Prologue

Prologue is the first chapter of the original Ghost in the Shell manga written and drawn by Masamune Shirow, sitting just ahead of the second installment, Super Spartan. At this stage of the story the Major's team is still operating off the books rather than as a sanctioned bureau. The plot centers on a meeting that pairs a Far East trade representative with Mr. Ito, who holds an assistant-secretary post at the Department of Commerce and whose name is linked to the killing of a former prime minister.

Aramaki personally directs the raid that breaks up that meeting, a set piece later adaptations would return to again and again. The chapter establishes the covert, semi-official footing of the unit before the wider franchise reworked it into the fully authorized Section 9 seen elsewhere.

The 1995 feature film reuses this chapter for its opening while reshaping the particulars. There the squad already exists as an established bureau, the sit-down instead pairs a diplomat from an unnamed nation with Mizuho Daita, the lead programmer behind Project 2501, and Nakamura of Section 6 heads the raid rather than Aramaki. The debut episode of Stand Alone Complex: 2nd GIG, Reactivation, nods to the same material by way of that film, showing the Major cut down an Individual Eleven terrorist, leap from a building, and slip away under thermo-optic camouflage.

The closing episode of 2nd GIG, Return to Patriotism, draws on both this chapter and Super Spartan. Ito's failed attempt to defect and his interception by Public Security are mirrored by Gouda, who tries to switch allegiance to the American Empire before Section 9 assassinates him, with the talk between Gouda and the American diplomats carried over word for word from the manga. The finale of Ghost in the Shell: The New Movie likewise honors the first two chapters, giving the Far East trade representative and Ito a smaller role while restaging certain shots from the 1995 film almost exactly.