I happen to have the whole thing on Blu-ray, so I recorded the entire intro with Fraps.
Edit: I didn’t know much about editing or encoding 7 years ago when I recorded and uploaded this. I can definitely say this is not true full HD. It was the best quality on YouTube at the time of uploading, though.
Background/Credits to this show: It APPEARS FUNimation has rights to the series here on YouTube. I really hope you don’t decide to get this taken down… I’m not going to be uploading any more from this show that this video. I see it more as promoting it. The song is Rise, and it’s by Origa. Ghost in the Shell was made by the Japanese anime studio by the name of Production I.G. It was directed by Kenji Kamiyama. It was/is broadcasted by the Animax (アニマックス) network in Japan, and the Nippon Television Network Coorporation (日本テレビ放送網株式会社). As far as I know, Bandai Entertainment owns rights to it, possibly along with other companies? Starzmediavod seems to have rights to it here on YouTube, actually. I’m not sure.
“The Laughing Man Incident” started off with a kidnap of Ernest Serano, the CEO of Serano Genomics in 2024, followed by blackmails targeting manufacturers of micromachines and medical equipment.
It was just the first of a series of terrorist incidents aimed at corporations, and it’s been speculated that the number of corporations targeted was the highest in the post-war period.
Several conjectures circulated regarding the final purpose of the criminal: terrorism against cyber and prosthetics technology, a corporate conspiracy, or simply a blackmailing scheme for money.
But the reality was that nothing was identified concerning the incident: nothing about the criminal’s nationality, sex, age, or even whether there was an accomplice or objective.
The only clear fact was that the Laughing Man was a top-notch hacker.
One day, Police Investigator Yamaguchi, who was tracking the Laughing Man Incident, calls Togusa in Section 9.
Yamaguchi dies mysteriously immediately afterwards.
A few days later, the Laughing Man hijacks the broadcast of a police news conference to express regrets about the incident.
Section 9 is dispatched to investigate the intentions of the invisible hacker known as “Laughing Man,” who finally broke his silence.
John Jr's Blog 