Ghost In The Shell (Kokaku Kidotai, literally Mobile Armored Riot Police) is a futuristic police thriller dealing with the exploits of the cyborg Motoko Kusanagi, a member of a covert operations division of the Japanese National Public Safety Commission known as Section 9. The unit specializes in fighting technology-related crimes.

The Laughing Man is an expert hacker, able to hide his physical presence by editing himself out of video feeds and cybernetic eyes, concealing his identity by superimposing an animated logo over his face, and hijacking cybernetic brains altogether, all in real-time. The character's name is taken from the title of J. D. Salinger's short story, The Laughing Man. The Laughing Man logo is an animated image of a smiling figure wearing a cap, with circling text quoting a line from Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye, which reads: "I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes." The supposed Laughing Man's name is Aoi, confirming an earlier comment he made that he never was or referred to himself as such.?