The anime industry of Japan is enormous, with 200 new TV shows and two trillion yen in revenue each year. For seven years, soft-spoken yet strong-willed Hitomi Saito has climbed the ranks, and is set to direct a series for the first time. At the same moment, the difficult but undeniably brilliant director Chiharu Oji is set to make his big comeback after almost a decade. The hit series that made Oji famous is what inspired Saito to jump into the anime field, and her goal is to match, and even surpass, his success and relevance. Her chance has arrived. Their two programs are both scheduled to debut in the same prime-time Saturday slot, and after Saito challenges her rival on stage at an anime convention, the two production teams each set out to outdo one another, because there can only be one number-one!
When a ghost-infecting virus known as Fire-Starter begins spreading through the system resulting in the assassination of the Japanese Prime Minister, Major Motoko Kusanagi and her elite team of special operatives are called in to track down its source.
The story is set in 2027, one year after the end of the fourth non-nuclear war. New Port City is still reeling from the war's aftermath when it suffers a bombing caused by a self-propelled mine. Then, a military member implicated in arms-dealing bribes is gunned down. During the investigation, Public Security Section's Daisuke Aramaki encounters Motoko Kusanagi, the cyborg, wizard-level hacker assigned to the military's 501st Secret Unit. Batou, a man with the "eye that does not sleep," suspects that Kusanagi is the one behind the bombing. The Niihama Prefectural Police detective Togusa is pursuing his own dual cases of the shooting death and a prostitute's murder. Motoko herself is being watched by the 501st Secret Unit's head Kurutsu and cyborg agents.
In a world where dragons rule the skies, mankind still dreams of flight, of someday dominating the heavens in their stead. Even in times of war, the passionate young pilot Karl Schuniz continues to chase his dreams, taking up his wings of steel - the revolutionary new aircraft, the Blitz Vogel - to challenge the Kaiser Drache, the fastest dragon that can fly at supersonic speeds.
