Togusa - Background - Ghost in The Shell: Stand Alone Complex

Ghost in The Shell: Stand Alone Complex

In Stand Alone Complex, several episodes involving an illegally used wiretap called an Interceptor refer to his background as a detective in the police force and his subsequent recruitment into Section 9. He is pretty much the only character other than Batou whose history is shown in the first season since the other members of Section 9 appear in certain episodes. Despite this background revelation, his first name has not yet been mentioned.

He is the least-augmented member of Section 9, although he can still fare well in melee combat against cyborgs. All he has is the implanted cyber-brain, just like Chief Aramaki. He is somewhat skeptical of the blurring of the lines between man and machine, but he also suffers the worst injuries due to being human. In the manga, he is injured and hospitalized after being caught near a bomb blast. In Stand Alone Complex, he's shot while doing an investigation and wonders aloud if he shouldn't be a full cyborg. When Aramaki is taken away for questioning, Togusa is arrested and detained for some time before being released; it is stated that Aramaki did this intentionally in order to keep Togusa out of immediate danger, due to his having a family and his earlier brush with death. He is later shown working at the security company that was his official cover while working for the government and is unaware of the fate of the other members for several months, effectively leaving him out of the loop because he was being monitored heavily; though such behavior from the rest of Section 9 is rather odd. Since they can hack into government records without being discovered, it is safe to presume that they would have no problem working around surveillance, and therefore should have been able to alert Togusa to the section's survival. Their failure to do so resulted in Togusa suffering a minor psychological break, attempting to assassinate one of the perpetrators in the Laughing Man case, which would have been detrimental to the protection given to him.

He expresses some disdain for the Tachikoma tanks, not to mention Batou's penchant for favoring one of the blue tanks. He dismissively refers to one of them as "just a machine", prompting outrage from the Tachikomas in the Section 9 hangar, with one calling him a bigot and another demanding a retraction of the statement. The contentious relationship continues in Second Gig, when Togusa and a Tachikoma go on a mission to abandoned Tokyo and the goofy little tank serves to mostly get under his skin (before saving it). But despite his dislike for the sentient machines, he is not above spending leisure time with them; he is seen playing Othello with one (although the Tachikoma thought they were playing 'Go' and attempts a critical stone capture, exclaiming "Checkmate", to which an exasperated Togusa replies "That's a completely different game!") near the end of an episode.