the rest of the team use sticky gel to try to immobilize the tank as well.
• The virtual swimsuit that Motoko's avatar is wearing while she's net diving in Ghost Whispers is the same style as the swimsuit Motoko Aramaki is wearing at the start of the Man-Machine Interface manga.
• Batou's penchant for joking about the Major's love life results in her hacking his hand to make him punch himself out. Twice. This is a carryover from the original manga.
• In the episode Pyrophoric Cult, Part 1, Section 9 uses vans that are from "Seishinkouki Company". This was the same van type they used in the SAC series.
  • Togusa, in the same episode, begins to wear a trenchcoat after he begins his duties for Section 9. He previously wore it in the Solid State Society animated movie.
• In Pyrophoric Cult, Part 2, the suspect was strapped onto the wall just like how the Puppet Master was strapped in the first GITS movie.
• The New Movie has lots of references to Stand Alone Complex:
  • The film starts off with 11 terrorists taking hostages at a foreign embassy, just like the first episode of 2nd GIG.
  • The Major comes under heavy suspicion for her role in the terrorist attack just like in Solid State Society.
  • A Logicoma asks why they don't just upload a dead person's brain into a prosthetic body, and is told that death just doesn't work that way, just like a Tachikoma does in SAC.
  • The Major forcibly disbands Section 9 after the assault on the spy ship, just like in the first season finale of SAC and she chooses to go solo like in Solid State Society and the Human-Error Processor manga.
  • The fake Motoko Kusanagi gets targeted and headshot by a sniper round just like in the second-to-last episode of SAC season 1. Only difference is her head doesn't explode.
  • When Batou rescues Motoko from a near fatal assault, he puts her into one of her old bodies. Said body has the exact same artistic design and facial features of the body he puts her into at the end of the original movie.
  • In 2nd Gig, Motoko enters a minor Heroic BSoD after touching Kuze's conciousness. Batou forces her to focus by giving her a sandwich, and she complains about the quality of the food. Late in this movie, Togusa suggested sharing some food with her as a nice gesture after she fails an assault. She begrudgingly opens a sandwich wrapper and starts eating it.
  • The Big Bad turns out to be a Forgotten Childhood Friend of Motoko's whom she befriended when they were both children at a medical facility learning how to use their cyborg bodies, exactly like Hideo Kuze in 2nd GIG.
  • Kurutsu elects to ascend into the Internet and leave the physical world very similar to Hideo Kuze at the end of 2nd GIG and the Puppet Master/Project 2501 from the first film.
  • When the children ask Motoko for help, her response is almost word for word the exact same response she gave to a bunch of kids the squad rescues at the end of the first chapter of the manga. The only real difference between the two is that Motoko is an uncaring bitch in the manga, and the movie adds an extra line that goes in context with the whole film.
  • The entire ending of the movie recreates the most iconic scene from the entire franchise, right from the original movie, the original manga, and the ending from 2nd Gig: dozens of heavily armed police move into a skyscraper to arrest a corrupt politician, who informs Aramaki that he is defecting and has left a letter to that extent. The Major then snarkily remarks "Is that so?" and shoots him in the face three times from outside the window. The cops rush to see what happened, and we get her iconic shot of her falling while cloaking. A scene during the credits then shows Section 9 watching sakura leaves fall before Aramaki calls them to get back to work, and they ride back to the city on their Logicomas.
  • The after-credits scene is a remake of the 2nd chapter of the manga.