Ghost in a Shell: Stand Alone Complex

You mean the one where they're in an internet chat room? The one where Motoko disguises herself as another hawt chick and like...asks about the guy who hacked into the conference and finds the image of the 'laughing man' at the end?

Yeah I saw that part, pretty interesting part actually, and it FINALLY goes a little bit deeper into the Stand Alone Complex idea. And I'm currently finished with episode 16, and it's still basically the same format. Each episode is a 'stand alone episode' with no real relation to any of the others, except for the Laughing Man thing.

I hear 2nd gig is a heck of a lot better, but we'll see. I thought the episode with Batou and the spy was pretty sad. And I'm still having trouble with this idea of the Stand Alone Complex. There HAS To be an original laughing man, or at least someone who developed the concept of it, or even the image of the laughing man. And I still don't understand why there's that rotating phrase in the Laughing Man image that says "I wish I'd thought I was a deaf-mute" or something like that.

Okay...so finished 1st gig, working on the 2nd one. Still don't understand how there can be in, "in the absence of the original, spawns of clones are made that would eventually attempt to imitate that original".

That's like saying you can create something out of nothing...you can't!! Unless somehow everyone's cyberbrain is exactly the same, and contains random bytes of information that group up together to form the idea of 'The Laughing Man' in everyone's head without having a relation to each of the individuals who claim to be the Laughing Man, or claim to be inspired by the Laughing man.

But all in all a good anime...not great, but good enough to make me want to watch the 2nd gig.

I personally don't like how they throw in 'stand alone' episodes, I wish every episode had the same underlying plot theme in there.