Ghost in the Shell - Stand Alone Complex Quotes

Opening Screen: It is a time when, even if nets were to guide all consciousness that had been converted to photons and electrons toward coalescing, standalone individuals have not yet been converted into data to the extent that they can form unique components of a larger complex.

TV Show: Ghost in the Shell - Stand Alone Complex
Perp: [after being chased down by the Major] You people are cops?! Now I know there’s no hope for justice in the system!
Major: If you’ve got a problem with the world, change yourself. If that's a problem, close your eyes, shut your mouth, and live like a hermit. And if that’s a problem… [cocks gun and presses it against his head]

TV Show: Ghost in the Shell - Stand Alone Complex
Batou: Borma, I’m almost at your location!
Borma: Don’t run out into traffic, okay?
Batou: I'll look before crossing, Mom. [he runs into traffic and is almost hit by Pazu and Borma’s car]

TV Show: Ghost in the Shell - Stand Alone Complex
Batou: He’s got guts, burning out his own memories like that. He did it, even though he knew it might cause brain damage.

TV Show: Ghost in the Shell - Stand Alone Complex
Major: [To Togusa] If you’ve got time to be depressed, why not grace us with your special talents?

TV Show: Ghost in the Shell - Stand Alone Complex
Major: This next footage is of the Minister and a geisha going into the bathroom.
Aramaki: With a geisha?
Major: Apparently, he sometimes likes to swap bodies with geishas when he gets drunk.

TV Show: Ghost in the Shell - Stand Alone Complex
Aramaki: At section 9, we aim to please.

TV Show: Ghost in the Shell - Stand Alone Complex
Aramaki: Major!
Motoko: Almost there!
Aramaki: The military's itching to jump in. Watch your back!
Motoko: Thanks for the concern.

TV Show: Ghost in the Shell - Stand Alone Complex
Batou: But Major! What if the robot geishas demand a pay raise?
Togusa: Knock it off.

TV Show: Ghost in the Shell - Stand Alone Complex
Motoko: All personnel in position! Standing by!
Aramaki: Right. You're on.
Motoko: Go!

TV Show: Ghost in the Shell - Stand Alone Complex
Major: Togusa, meet up with the Chief at Kenbishi. Find out what caused the tank to go haywire. Batou and I will herd the runaway tank with the six Tachikomas.
Batou: Gee, you get all the action…
Togusa: Don’t come crying to me if that tank blows you to hell.

TV Show: Ghost in the Shell - Stand Alone Complex
Tachikoma: [upon seeing the larger tank] Wow.
Major: Don’t get so googly-eyed that you wander into its field of fire! Let’s go!

TV Show: Ghost in the Shell - Stand Alone Complex
[while following behind the large tank inside the Tachikomas]
Batou: I know we don’t stand a chance against it, but being totally ignored like this ticks me off.
Major: Care to head around in front of it, then?
Batou: I’m kidding.

TV Show: Ghost in the Shell - Stand Alone Complex
Tachikoma 1: He’s so lucky! He broke down!
Tachikoma 2: Maybe they’ll do a structural analysis on him!

TV Show: Ghost in the Shell - Stand Alone Complex
Kago: When my body dies, I’ll be free of my religion.

TV Show: Ghost in the Shell - Stand Alone Complex
Batou: Son of a bitch. He hated his parents that much?
Major: No. It was just for a split second, but I felt something when I burned out Kago’s brain. “Well, Mom? What do you think of me in my steel body?” It was a strange sensation. It wasn’t pride… Or vengeance.
Batou: Forget about it. It was just a hallucination.
Major: I hope so. There’s no way we’ll ever know for sure now.

TV Show: Ghost in the Shell - Stand Alone Complex
Batou: Hey, we don't even know its capabilities and we're going in with Tachikomas.
Motoko: [chuckles] Don't be too quick to underestimate them.
Tachikoma 1: That's right!
Tachikoma 2: You tell 'em, Major!
Tachikoma 3: Bring it on!

TV Show: Ghost in the Shell - Stand Alone Complex
Batou: You get all the fun jobs, don't ya?
Togusa: Don't come crying to me if you get blown away.

TV Show: Ghost in the Shell - Stand Alone Complex
Tachikoma 1: Harima Research Academy is the place where our neurochips were made.
Tachikoma 2: A triumphant return to our birthplace.
Tachikoma 3: The Major gets mad when we chatter.

TV Show: Ghost in the Shell - Stand Alone Complex
SWAT Officer 1: First time I've seen them work.
SWAT Officer 2: I didn't think Section 9 really existed.

TV Show: Ghost in the Shell - Stand Alone Complex
Batou: You ok?
Destroyed Tachikoma: I'm fine!
Motoko: Wait there for assistance.
Destroyed Tachikoma: Sure thing...since I can't move.

TV Show: Ghost in the Shell - Stand Alone Complex
Tachikoma 1: Wow, it sure is damp. Our optical camouflage visibility index is definitely going to shoot up.
Tachikoma 2: Our gaskets won't corrode, will they?
Boma: Quit your whining. Just be thankful you don't have a sense of smell.
Tachikoma 1: Is there an unpleasant odor? We can analyze it with our sensors.
Tachikoma 2: Bouma's discomfort index is at 68%.
Boma: Ah, shut up.

TV Show: Ghost in the Shell - Stand Alone Complex
Kanazuki: What do you think?
Major: I have to admit, for a movie it wasn't bad- but diversionary entertainment is transitory, it just comes and goes at the viewers whim. It's the way it should be, but a film with no beginning or end that hooks an audience and won't let go of them is harmful no matter how wonderful you may have believed it was.
Kanazuki: Ohh, you're a tough critic. Are you saying that we members of the audience have a reality to which we should return?
Major: Yes I am.
Kanazuki: For some who sit and watch the film, misery will be waiting for them the instant they go back to reality. You're willing to accept responsibility for depriving these people of their dreams?
Major: No, I'm not. But dreams are meaningful when you work toward them in the real world. If you merely live within the dreams of other people it's no different from being dead.
Kanazuki: You're a realist.
Major: If a romantic escapes from reality, then yes.
Kanazuki: A strong girl you are. If the reality you believe in ever comes about, you give me a call. When it happens, that's the time we'll leave this theatre.

TV Show: Ghost in the Shell - Stand Alone Complex
Tachikoma 1: I've got a better idea of the internal design, but it looks like this thing's not equipped with any autonomous functions to output its condition to the outside.
Tachikoma 2: You mean it can't even talk? It's a sub-Turing machine!

TV Show: Ghost in the Shell - Stand Alone Complex
[The Tachikomas circle behind the Operator]
Operator: Huh?
Tachikoma 1: Keep up the good work.
Tachikoma 2: It's nice to see a robot enthusiastic about her duties.
Operator: Ah, what are you up to? I'm responsible for this prototype until the debriefing is over. Don't you Tachikomas even come near it.
Tachikoma 3: We won't do anything.
Operator: Please stop wasting my time with your blatant lies.
Tachikoma 2: You're right. I only tell lies. I never, ever say anything that's true.
Operator: Eh?
Tachikoma 1: A curious dilemma. Because if what it said is true, that means it wasn't lying. And if what it said is false, that would mean that it does tell the truth. How do you resolve this perplexing contradicton?
Operator: Uh. Um, well.
All Three Tachikomas: Well, come on, don't you know, figure it out.
[The Operator malfunctions. Tachikoma 1 takes the prototype, and all the Tachikomas leave the Operator behind.]
Tachikoma 1: Folks who can't handle a self-reference paradox are real suckers.

TV Show: Ghost in the Shell - Stand Alone Complex
Motoko: We'll hack a refugees' brain. Kuze's cyberbrain seems to be accessible to them at any given time. We won't require any back up until we get close to his ghost line.
Ishikawa: Understood.

TV Show: Ghost in the Shell - Stand Alone Complex
Tachikoma: So, will we be sent back to lab too?
Batou: Wha...? Who's been telling you that?
Tachikoma: Well, it's just that the way the Major's been looking at us lately is kinda scary.
Batou: Oh, is that all? The major's always scary, remember? I think you guys are doing a fine job.
Tachikoma: You really think so?
Batou: What, you're still worried about that?
Tachikoma: Yeah... It just seems like the Major is angry about what we've acquired recently.
Batou: "Acquired"? Acquired what?
Tachikoma: Well, it's ... Individuality.
Batou: Individuality?
Tachikoma: Yeah! And you know that "existence of God" thing that I had trouble understanding before? I think I am starting to understand it now. Maybe, just maybe, it's a concept that's similar to a zero in mathematics. In other words, it's a symbol that denies the absence of meaning, the meaning that's necessitated by the delineation of one system from another. In analog, that's God. In digital, it's zero. what do you think? Also, our basic construction is digital, right? So for the time being, no matter how much data we accumulate, we'll never have a Ghost. But analog-based people like you, Batou-san, no matter how many digital components you add through cyberization or prosthetics, your Ghost will never be damaged. Plus, you can even die 'cause you've got a Ghost. You're so lucky. Tell me, what's it feel like to have a Ghost?
Batou: How's it feel...? No, I take back what I said earlier. You're pretty messed up, all right.

TV Show: Ghost in the Shell - Stand Alone Complex
Pavlo Zaitsev: Now I understand it, it was the same as back then, I'm the one with the blind spot, in my heart.

TV Show: Ghost in the Shell - Stand Alone Complex
Tsujisaki: It's been a long time, Aramaki.
Aramaki: It can't be! What's the meaning of this?
Tsujisaki: At first I had no intention of doing anything, I only wanted to tell me the truth. A truth I thought posterity should know. The thing I needed to tell me, was that I overwrote my memories into my cyberbrain. I never suspected the potential danger of it. That it would turn me into an assassin.
Aramaki: What have you hidden in there? What's in your data library?
Tsujisaki: The truth about Okinawa. I only wanted to hand it down to future generations, but when I learned this truth, I discovered the truth behind mom's death. All I wanted after that was revenge. It was a miscalculation on my part. I had no intention of carrying out an assassination, but I am unable to stop the thirst for revenge that festers in my heart.

TV Show: Ghost in the Shell - Stand Alone Complex
The Laughing Man: A basic rule of thumb about hackers is that we live to peek at things that others have hidden, it's our nature. But, the depth of darkness in the hotbed of corruption that I had tried to challenge defeated me, and all I could do was become a deaf-mute, and avert my eyes from it all. Just as you've done these past six years. The Laughing Man, hmm, that was a catchy name they came up with. And here I've been thinking that if I was unsuccessful in persuading you, I'd simply follow Holden's quote and disappear. They went with the Salinger angle, too, good grief.

TV Show: Ghost in the Shell - Stand Alone Complex