Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (TV Series)

Kouan 9 ka, Futatabi/Stand Alone Complex (2003)

Steve Blum: Laughing Man

Quotes 

• Laughing Man : Welcome. You took longer than I expected.

  Major Motoko Kusanagi : Don't give me that. You didn't even send me an invitation.

  Laughing Man : "If you stay right where you are, then people will eventually come to you."

  Major Motoko Kusanagi : I believe it was Doisneau who said that?

  Laughing Man : Yes.

• Laughing Man : Who knew that copies could still be produced despite the absence of the original? If you had to give a name to this phenomenon, what would you label it?

  Major Motoko Kusanagi : It would be "Stand Alone Complex".

  Laughing Man : Yes, it's the Stand Alone Complex. From the start the very nature of our current social system has contained the mechanisms to trigger such an amazing occurrence. Personally however, I feel this marks the beginning of a new era of despair. What's your opinion?

  Major Motoko Kusanagi : I don't know, it's impossible for me to say. Although I have found one thing that is capable of restoring your individuality after all your information has been synchronized.

  Laughing Man : Oh, really? And what's that?

  Major Motoko Kusanagi : Everyday human curiosity.

• Laughing Man : I'll tell you. It was a simple piece of mail I stumbled across on the net that began the whole thing. What I'd found was a blackmail document that had probably been sent to Serano Genomics. It was armed with a thesis that was a comparative of the inadequacy of Serano micromachines versus the effectiveness of the Murai vaccine.

  Major Motoko Kusanagi : Then the original Laughing Man was the person who authored it?

  Laughing Man : You could put it like that, I suppose. "I am the machine that reveals the world to you as only I alone am able to see it."

  Major Motoko Kusanagi : Dziga Vertov. He was a Russian filmmaker, wasn't he?

  Laughing Man : Yes. I was kidding myself by thinking it was my personal mission to prove and circulate that information, vital data I alone had happened upon.

  Major Motoko Kusanagi : Failing spectacularly, the pure innocent mediator grew dejected at the base nature of the social system and he turned mute.