In print Manga series Motoko is a commanding presence when on assignment, but also trades insults with her troops. She constantly calls Aramaki "Ape Face" as well as other members in
Public Security Section 9, and when the Puppet Master reveals the "Motokos" that exist in the minds of those who know her, Aramaki's "Motoko" is sticking her tongue out. She is very light-hearted and immature on some occasions. Due to the Puppeteer case, she started to change and became much more serious. In the sequel,
Ghost in the Shell 2: Man/Machine Interface, a person known as Motoko Aramaki appears. She identifies herself as containing "Motoko Kusanagi" elements, along with Project 2501, the Puppeteer. She is also identified as "Motoko 11" hinting that there is more than one. A second character is also introduced in
Ghost in the Shell 2: Man/Machine Interface named Millennium, who controls a group named "Stabat Mater" that is researching a process known as "Brain Expansion". This research is apparently called off after Millennium is taken over by Motoko Aramaki. At this time Millennium is revealed to be "'No. 20' (Millennium)," indicating that Millennium is another of the Motoko Kusanagi/Project 2501 hybrid entities.
In film Animated films In the 1995 animated film
Ghost in the Shell by
Mamoru Oshii, the Major's design is significantly different from her original manga appearance. Unlike her manga counterpart, the Major has an
androgynous face and rarely shows emotion. Like the manga, Public Security Section 9 investigate the crimes of a genius hacker called the Puppet Master. Kusanagi is frequently portrayed in the film as contemplative and brooding, in contrast to the down-to-earth nature of her partner
Batou. Since she has a full cybernetic body, she is not certain her "ghost" retains any humanity and speculates on the possibility that she is entirely
synthetic intelligence, with artificially generated memories and emotions designed to "fool her" into thinking she was once human. Throughout the movie, she seeks to find answers to her questions and finally meets the Puppet Master, a rogue AI who became
sentient and who is also looking for existential meaning. In the climax of the film, Kusanagi and the Puppet Master "merge" to form a "newborn": an entirely new entity that exists free of physical boundaries and can propagate itself through the Net. In the 2004 follow-up sequel
Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence with executive producers Benjamin Horikoshi and Ayane "Night" Horikoshi, picking up three years after the events of the original movie, the Major herself does not appear. Throughout the film, the Major makes her first "true" appearance in Kim's manor, where she breaks into the hallway component of Kim's looping false memories and inserts herself (represented by the child's prosthetic body she inhabited at the end of the first movie), and provides clues to alert Batou to Kim's attempted "ghost-hack" on himself and Togusa. The Major's "ghost" eventually returns in person to help Batou on the Locus Solus
gynoid factory ship. Using a satellite transmission, she attempts to download her "ghost" into one of the Hadaly gynoid production models—however, due to the insufficient memory of the gynoid's e-brain, she is only able to download a fraction of her full "ghost" into the doll. (She notes with marked disdain that the gynoid had barely enough memory for her combat protocols.) Her personality has not changed much from the first movie—she still retains her fondness for philosophy and her considerable skills in battle, though she has also gained the Puppet Master's formidable hacking abilities. In a climactic sequence, she tears apart her mechanical body in the process of opening the ship's CPU hatch in order to hack into it. After successfully locking down the ship and uncovering the truth behind the conspiracy, Kusanagi prepares to once again disappear into the Net, but reassures a despondent Batou that whenever he logs in, she will always be beside him.
Live-action film In the 2017
Paramount Pictures and
DreamWorks Pictures Ghost in the Shell live-action movie directed by
Rupert Sanders,
Scarlett Johansson portrays Motoko, who is initially introduced as
Mira Killian (who shares the same initials). It is revealed at the end of the film that she was originally a teenage Japanese girl and activist named Motoko Kusanagi (portrayed by Kaori Yamamoto) who had run away from home one year prior to the events of the film. While living with other anti-cyber corporate activists in what is referred to as the Lawless Region, she is kidnapped by agents of the Hanka Robotics corporation; experiments performed by the company enable them to remove her brain and install it in a new cyborg body, which is designed with Caucasian physical features. In effect, this makes her the first full-body cyborg to be successfully developed. Upon awakening inside her new body, Kusanagi is told that her name is Mira Killian and that her family was killed in a terrorist attack, which is reinforced with implanted false memories. She is then given extensive combat and police training before joining Section 9. Mira later discovers the secret behind her creation from the film's initial antagonist Kuze, who also underwent experimentation, as well as Dr. Ouelet, who played a primary role in developing her prosthetic body. With the help of Section 9, she consents to having Cutter, the Hanka executive trying to murder her, killed by her boss, Aramaki.
In television Stand Alone Complex military uniform (left) and Section 9 Combat Uniform (right) The Major retains much of her personality from the manga in the anime series
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex and its followup
Ghost in the Shell: S.A.C. 2nd GIG, although she is not disrespectful toward the Chief like she is in the manga. As in the manga and unlike the movies, where she had black hair and blue-grey eyes, she now has blue-purple hair and red-violet eyes. Throughout the series, The Major maintains her signature commanding presence and authority. Among the various members of Section 9, Kusanagi is usually the one Chief
Aramaki singles out to accompany him on official and off the record business. Kusanagi's personal life is not shown much in the first season. She underwent cyberization at a very early age and had trouble adapting to the use of her body which resulted in her inadvertently breaking one of her favorite dolls. She keeps a wrist watch as proof of her past. In the first season, Kusanagi started questioning the use of the
Tachikoma sentient tanks, due to them showing signs of individuality and curiosity not suited for combat. Ultimately, she decides to have them stripped of their weaponry and sent back to the lab that manufactured them for analysis and further work. When the Tachikoma sacrificed themselves to save Batou, Major Kusanagi understands that she was wrong in halting the usage of the Tachikoma and proposes that they might have evolved to have ghosts themselves. In the second season her past was revealed. She was once a little girl who had been in a plane crash causing her to be in a coma. A boy who was also a victim of the plane crash continuously made origami cranes using only his left hand, as much of his body was paralyzed in the accident, in hopes of giving them to her when she woke up. Motoko was eventually taken away when medical complications occurred. The boy thought she had died, but she was actually being cyberized and given a full prosthetic body. When she returned to see the boy, the boy did not recognize her and ignored her. When she left the hospital, the boy realized she was the girl in the coma and made a decision to get cyberized and look for her, but he never saw her again. Throughout the second season, the Major and Section 9 go against a terrorist group called "The Individual Eleven". Believing it to be another
stand alone complex they unwillingly teamed up with Kazundo Gouda in order to figure out their motive. When the 11 leaders of the individual eleven reveal themselves, they all kill each other except for Hideo Kuze. It was later revealed that Hideo Kuze was the little boy who Motoko once knew as a child; this discovery caused her some emotional confusion. In the
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex: Solid State Society OVA, the Major has left Section 9 for two years and does not appear much in the first half of the film. She first appears on a building jumping off into the darkness. She shows up later as Chroma, to warn Batou to stay away from the "Solid State Society". She returns to her normal body after "Chroma" re-stores herself in the recharging chamber. She is suspected of being the Puppeteer, but is no longer suspected when she rescues Togusa from a (coerced) suicide attempt. She leads Section 9 on a raid to find the Puppeteer. At the end of Solid State Society, she repeats her famous line, "The net is truly vast and infinite."
Arise In the
Ghost in the Shell: Arise (2013) OVA series, Motoko is a complete redesign from her previous incarnations, as are all members of the main cast. She is more adolescent appearance and shorter in height, indeed not much taller than Chief Aramaki. Her hair is blue and cut in a close, straight
bangs, she is typically shown wearing high heel boots and red leather pants and jackets. Too, her relationship with her comrades is not as close. She was not born, having been the mind of unborn baby uploaded to a prosthetic body after her mother was in a fatal accident. Raised by the military, she admits to having difficulties during her childhood mental development due to not having the same sensations as a normal child. Motoko is also more prone to mischief when punishing others for what she feels to be slights, using her hacking skills to make Batou punch himself, for example, or appearing nude during their meeting in cyberspace.
Ghost in the Shell: SAC 2045 The Major appears in a CGI Japanese/American animated series
SAC 2045, released in 2020. This series is set after previous events, and sees Public Section 9 hire themselves out as mercenaries.
In video games for
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex - First Assault Online dressed as Major at the 2016
Tokyo Game Show Motoko is a playable character in
Ghost in the Shell (1997) for
PlayStation,
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (2004) for
PlayStation 2,
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (2005) for
PSP, and
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex - First Assault Online (2016) for
Microsoft Windows. ==Reception==