Koukaku Kidoutai

In 2029, the boundary between human and machine has become increasingly difficult to define. Cybernetic bodies and networked brains are commonplace, but the same technology has created new forms of crime. Major Motoko Kusanagi, a full-body cyborg leading Public Security Section 9, is assigned to pursue the Puppet Master, an elusive hacker capable of manipulating memories and turning ordinary people into unwitting tools.

The investigation changes when a manufactured cybernetic body appears to contain a consciousness that identifies itself as the Puppet Master and claims to be a life born within the vast sea of information. As government interests converge around this strange entity, Motoko's pursuit becomes inseparable from the questions she has long carried about her own identity: how much of a person can be replaced before the self disappears, and what truly makes a life human?