Laughing Man (Ghost in the Shell)
The Laughing Man (or 笑い男 warai otoko) is a character in the anime series Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. He (or she) is an expert hacker who—in an age of cybernetics where people are directly wired into technology—can hack into other people, taking over their bodies or tricking their sensory input. The name is taken from the title of a short story by J. D. Salinger, The Laughing Man.
The Complex story arc of the anime show focuses on the Laughing Man case, and on a medical/governmental conspiracy tied in to the fate of the Laughing Man.
The hacker first appeared in the GITS: SAC storyline years earlier, assaulting the head of Serrano Genomics in public, hiding his face from eyewitnesses and cameras with his Laughing Man logo. The Laughing Man is such an expert that he can "hack the eyes" of entire crowds, in real time—hacking their visual cyber-brain implants, either to make himself appear invisible or hide his face with a cartoon logo. The logo is an animated image of a goofy smile wearing a cap, with circling text paraphrasing a line from Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye, which reads: "I'd thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes." However, the actual quote found by Togusa read: "I'd thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes, or should I?"
The Laughing Man has quite a fascination with The Catcher in the Rye, as if the work greatly influenced him: like that novel's main character, Holden Caulfield, he can't stand "phonies" (corrupt politicians in this case), and tries to act like the titular "catcher"; helping the weak who might be hurt by the phonies. He also kept a prized left-handed baseball catcher's mitt for a time. "The Laughing Man" has made it a point that he never came up with the name "The Laughing Man" for himself: it was a label that the media gave that eventually stuck.
The Laughing Man's kidnapping of the head of Serrano Genomics was actually a spontaneous act, and he did not strike again until some six years later. However, following the kidnapping there was for some time a large wave of "Laughing Man"-related graffiti attacks and corporate vandalism and extortion. It was later revealed that a corrupt power cabal in the Japanese government used the sudden appearance of the Laughing Man to their own advantage by carrying out acts of corporate sabotage, then heavily using the "Laughing Man" motif in order to fool the media into thinking it was the Laughing Man's doing, thus shifting suspicion from themselves and their illegal actions.
An unexpected element was that 39 people also were arrested in regards to the assasination attempt, all with no sign of detectable external influence by The Laughing Man. Yet, it was thought that many of the direct attackers were not influenced at all. Instead attempted the assasination to be a part of The Laughing Man's effort for the truth and told police that they were forced to do it through ghost hacking.
"The Laughing Man" became something of a pop culture obsession for a time, much to the chagrin of the actual Laughing Man. The irony being that since everybody uses his icon and name for their own purposes, the meaning (an artful forced confession of the truth through fear in the public eye) becomes "phony" itself. Also the effort to stand for and demand the truth, will be used to hide it forever.
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