One of the Tachikomas leaves the storage bay and heads out into Tokyo where it meets a young girl named Miki. Miki is searching for her lost dog and the Tachikoma agrees to help her find it. Eventually, they discover that the dog was dead all along and she was merely in denial about the fact but bond over their experience.
Along the way, the Tachikoma finds an abandoned cyberbrain that they bring back to Section Nine. This seems to be laden with some sort of trap but actually proves to simply contain a virtual movie theater where an incredibly well-done film is on display. Everyone who comes in can't help but stop to watch the whole thing.
Tropes in this episode include:
- Anchored Ship: Batou invites Kusanagi out for a movie, but she politely turns him down.
- Asians Eat Pets: Miki is searching for her dog Rocky. Tachikoma decides to help her search for her dog, and the two explore Niihama together. Miki gets hungry and wants to get a meat kabob from a vendor, but Tachikoma says she should probably reconsider after reading the sign that the vendor was cooking dog meat.
- Do Androids Dream?: "To be...or not to be..." shows on the Tachikoma's screens.
- Halfway Plot Switch: While searching for the girl's dog the Tachikoma finds and keeps a cyberbrain, which leads to the second half of the episode.
- Kid with the Leash: Played literally when Miki puts her dog lead on the Tachikoma.
- Mysterious Watcher: Implied to be Kusanagi in one of her avatars.
- Not So Stoic: Kusanagi sheds tears at the movie, though it's never revealed what she saw.
- Replacement Goldfish: Lampshaded by Miki.
- Rogue Drone: The Tachikoma takes off by itself, even though theoretically there should be no difference between itself and the others.
- Voice Changeling: The rogue Tachikoma imitates Aramaki's voice to make the police think he's a combat veteran whose brain has been uploaded into a decommissioned Spider Tank.
- Wise Beyond Their Years: Miki has already guessed that her pet dog has died, but as her parents have pretended that the dog just ran away, she's pretending to search for it.
